and fervor of imagination—so that the whole western life came to be that bold, daring, dashing, adventurous life, peculiar to the woodsman, the gold hunter, the Indian fighter, the Pacific coast pioneer. Hence it was but natural that there should arise amidst these wild mountain scenes a genius whose poetry is tropical in its profusion of color, eastern in the glowing heat of its impetuous passion, and western in its sincerity and wildness. Schooled in the lore of the miner's camp, and surrounded by scenes, wild, quaint and curious—the hill, the valley, the mountain gorge, the mighty river, the warm path of the deer, the elk, the panther, the bear, and the savage—poems of nature; exalted with visions of lofty firs, towering forests, and majestic mountains, whose music is softened and sweetened with the rhythm of the gurgling brook and the cadence of sighing boughs and mountain zephyrs—it is not surprising that a genius like Joaquin Miller should suddenly appear and attract attention on account of his strange background, rich coloring, gorgeous descriptions and gigantic scenery. Nature and Burns and Byron and Swinburne were his masters; and he learned from them a certain wild freedom and passion of song that have enriched his poems with truthfulness and an almost cloying sweetness of rhythm and rhyme. Of the latter-day poets whose works have become famous, the new world has produced its full share. Whittier, Bryant, Longfellow,
