at laurels are greener than those of Triboulet, and
Will Somers, and John Heywood--dramatist and master of the king's merry
Interludes? Their shafts were feathered with mirth and song, but
pointed with wisdom, and well might old John Trussell say "That it
often happens that wise counsel is more sweetly followed when it is
tempered with folly, and earnest is the less offensive if it be
delivered in jest."

Yes, Field "caught on" to his time--a complex American, with the
obstreperous _bizarrerie_ of the frontier and the artistic delicacy of
our oldest culture always at odds within him--but he was, above all, a
child of nature, a frolic incarnate, and just as he would have been in
any time or country. Fortune had given him that unforgettable mummer's
face,--that clean-cut, mobile visage,--that animated natural mask! No
one else had so deep and rich a voice for the rendering of the music
and pathos of a poet's lines, and no actor ever managed both face and
voice better than he in delivering his own verses merry or sad. One
night, he was seen among the audience at "Uncut Leaves," and was
instantly requested to do something towards the evening's
entertainment. As he was not in evening dress, he refused to take the
platform, but stood up in the lank length of an ulster, from his corner
seat, and recited "Dibdin's Ghost" and "Two Opinions" in a manner which
blighted the chances of the readers that came after him. It is true
that no clown ever equalled the number and lawlessness of his practical
jokes. Above all, every friend that he had--except the Dean of his
profession, for whom he did exhibit unbounded and filial reverence--was
soon or late a victim of his whimsicality, or else justly distrusted
the measure of Field's regard for him. Nor was the friendship
perfected until one bestirred himself to pay Eugene back in kind. As
to this, I am only one of scores now speaking from personal experience.
There seemed to be no doubt in his mind that the victim of his fun,
even when it outraged common sensibilities, _must_ enjoy it as much as
he. Who but Eugene, after being the welcome guest, at a European
capital, of one of our most ambitious and refined ambassadors, would
have written a lyric, sounding the praises of a German "onion pie,"
ending each stanza with

Ach, Liebe! Ach, mein Gott!

and would have printed it in America, with his host's initials affixed?

My own matriculation at Eugene's College of Unreason wa