merrily he lampooned everything he saw. Nothing was too trivial for his notice, nothing so serious as to escape his ridicule or satire. There was little about his work at this time that gave promise of anything beyond the spicy facility of a quick-witted, light-hearted western paragrapher. Looking back it is possible, however, to discover something of the flavor of the inextinguishable drollery that persisted to his last printed work in such verses as these in the St. Louis Journal: _THE NEW BABY We welcome thee, eventful morn Since to the poet there is born A son and heir; A fuzzy babe of rosy hue, And staring eyes of misty blue Sans teeth, sans hair. Let those who know not wedded joy Revile this most illustrious boy-- This genial child! But let the brother poets raise Their songs and chant their sweetest lays To him reviled. Then strike, O bards, your tuneful lyres, 'Awake, O rhyming souls, your fires, And use no stint! Bring forth the festive syrup cup-- Fill every loyal beaker up With peppermint! March, 1878._ In the spring of 1879 the St. Louis Times-Journal printed the following April verses by Field, which were copied without the author's name by London Truth, and went the rounds of the papers in this country, credited to that misnamed paper, and attributed, much to Field's glee, to William S. Gilbert, then at the height of his Pinafore and Bab Ballad fame: _APRIL VESPERS The turtles drum in the pulseless bay, The crickets creak in the prickful hedge, The bull-frogs boom in the puddling sedge And the whoopoe whoops its vesper lay Away In the twilight soft and gray. Two lovers stroll in the glinting gloam-- His hand in her'n and her'n in his-- She blushes deep--he is talking biz-- They hug and hop as they listless roam-- They roam-- It's late when they get back home. Down by the little wicket-gate, Down where the creepful ivy grows, Down where the sweet nasturtium blows, A box-toed parent lies in wait-- In wait For the maiden and her mate. Let crickets creak and bull-frogs boom, The whoopoe wail in the distant dell-- Their tuneful throbs will ne'er dispel The planted pain and the rooted gloom-- The gloom Of the lover's dismal doom._ Just by the way of illustrating in fac-simile and preserving the character of the newspaper paragrapher's work in the last century, the following "Funny Fancies," by Field, from the St. Louis Journal of August 3d, 1878, may be of interest: A green Christmas--No, no, we mean a green peach makes a fat graveyard. A philanthropic citizen of Memphis has wedded a Miss Hoss. He doubtless took her for wheel or whoa.