Perhaps no poet is a conscious plagiarist; but there seems to be warrant for suspecting that there is no poet who is not at one time or another an unconscious one. The above verses are indeed beautiful, and, in a way, touching; but there is a haunting something about them which unavoidably suggests the Sweet Singer of Michigan. It can hardly be doubted that the author had read the works of that poet and been impressed by them. It is not apparent that he has borrowed from them any word or yet any phrase, but the style and swing and mastery and melody of the Sweet Singer all are there. Compare this Invocation with “Frank Dutton”—particularly stanzas first and seventeenth—and I think the reader will feel convinced that he who wrote the one had read the other: I. “Frank Dutton was as fine a lad As ever you wish to see, And he was drowned in Pine Island Lake On earth no more will he be, His age was near fifteen years, And he was a motherless boy, He was living with his grandmother When he was drowned, poor boy.” XVII. “He was drowned on Tuesday afternoon, On Sunday he was found, And the tidings of that drowned boy Was heard for miles around. His form was laid by his mother's side, Beneath the cold, cold ground, His friends for him will drop a tear When they view his little mound.” The Sentimental Song Book. By Mrs. Julia Moore, p. 36. CHAPTER IX. It is your human environment that makes climate. —Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar. Sept. 15—Night. Close to Australia now. Sydney 50 miles distant.