over the
leaves of other volumes, say carelessly, 'Got a new book of California
poetry out, haven't you?' purchase it, and quietly depart. There were as
yet no notices from the Press; the big dailies were silent; there was
something ominous in this calm.

[Illustration: I WAS INWARDLY RELIEVED]

Out of it the bolt fell. A well-known mining weekly, which I here
poetically veil under the title of the Red Dog _Jay Hawk_, was first to
swoop down upon the tuneful and unsuspecting quarry. At this century-end
of fastidious and complaisant criticism, it may be interesting to recall
the direct style of the Californian 'sixties.' 'The hogwash and
"purp"-stuff ladled out from the slop bucket of Messrs.---- & Co., of
'Frisco, by some lop-eared Eastern apprentice, and called "A Compilation
of Californian Verse," might be passed over, so far as criticism goes. A
club in the hands of any able-bodied citizen of Red Dog and a steamboat
ticket to the Bay, cheerfully contributed from this office, would be
all-sufficient. But when an imported greenhorn dares to call his
flapdoodle mixture "Californian," it is an insult to the State that has
produced the gifted "Yellow Hammer," whose lofty flights have from time
to time dazzled our readers in the columns of the _Jay Hawk_. That this
complacent editorial jackass, browsing among the dock and thistles which
he has served up in this volume, should make no allusion to California's
greatest bard, is rather a confession of his idiocy than a slur upon the
genius of our esteemed contributor.' I turned hurriedly to my pile of
rejected contributions--the _nom de plume_ of 'Yellow Hammer' did _not_
appear among them; certainly I had never heard of its existence. Later,
when a friend showed me one of that gifted bard's pieces, I was inwardly
relieved! It was so like the majority of the other verses, in and out of
the volume, that the mysterious poet might have written under a hundred
aliases. But the Dutch Flat _Clarion_, following, with no uncertain
sound, left me small time for consideration. 'We doubt,' said that
journal, 'if a more feeble collection of drivel could have been made,
even if taken exclusively from the editor's own verses, which we note he
has, by an equal editorial incompetency, left out of the volume. When we
add that, by a felicity of idiotic selection, this person has chosen
only one, and the least characteristic, of the really clever poems of
Adoniram Skaggs, which have so often g