I had transferred the whole right of publication in England to my friend
Nicolas Trubner, whom I had met when he had visited America, and I wrote
specially for his edition certain poems. John "Camden" Hotten wrote to
me modestly asking me to give _him_ the sole right to republish the work.
He said, "I hardly know what to say about the price. Suppose we say _ten
pounds_!" I replied, "Sir, I have given the whole right of publication
to Mr. Trubner, and I would not take it from him for ten thousand
pounds." Hotten at once published an edition which was a curiosity of
ignorance and folly. There was a blunder on an average to every page. He
had annotated it! He explained that _Knasterbart_ meant "a nasty
fellow," and that the French _garce_ was _gare_, "a railway station!"
Trubner had sold 5,000 copies before this precious affair appeared. After
Hotten's death the British public were informed in an obituary that he
had "_first_ introduced me" to their knowledge!

Hans Breitmann became a type. I never heard of but one German who ever
reviled the book, and that was a Democratic editor in Philadelphia. But
the Germans themselves recognised that the pen which poked fun at them
was no poisoned stiletto. Whenever there was a grand German procession,
Hans was in it--the indomitable old _Degen_ hung with _loot_--and he
appeared in every fancy ball. Nor were the Confederates offended. One
of the most genial, searching, and erudite reviews of the work, which
appeared in a Southern magazine (De Bow's), declared that I had truly
written the Hudibras of the Civil War. What struck this writer most was
the fact that I had opened a _new_ field of humour. And here he was
quite right. With the exception of Dan Rice's circus song of "Der goot
oldt Sherman shentleman," and a rather flat parody of "Jessie, the Flower
of Dumblane," I had never seen or heard of any specimen of Anglo-German
poetry. To be _merely original_ in language is not to excel in
everything--a fact very generally ignored--else my Pidgin-English ballads
would take precedence of Tennyson's poems! On the other hand, very great
poets have often not made a new _form_. The Yankee type, both as regards
spirit and language, had become completely common and familiar in prose
and poetry, before Lowell revived it in the clever _Biglow Papers_. Bret
Harte's "Heathen Chinee," and several other poems, are, however, _both_
original and admirable. Whatever the merits or de