have
said enough to satisfy our readers." The Mormon Hill "Quartz Crusher"
relieved this simple directness with more fancy: "We don't know
why Messrs. ---- and Co. send us, under the title of 'Selections of
Californian Poetry,' a quantity of slumgullion which really belongs
to the sluices of a placer mining camp, or the ditches of the rural
districts. We have sometimes been compelled to run a lot of tailings
through our stamps, but never of the grade of the samples offered,
which, we should say, would average about 33-1/3 cents per ton. We have,
however, come across a single specimen of pure gold evidently overlooked
by the serene ass who has compiled this volume. We copy it with
pleasure, as it has already shone in the 'Poet's Corner' of the
'Crusher' as the gifted effusion of the talented Manager of the
Excelsior Mill, otherwise known to our delighted readers as 'Outcrop.'"
The Green Springs "Arcadian" was no less fanciful in imagery: "Messrs.
---- and Co. send us a gaudy green-and-yellow, parrot-colored volume,
which is supposed to contain the first callow 'cheepings' and 'peepings'
of Californian songsters. From the flavor of the specimens before us we
should say that the nest had been disturbed prematurely. There seems to
be a good deal of the parrot inside as well as outside the covers, and
we congratulate our own sweet singer 'Blue Bird,' who has so often made
these columns melodious, that she has escaped the ignominy of being
exhibited in Messrs. ---- and Co.'s aviary." I should add that this
simile of the aviary and its occupants was ominous, for my tuneful choir
was relentlessly slaughtered; the bottom of the cage was strewn with
feathers! The big dailies collected the criticisms and published them
in their own columns with the grim irony of exaggerated head-lines. The
book sold tremendously on account of this abuse, but I am afraid that
the public was disappointed. The fun and interest lay in the criticisms,
and not in any pointedly ludicrous quality in the rather commonplace
collection, and I fear I cannot claim for it even that merit. And it
will be observed that the animus of the criticism appeared to be the
omission rather than the retention of certain writers.

But this brings me to the most extraordinary feature of this singular
demonstration. I do not think that the publishers were at all troubled
by it; I cannot conscientiously say that I was; I have every reason to
believe that the poets themselves,