ute of saying that it was "a graceful imitation of old English."
As an example of the judge's humorous vein Field printed the
conclusion of his lines "To a Blue Jay":

_When I had shooed the bird away
And plucked the plums--a quart or more--
I noted that the saucy jay,
Albeit he had naught to say,
Appeared much bluer than before._

After crediting the judge with a purposely awful parody on "Dixie," in
which "banner" is made to rhyme with "Savannah," and "holy" with
"Pensacola," Field concluded the whimsical fabrication with the
serious comment: "It seems a pity that such poetic talent as Judge
Cooley evinced was not suffered to develop. His increasing
professional duties and his political employments put a quietus to
those finer intellectual indulgences with which his earlier years were
fruitful."

Having launched this piece of literary drollery, over which he had
studied and we had talked for a week or more, Field proceeded to
clinch the verse-making on Judge Cooley by a series of letters to
himself, one or two of which will indicate the fertile cleverness and
humor he employed to cram his bald fabrication down the public gullet.
The first appeared on January 24th, in the following letter "to the
Editor":

I have read Judge Cooley's poems with a good deal of interest. I am
somewhat of a poet myself, having written sonnets and things now and
then for the last twenty years. My opinion is that Judge Cooley's
translations, paraphrases, and imitations, are much worthier than his
original work. I hold that no poet can be a true poet unless he is at
the same time somewhat of a naturalist. If Judge Cooley had been
anything of a naturalist he would never have made such a serious
blunder as he has made in his poem entitled "Lines to a Blue Jay." The
idea of putting a blue jay into a plum-tree is simply shocking! I don't
know when I've had anything grate so harshly upon my feelings as did
this mistake when I discovered it this morning. It is as awful as the
blunder made by one of the modern British poets (I forget his name) in
referring to the alligators paddling about in Lake Erie. The blue jay
_(Cyanurus cristatus)_ does not eat plums, and therefore does not
infest plum-trees.

Yours truly,

CADMON E. BATES.

Upon which Field, in his editorial plurality, commented:

To Professor Bates's criticism we shall venture no reply. We think,
however, that allowance should