letters, he was taken more seriously in England than elsewhere. England liked his books, placed them on her book-shelves, and highly estimated their author. And in England he spent his later years and died, in 1902, at Camberly, Surrey. And Woodberry says:

"He had no rival and left no successor. His work is as unique as that of Poe or Hawthorne."

From Bret Harte's career, it is pleasant to review that of Eugene Field (1850-1895), for he is the laureate that the Middle West has given to children. His first leaning towards literature came to him when as a little boy in St. Louis, his grandmother made him write sermons, and paid him ninepence for every one that he wrote. He was very carefully educated but he could not graduate at college, for his father died and the money gave out. But he was soon hard at work at journalism and finally settled in Chicago, engaged on the editorial staff of "The Daily News."

He describes as follows the romance of his life:

"A little bit of a woman came
Athwart my path one day;

That little bit of a woman cast

Her two eyes full on me,

And they smote me sore to my inmost core
And they held me slaved forevermore,
Yet would I not be free.

And I'm proud to say that I bless the day
When a little woman wrought her way
Into this life of mine!"

And in Chicago, this winsome man and his family were perfectly idolised. He was the leader of "The Saints' and Sinners' Club," the "Saints "being three Chicago clergymen. He illustrated manuscripts for his friends and in many directions interested them in literature. He treasured his books, using the gentlest touch in opening and closing them. He was a gatherer of rare editions:

"Such as bibliophiles adore -

Books and prints in endless store
Treasures singly or in sets."

His poems and prose later have won alike the hearts of grown-ups and children; but especially to the latter, he dedicated exquisite lines and how they, in return, lavished upon him their affection. To assist in his work, he kept in his library a curious collection of toys and trinkets and dolls and animals; and each spinster doll, and each toy animal and each tin soldier, had a part to play in some poem.' The best-known of his works are "A Little Book of

Western Verse," and "A Little Book of Profitable Tales," and a variety of juveniles appear in these. Who that has read it can ever forget "Little Boy Blue"? Or who can overlook the moral so pathetically emphasised in that "little peach of emerald hue" that dawned on the sight of Johnny Jones and his sister Sue?

"John took a bite and Sue a chew,

And then the trouble began to brew,-
Trouble the doctor couldn't subdue,
Too true!

Under the turf where the daisies grew,
They planted John and his sister Sue,
And their little souls to the angels flew,-
Boo hoo!"

Field hoped to write a "Modern Mother Goose,' founded upon Indian folk-lore, but this he was unable to do.

He was a universal joker, and he had great power of adaptation, even to taking the epitaph on Shakespeare's tomb and fitting it as follows to his own portrait, and as an advertisement for his works: —

"Sweete friends, for mercy's sake forbeare
To criticise ys visage here;

But reade my bookes

Which, spite my lookes

Ben fulle of mightie plaisaunt cheere."

Another like Bret Harte, to preserve contemporary