Indeed, Mr. Bonner used to be more particular about his poetry than about his prose, and always read himself every line of verse submitted to him for publication. Some of the poems were written by women of simple, serious habits of thought; but a great many of the highly moral and instructive effusions that were an important feature of the paper were prepared by ungodly and happy-go-lucky Bohemians, who were glad to eke out the livelihood earned by reporting with an occasional “tenner” from Mr. Bonner’s treasury. These poets studied the great editor’s peculiarities and personal tastes as carefully as the most successful magazine contributors of to-day study those of the various Gilders, Johnsons, Burlingames, and Aldens who dominate American letters in the present year. For example, no horses in _Ledger_ poems were ever permitted to trot faster than a mile in eight minutes, and it was considered sagacious to name them Dobbin or Old Bess. Poems in praise of stepmothers or life-insurance were supposed to be distasteful to the great editor, but he was believed to have an absolute passion for lyrics which extolled the charm of country life and the homely virtues of rural folk. If a poet wrote more than one rhyme to the quatrain he was warned by his fellows not to ruin the common market. And now I hear from the carping critic again: “But you don’t mean to tell me that any good poetry was produced by such a process? Why, suppose one of our great magazines--” “Who said anything about good poetry? It was good poetry for the _Ledger_ subscribers to read, and as to the great modern magazines--haven’t I told you already that I stumbled over a heap of them just as I was leaving the old garret where the pop-corn and the wreaths of dried apples and the bundles of _Ledgers_ are kept?” CHAPTER II. THE “LEDGER” PERIOD OF LETTERS. A quarter of a century hence, perhaps, one of those arbiters of taste to whom poetastry owes its very existence will lecture before the intellectual and artistic circles of that period on “The Literary Remains of the Bonnerian Period”; and the _Ledger_ school of poetry, long neglected by our critics, will become a fashionable cult. I hope, too, that the names of those writers who, as disciples of that school, gave an impetus to those great principles which live to-day in the beautifully printed pages of our leading periodicals will be rescued from the shades of obscurity and accorded the tardy credit that they have fairly won.