The explanation of the poem entitled, "The First Edition of Breitmann," is as follows: - It was not long after the war that a friend of the writer's to whom "the Breitmann Ballads" had been sent in MSS., and who had frequently urged the former to have them published, resolved to secure, at least, a small private edition, though at his own expense. Unfortunately the printers quarrelled about the MSS., and, as the writer understood, the entire concern broke up in a row in consequence. And, in fact, when we reflect on the amount of fierce attack and recrimination we reflect this unpretending and peaceful little volume elicited after the appearance of the fifth English edition, and the injury which it sustained from garbled and falsified editions, in not less than three unauthorised reprints, it would really seem as if this first edition, which "died a borning," had been typical of the stormy path to which the work was predestined. "I Gili Romaneskro," a gipsy ballad, was written both in the original and translation - that is to say, in the German gipsy and German English dialects - to cast a new light on the many-sided Bohemianism of Herr Breitmann. The readers of more than one English newspaper will recall that the idea of representing Breitmann as an Uhlan, scouting over France, and frequently laying houses and even cities under heavy contribution, has occurred to very many of "Our Own." A spirited correspondent of the Telegraph, and others of literary fame, have familiarly referred to the Uhlan as Breitmann, indicating that the German-American free-lance has grown into a type; and more than one newspaper, anticipating this volume, has published Anglo-German poems referring to Hans Breitmann and the Prussian-French war. In several pamphlets written in Anglo-German rhymes, which appeared in London in 1871, Breitmann was made the representative type of the war by both the friends and opponents of Prussia, while during February of the same year Hans figured at the same time, and on the same evenings for several weeks, on the stages of three London theatres. So many imitations of these poems were published, and so extensively and familiarly was Mr. Leland's hero spoken of as the exponent of the German cause, that it seemed to a writer at the time as if he had become "as regards Germany what John Bull and Brother Jonathan have long been to England and America." In connection with this remark, the following extract from a letter of the Special Correspondent of the London Daily Telegraph of August 29, 1870, may not be without interest: -