In 1864 Mr. Harte was appointed Secretary of the United States Branch Mint at San Francisco, and during his six years of service in this position found leisure to write some of his popular poems, such as “John Burns, of Gettysburg,” “How Are You, Sanitary?” and others, which were generally printed in the daily newspapers. He also became editor of the “Overland Monthly” when it was founded in 1868, and soon made this magazine as great a favorite on the Atlantic as on the Pacific Coast, by his contribution to its columns of a series of sketches of California life which have won a permanent place in literature. Among these sketches are “The Luck of Roaring Camp,” telling how a baby came to rule the hearts of a rough, dissolute gang of miners. It is said that this masterpiece, however, narrowly escaped the waste-basket at the hands of the proofreader, a woman, who, without noticing its origin, regarded it as utter trash. “The Outcast of Poker Flat,” “Miggles,” “Tennessee’s Partner,” “An Idyl of Red Gulch,” and many other stories which revealed the spark of humanity remaining in brutalized men and women, followed in rapid succession. Bret Harte was a man of the most humane nature, and sympathized deeply with the Indian and the Chinaman in the rough treatment they received at the hands of the early settlers, and his literature, no doubt, did much to soften and mollify the actions of those who read them――and it may be safely said that almost every one did, as he was about the only author at that time on the Pacific Slope and very popular. His poem, “The Heathen Chinee,” generally called “Plain Language from Truthful James,” was a masterly satire against the hue and cry that the Chinese were shiftless and weak-minded settlers. This poem appeared in 1870 and was wonderfully popular. In the spring of 1871 the professorship of recent literature in the University of California was offered to Mr. Harte, on his resignation of the editorship of the “Overland Monthly,” but he declined the proffer to try his literary fortunes in the more cultured East. He endeavored to found a magazine in Chicago, but his efforts failed, and he went to Boston to accept a position on the “Atlantic Monthly,” since which time his pen has been constantly employed by an increasing demand from various magazines and literary journals. Mr. Harte has issued many volumes of prose and poetry, and it is difficult to say in which field he has won greater distinction. Both as a prose writer and as a poet he has treated similar subjects with equal facility. His reputation was made, and his claim to fame rests upon his intuitive insight into the heart of our common humanity. A number of his sketches have been translated into French and German, and of late years he has lived much abroad, where he is, if any difference, more lionized than he was in his native country.