_ was; I have every reason to
believe that the poets themselves, in and out of the volume, were not
displeased at the notoriety they had not expected, and I have long since
been convinced that my most remorseless critics were not in earnest, but
were obeying some sudden impulse started by the first attacking journal.
The extravagance of the Red Dog _Jay Hawk_ was emulated by others: it
was a large, contagious joke, passed from journal to journal in a
peculiar cyclonic Western fashion. And there still lingers, not
unpleasantly, in my memory the conclusion of a cheerfully scathing
review of the book which may make my meaning clearer: 'If we have said
anything in this article which might cause a single pang to the
poetically sensitive nature of the youthful individual calling himself
Mr. Francis Bret Harte--but who, we believe, occasionally parts his name
and his hair in the middle--we will feel that we have not laboured in
vain, and are ready to sing _Nunc Dimittis_, and hand in our checks. We
have no doubt of the absolutely pellucid and lacteal purity of Franky's
intentions. He means well to the Pacific Coast, and we return the
compliment. But he has strayed away from his parents and guardians while
he was too fresh. He will not keep without a little salt.'

It was thirty years ago. The book and its Rabelaisian criticisms have
been long since forgotten. Alas! I fear that even the capacity for that
Gargantuan laughter which met them, in those days, exists no longer. The
names I have used are necessarily fictitious, but where I have been
obliged to quote the criticisms from memory I have, I believe, only
softened their asperity. I do not know that this story has any moral.
The criticisms here recorded never hurt a reputation nor repressed a
single honest aspiration. A few contributors to the volume, who were of
original merit, have made their mark, independently of it or its
critics. The editor, who was for two months the most abused man on the
Pacific slope, within the year became the editor of its first successful
magazine. Even the publisher prospered, and died respected!

[Illustration: signed,

Very faithfully yours,

A. T. Quiller Couch.]

'_DEAD MAN'S ROCK_'

BY 'Q.'

I cherish no parental illusions about 'Dead Man's Rock.' It is two or
three years since I read a page of that blood-thirsty romance, and my
only copy of it was found, the other day, in turning out the lumber-room
at the top of the hous