Edmund Flagg, traveler, journalist, and poet, was born at Wiscasset, Maine, November 24, 1815. Immediately upon his graduation from Bowdoin College, in 1835, he removed to Louisville, Kentucky, and became a teacher. His letters written to the Louisville Journal while traveling in the states of the Middle West, were afterwards collected, revised, and published anonymously, entitled The Far West, or a Tour beyond the Mountains (New York, 1838, two vols.). This work has been edited by Dr. Reuben Gold Thwaites and published as volumes 26 and 27 of Early Western Travels (Cleveland, 1906). In 1839 Flagg became associate editor of the Louisville Literary News-Letter, of which George D. Prentice was editor. All of his poems of merit were published in the Journal, and News-Letter. Flagg contributed both prose and verse to the Louisville papers for nearly thirty-five years. Ill-health compelled him to abandon journalism for law, and at Vicksburg, Mississippi, he formed a partnership with the celebrated Sargent Smith Prentiss. Two years later he became editor of the Gazette at Marietta, Ohio. Flagg's first two novels were issued about this time, entitled Carrero (New York, 1842), and Francois of Valois (New York, 1842). He was next editor of a publication at St. Louis; and in 1849 he was secretary of the American legation at Berlin. In 1850-1851 he was United States consul at Venice. He afterwards returned to St. Louis and to journalism. Two of his plays, Blanche of Artois, and The Howard Queen, were well received at Louisville, Cincinnati, and several other cities. In 1853 Flagg's Venice, the City of the Sea, appeared, and it won him a wide reputation. North Italy since 1849, issued some years later, resumed the story of Venice where his first work had left off, and brought it down to date. Flagg was afterwards connected with the State department in Washington, and under an order from Congress he prepared his famous Report on the Commercial Relations of the United States with all Foreign Nations (Washington, 1856-1857, four vols.). His final work was a novel, De Molai, the Last of the Military Templars (1888). Edmund Flagg died at Salem, Virginia, in 1890. He is most certainly a Kentucky poet, journalist, and traveler, but his fame as a dramatist, historian, and novelist belongs wholly to other states.

Bibliography. Literature of the Louisiana Territory, by A. N. DeMenil (St. Louis, 1904); Adams's Dictionary of American Authors (Boston, 1905).

THE ANCIENT MOUNDS OF THE WEST

[From The Louisville Literary News-Letter]

Ages since—long ere the first son of the Old World had pressed the fresh soil of the New—long before the bright region beyond the blue waves had become the object of the philosopher's reverie by day, and the enthusiast's vision by night—in the deep stillness and solitude of an unpeopled land, these vast mausoleums rose as they now rise, in lonely grandeur from the plain and looked down even as now they look, upon the giant floods rolling their dark waters at their base, hurrying past them to the deep. So has it been with the massive tombs of Egypt, amid the sands and barrenness of the desert. For ages untold have the gloomy pyramids been reflected by the inundations of the Nile; an hundred generations, they tell us, have arisen from the cradle, and reposed beneath their shadows, and like autumn leaves have dropped into the grave; but, from the midnight of bygone centuries, comes forth no darting spirit to claim these kingly sepulchres as his own! And shall the dusky piles, on the plains of distant Egypt affect so deeply our reverence for the departed, and these mighty monuments, reposing in dark sublimity upon our own magnificent prairies, vailed in mystery more inscrutable than they, call forth no solitary throb? Is there no hallowing interest associated with these aged relics—these tombs, and temples, and towers' of another race, to elicit emotion? Are they indeed to us no more than the dull clods we tread upon? Why then does the wanderer from the far land gaze upon them with wonder and veneration? Why linger fondly around them, and meditate upon the power which reared them, and is departed? Why does the poet, the man of genius and fancy, or the philosopher of mind and nature, seat himself at their base, and with strange and undefined emotions, pause and ponder, amid the loneliness that slumbers around? And surely, if the far traveler, as he wanders through this Western Valley, may linger around these aged piles, and meditate upon a power departed—a race obliterated—an influence swept from the earth forever—and dwell with melancholy emotions upon the destiny of man, is it not meet, that those into whose keeping they seem by Providence consigned, should regard them with interest and emotion?—that they should gather up and preserve every incident relevant to their origin, design, or history, which may be attained, and avail themselves of every measure, which may give to them perpetuity, and hand them down, undisturbed in form or character, to other generations?

That these venerable piles are of the workmanship of man's hand, no one, who with unprejudiced opinion has examined them, can doubt. But with such an admission, what is the cloud of reflections, which throng and startle the mind? What a series of unanswerable inquiries succeed! When were these enormous earth heaps reared up from the plain? By what race of beings was the vast undertaking accomplished? What was their purpose?—what changes in their form and magnitude have taken place?—what vicissitudes and revolutions have, in the lapse of centuries, rolled like successive waves over the plains at their base? As we reflect, we anxiously look around us for some tradition—some time-stained chronicle—some age-worn record—even the faintest and most unsatisfactory legend, upon which to repose our credulity, and relieve the inquiring solicitude of the mind. But our research is hopeless. The present race of Aborigines can tell nothing of these tumuli. To them as to us they are vailed in mystery. Ages since—long ere the white-face came—while this fair land was yet the home of his fathers—the simple Indian stood before the venerable earth-heap, and gazed, and wondered, and turned away.