Nevada County picayune., 1890-09-18
THE MISSISSIPPI AND OTHER SONGS; By GEORGE P. SNooTE. Authors Edition. - BUFFALO: Charles Wells Muuton, 1890.
- Little Rock Republican.

Little Rock Republican. This is the volume long looked for. and recently received and mentioned III these columns, with the promise of a full literary review; but upon glancing over it's bright and gifted pages-both neat in print and hril- iant in thought--we find that to do it justice, and give the reader anything like q comprehensive view and intelli- gent outline of the true merits of it's contents, would require more space than our meager columns and large type afford, and hence can bestow but passing and cursory mention, with snatch here and there of it's rich and devoted style, with at pres ent perhaps one full poem as brief sample of the beauty of the whole.
 We have long known George P. Smoote as a jurist, statesman, and poet, and one of the truest and most unpretending sort of men that live, possessing far more worth of head and heart and all the redeeminC at tributes of manhood than the passing world and casual observer would ev- CT dream of; but never until recent ly have we known that his poetic thoughts were to be printed in book "a boon to the public for which we now specially thank his faithful and devoted wife, who urged him to the work, and in manner superintcnded and looked after it hersclf-she too possessing fine liter ary taste and judgment. which ena- bled her to see and appreciate the genius and literary gifts of her huS- band.
 And aptly and properly has he dedicated this little volume to the devoted wife-Julia Goode Smoote the dedication itself comprising two full pages otrhyme, most unique and touching in styI aad sentiment, a sample or two from which we give. Speaking of tue book, he says to her:
 The cri,ic ma up, md il worth hi, praise.
 Nor doe, it seek to riyal those grand lays
 Whose noble music Nation. loy" ID hear,
 lct lou, and l. with trembling hope and fear,
 It's page open to thc eye and ear
 Ofcyrry one, who has the wish Co knew.
 The sentiment. and thought. il, verse, show
 And again, in loving confidence and manly and becoming apprecia- ton of his wite, in both head and heart he says directly to her:
 isut we are no, prepared to judge of this;
 Nou would at once decide il with kiss,
 Asserting that the verdict should bc mine,
 And that my songs are more than half divine;
 And |, m loving vanity, would own,
 That better judge than ou, wa, never known.
 But Smopte does not possess a Parli,l2 ot vanity uor does it require any iu <. .irle h,.band To discover a5d appreciate ,ha tonj parlialty of the devoted wife.
 And again, from thi, admirable dedication, we give this one more thought and sentiment:
 on! not for th, star, in glory's skies,
 Would exchange the light which filled your
 eyes,
 While thus we >a; conycr,ing many times.
 With earnest, hopeful words, about my rhymes.
 All, we think, as originally admir- able as it is devotedly beautiful and becoming.
 The first and principal poem in the volume is entitled Songs of the Mississippi" the Prelude to which opens with this poetic and rom antic yet perfectly natural thought;
 We all love rivers Ben the little rills That gurglc down the valleys round our homes, Live ever in our memories and hearts
 And at all times we feel joyou, swell
 Within our souls, and coursing all our veins. When any flowing river mcct' the eye. And then the author approaches and salutcs the great Mississippi in these grand words:
 'ris thus love all streams but unto thee, oh mighty Mississippi, goes my heart, More than all other rivers of the earth This and An old Arkansas home, are the grandest poems in the book in style and thought bordering on the Pastoral and the Epic, and as weird, and poetic, and romantic as any of the hewitching productions oi Joaquin Miller-the Literary Wizard of the Wild West-and much more interwoven with home-sympathies and common sense,
 The Ola Arkansas Home is located on a stream well known to us. and which the author thus describes:
 The Bodcau bayou wind. along,
 Through wide pine woods forever green;
 II utter. but sluggish song,
 When summer flowers its margin screen,