Page:The Southern Literary Messenger - Minor.djvu/230

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206
The Southern

There is much discussion about "The Ancient Ballad of the Nut Brown Maid" and its authorship. Hugh Blair Grigsby reviews fully and finely (in the Richmond Enquirer, whence the notice is transferred) Campbell's new and enlarged "History of Virginia." "The Races of Men" is by Henry A. Washington, Professor of History and Constitutional Law in William and Mary. He has been spoken of. Procrustes, Jr., presents "Great Men a Misfortune;" and some one treats of Descartes and his method. We have also "a Dish of Epics" and other side dishes which will have to stand aside. But the life-like statue of the great orator and commoner of the West, Henry Clay, is unveiled, with becoming ceremonies; and B. Johnson Barbour delivers an eloquent oration. His mother, the widow of Gov. James Barbour, was the originator of the movement which led to the possession of the statue, and president of the association formed for the purpose of raising the necessary funds. Mr. Barbour and Mr. Thompson were warm admirers and strong adherents of Mr. Clay and once, when he lost the nomination for the presidency of the United States, they both wrote him letters of deep regret and Mr. Thompson sent him one of his poems.

The way in which Mr. Joel T. Hart, the self-made sculptor of Kentucky, came to be engaged