be made for the youth of the poet
when he committed the offence which so grievously torments our
correspondent. It might be argued, too, that the jay of which the
poet treats is no ordinary bird, but is one of those omnivorous
creatures which greedily pounce upon everything coming within
their predatory reach.

And two days later he made bold to crush the judge's critics with
letters from the same versatile pen that never failed to aid in the
furtherance of its master's hoaxes:

To the Editor: Prof. Bates may be a good taxidermist, but he knows
little of ornithology. Never before he spoke was it denied that the
_Cyanurus cristatus_ (blue jay) fed upon plums. All the insect-eating
birds also eat of the small fruits. It is plain that the poet knew
this, even though the taxidermist didn't.

Yours truly,

L.R. COWPERTHWAITE.

To the Editor: Isn't Prof. Bates too severe in his claim that genius
like that of the poetic Judge Cooley should be bound down by the
prosaic facts of ornithology? Milton scorned fidelity to nature,
especially when it came to ornithological details, and poets, as a
class, have been singularly wayward in this respect. My impression is
that Judge Cooley has simply made use of a poetic license which any
fair-minded person should be willing to concede the votaries of the
muse.

Yours truly,

J.G.K.

The echoes of Judge Cooley's youthful verse were never permitted to
die wholly out of Field's column, but were frequently given renewed
life by casual references. Even the publication of "The Divine
Lullaby" in his "Little Book of Western Verse" did not prevent Field
from speaking of Judge Cooley's poetical diversions.

On another occasion he spent his odd time for weeks in preparing a
humorous hoax upon the critics of Chicago. It consisted of a number of
close imitations of the typical verses of Dr. Watts, in which he was a
master. The fruits of his congenial labor on this occasion are
preserved in his collected works. But the purpose for which they were
prepared adds to their interest. They were incorporated in a prose
article which gave a plausible account of how they had been exhumed
from the correspondence of a sentimental friend of Watts. When the
last strokes had been put upon the story, whose tone of genuineness
was calculated to deceive the elect, it was mailed to Charles A. Dana,
who was thoroughly in sympathy with Field in all such enterprises,