Paul Hamilton Hayne was born in Charleston, South Carolina, January 1,
1830. At that time Charleston was the literary center of the South. Among
its wealthy and aristocratic circles there, was a literary group of
unusual gifts. Calhoun and Legare were there; and William Gilmore Simms,
a man of great versatility, gathered about him a congenial literary
circle, in which we find Hayne and his scarcely less distinguished
friend, Henry Timrod.

Hayne was graduated with distinction from Charleston College in 1850,
receiving a prize for superiority in English composition and elocution.
He then studied law; but, like many other authors both North and South,
the love of letters proved too strong for the practice of his profession.
His literary bent, as with most of our gifted authors, manifested itself
early, and even in his college days he became a devotee of the poetic
muse. The ardor of his devotion found expression in one of his early
poems, first called _Aspirations_, but in his later works appearing
under the title of _The Will and the Wing_:--

"Yet would I rather in the outward state
Of Song's immortal temple lay me down,
A beggar basking by that radiant gate,
Than bend beneath the haughtiest empire's crown.

"For sometimes, through the bars, my ravished eyes
Have caught brief glimpses of a life divine,
And seen a far, mysterious rapture rise
Beyond the veil that guards the inmost shrine."

Hayne served his literary apprenticeship in connection with several