Simms delivered The Sense of the Beautiful, his final public oration, on May 3, 1870, a little over a month before his death.[1]  The occasion was the first Floral Fair held by the Charleston County Agricultural and Horticultural Society, a group that would merge in August with the older and recently revived Agricultural Society of South Carolina.  In his speech, Simms stressed the importance of natural beauty, a harmonious home life, and female leadership.  He praised the spiritual value of the natural world and claimed that a stable domestic sphere was a precondition for the progress ...

                Biographical Sketch from the Life of M.C.M. Hammond is a brief memorial pamphlet commemorating the life and service of Marcus Claudius Marcellus Hammond, the middle brother of the Hammond family with whom Simms was so closely connected.  Collected on the occasion of Hammond’s 23 January 1876 death, this volume consists of three distinct parts.  The first two of these parts are biographical sketches of Hammond, one by Simms, and one by Brigadier General Benjamin Alvord, who served with Hammond in the Mexican-American War. The third section of the work is a brief memorial ...