MRS. MARY ASHLY TOWNSEND.

HE genius, gracefulness, and spirit which characterized certain contributions published in the "New Orleans Delta," over the nom de plume of "Xariffa," sixteen or seventeen years ago, when that journal was conducted by Judge Alexander Walker, excited much interest and curiosity at the time in literary circles, as to the identity of the no less modest than gifted writer.

An eager inquiry at last discovered that "Xariffa" was a young lady just passing the threshold of womanhood; and that though connected by ties of kindred with many of the oldest and best families in Louisiana, and thoroughly imbued with the taste, sentiments, and ideas of Southern society, she was by birth and education a Northerner. A native of New York, Mrs. Townsend was of the ancient and honorable stock of the Van Wickles, of New Jersey, and the Van Voorhises, of Duchess County, New York. Her mother, the daughter of Judge J. C. Van Wickle, of Spotswood, New Jersey, is a lady of fine mind herself, and distinguished for her elegance of manner and generous hospitality. She is still living at Lyons, New York, the birthplace of "Xariffa." In the very bloom of her literary fame and promise, Miss Van Voorhis formed a matrimonial alliance with Mr. Gideon Townsend, an energetic and intelligent gentleman, who, though of an active and business character and much absorbed in the struggles of commercial life, always manifested a warm sympathy with and high appreciation of the literary tastes and pursuits of his talented wife.

The happy and congenial couple now live in New Orleans, surrounded by a most interesting family, including a bright little daughter, who is already an authoress at the age of thirteen, and gives promise of unusual brilliancy and vigor of intellect. Since her first appearance in the "Delta," Mrs. Townsend, or rather "Xariffa," as she prefers to be known in her literary relations, has been a regular contributor to many of the leading journals and magazines of the day, and a successful essayist in some of our ablest Reviews. In the "Delta," the "Crossbone Papers," which were widely copied and commended; "Quillotypes," a series of short essays, which were attributed,

• "Under the Stones," by Cora Townsend. Published in New York, 1867.

on account of their vigor and power, to the pen of one of the opposite sex, excited special attention and admiration. "My Penny Dip," a humorous tale or sketch, was published throughout the country and ascribed to various authors, and, returning at last to New Orleans, reappeared in the "True Delta" as "My Penny Dip, by Henry Rip," a fit name for so bold an appropriator of the product of another's genius.

In 1859, Derby & Jackson, New York, published "The Brother Clerks, a Tale of New Orleans, by," which was Mrs. Townsend's first book. It was moderately successful.

In 1870, J. B. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia, published "Xariffa's Poems" a collection of one hundred poems. The volume is tenderly inscribed "To my Mother." It was favorably reviewed by many pleased critics. One writer, comparing "Creed" with the poet laureate's "Maud," states:

"Mrs. Townsend is by no means passionless; but her passion is not obtrusive, and, therefore, it never offends the most fastidious taste. She has, what is better and higher than passion- what is a well-spring of truer poetry- an infinite fountain of purely human tenderness and sympathy. She has, too, that divine melancholy that sweet suggestive sadness, which Poe declares to be the soul of poetry. As to style, she especially excels in richness and variety of coloring."

"Xariffa's" poems, while they are emotional, never degenerate into mere sentimentality. In the volume we have that tenderness, grace, and sweetness, the soft, clear, sunny charm, and the inborn and inwoven harmony, which are latent to the poetic constitution of Mary Ashly Townsend.

We cannot, however, in the narrow compass of this sketch, enumerate the many productions of Mrs. Townsend's pen. Besides prose sketches, she ranks high as a poetess. Her poems evince originality, imagination, taste, and power of harmonious versification. Some specimens of these, which accompany this sketch, will give an idea of her poetic gifts and powers. We confess, however, to a preference for her prose writings. In pleasant sketches of character and scenery, in quiet humor and gentle satire, her smooth, even style and euphonious yet vigorous sentences never fail to enlist interest, to hold the attention of the reader, and to leave a most agreeable impression of the sound sense and pure heart of the accomplished writer. It is much to be regretted that family cares and duties should deprive the public,

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and especially her immediate circle of friends and admirers, of the more frequent enjoyment which her pleasant contributions to our periodical literature must always afford to those who can appreciate and admire genius, wit, high mental and moral culture, and good taste, so happily blended with all the social and domestic virtues, as they are in the subject of this sketch.

1870.

EBB AND FLOW.

I.

The morn is on the march-her banner flies
In blue and golden glory o'er the skies;
The songs of wakening birds are on the breeze,
The stir of fragrant zephyrs in the trees;
Waves leap full-freighted to the sunny shore,
Their scrolls of snow and azure written g'er
With hope, and joy, and youth, and pleasures new,
While surges fast the sands with jewels strew-
The tide is in.

II.

The stars shine down upon a lonely shore;
The crested billows sparkle there no more;
Poor bits of wreck and tangled sea-weed lie
With empty shells beneath the silent sky.
Along the shore are perished friendships spread,
In Hope's exhausted arms lies Pleasure dead;
A life lies stranded on the wreck-strewn beach,
The ebbing waves beyond its feeble reach-
The tide is out.

CREED.

I.

I believe, if I should die,

And you should kiss my eyelids when I lie
Cold, dead, and dumb to all the world contains,
The folded orbs would open at thy breath,
And from its exile in the Isles of Death

Life would come gladly back along my veins.

II.

I believe, if I were dead,

And you upon my lifeless heart should tread,

Not knowing what the poor clod chanced to be, It would find sudden pulse beneath the touch Of him it ever loved in life so much,

And throb again warm, tender, true to thee.

III.

I believe, if on my grave,

Hidden in woody deeps or by the wave,

Your eyes should drop some warm tears of regret, From every salty seed of your dear grief

Some fair, sweet blossom would leap into leaf
To prove death could not make my love forget.

IV.

I believe, if I should fade

Into those mystic realms where iight is made,

And you should long once more my face to see, I would come forth upon the hills of night, And gather stars like fagots, till thy sight, Led by their beacon blaze, fell full on me!

I believe my faith in thee,

Strong as my life, so nobly placed to be,

I would as soon expect to see the sun
Fall like a dead king from his height sublime,
His glory stricken from the throne of Time,
As thee unworth the worship thou hast won.

VL.

I believe who has not loved

Hath half the treasure of his life unproved;

Like one who, with the grape within his grasp, Drops it, with all its crimson juice unpressed, And all its luscious sweetness left unguessed, Out from his careless and unheeding clasp.

I believe love, pure and true,

Is to the soul a sweet, immortal dew

That gems life's petals in its hours of dusk:

The waiting angels see and recognize

The rich Crown-Jewel, Love, of Paradise,

When life falls from us like a withered husk.

MRS. FLORENCE J. WILLARD

S the authoress of a novel published in London in 1862, and in 1869 republished with the imprint of A. Eyrich, New Orleans-entitled "The Heroism of the Confederacy; or, Truth and Justice," by Miss Florence J. O'Connor, which was the maiden name of Mrs. Willard.

She is a native of Louisiana, and, before the war, contributed to the "Mirror," a paper edited by Mr. Mark F. Bigney, now editor of the "New Orleans Times." She has contributed lengthy poems to the New Orleans "Sunday Times," signed with her initials, ("F. J. W.") In 1869, she published a volume of poems in Canada. She was in Paris during the late siege.

A Northern paper thus reviews "her" novel:

"The picture she draws of Louisiana society before the war is gorgeous in the extreme. All day long 'in halls of polished marble, with beautifully carved doors, which an inhabitant of the Orient might envy,' women, robed in point-lace and diamonds, and more beautiful than an angel's dream, and men of a distingué-ness altogether beyond words, discuss, in language which the benighted Northern mind finds it difficult to comprehend, politics, love, and war, the excellence of slavery, the crimes and insolence and treachery of the black-hearted Yankee, the long-suffering patience and magnanimity of the down-trodden South. Around them, respectfully admiring and drinking deep draughts of political wisdom from their sparkling converse, stand eager representatives of the titled aristocracy of Europe, glad to be recognized as their social peers. among whom a real French count and an undoubted English, earl are conspicuous by their flashing coronets and their chivalric disregard of grammar. In deference to these distinguished — we beg Miss O'Connor's pardon, distingué - foreigners, much of the conversation is conducted in French of singular impurity and incorrectness; in fact, it appears to be of that variety known in New Orleans as bumboat Frenchwhereupon the Gallic nobleman shows he can be as resplendently ungrammatical in his own sweet tongue as in the ruder speech of perfidious Albion.