A HUNDRED years ago the English-speaking population of America amounted to 3,000,000; it now amounts to 60,000,000, and we are told, with every appearance of probability, that in another hundred years it will amount to 600,000,000. Under these circumstances, I wish to recognize the right of America to be considered as being, prospectively at least and even now to a certain extent-for we have not in our small islands yet quite touched 40,000,000-I wish to recognize the prospective and approaching right of America to be the great organ of the powerful English tongue. WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. A.D. 1889. A novel country: I might make it mine Thus were abolished Spring and Autumn both, Red, green and blue that whirl into a white, The variance now, the eventual unity. ROBERT BROWNING. A.D. 1869. Where there is no centre like an academy, if you have genius and powerful ideas, you are apt not to have the best style going; if you have precision of style and not genius, you are apt not to have the best ideas going. We judge of the excellence of a rising writer, not so much by the resemblance of his works to what has been done before, as by their difference from it. The more powerful the intellect, the less will its works resemble those of other men, whether predecessors or contemporaries. JOHN RUSKIN. A.D. 18-. LITERATURE OF THE REPUBLIC. PART IV.-CONTINUED. 1861-1888. Francis Bret Harte. BORN in Albany, N. Y., 1839. GRIZZLY. [Poetical Works. 1870-74.-Works. Riverside Edition. 1882-87.] THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT. [The Luck of Roaring Camp, and Other Sketches. 1871.- Works. Riverside Edition. AS 1882-87.] S Mr. John Oakhurst, gambler, stepped into the main street of Poker Flat on the morning of the twenty-third of November, 1850, he was conscious of a change in its moral atmosphere since the preceding night. Two or three men, conversing earnestly together, ceased as he approached, and exchanged significant glances. There was a Sabbath lull in the air, which, in a settlement unused to Sabbath influences, looked ominous. Mr. Oakhurst's calm, handsome face betrayed small concern in these indications. Whether he was conscious of any predisposing cause was another question. "I reckon they're after somebody," he reflected; "likely it's me." He returned to his pocket the handkerchief with which he had been whipping away the red dust of Poker Flat from his neat boots, and quietly discharged his mind of any further conjecture. In point of fact, Poker Flat was "after somebody." It had lately suffered the loss of several thousand dollars, two valuable horses, and a prominent citizen. It was experiencing a spasm of virtuous reaction, quite as lawless and ungovernable as any of the acts that had provoked it. A secret committee had determined to rid the town of all improper persons. This was done permanently in regard of two men who were then hanging from the boughs of a sycamore in the gulch, and temporarily in the banishment of certain other objectionable characters. I regret to say that some of these were ladies. It is but due to the sex, however, to state that their impropriety was professional, and it was only in such easily established standards of evil that Poker Flat ventured to sit in judgment. Mr. Oakhurst was right in supposing that he was included in this category. A few of the committee had urged hanging him as a possible example, and a sure method of reimbursing themselves from his pockets of the sums he had won from them. "It's agin justice," said Jim Wheeler, "to let this yer young man from Roaring Camp-an entire stranger-carry away our money." But a crude sentiment of equity residing in the breasts of those who had been fortunate enough to win from Mr. Oakhurst overruled this narrower local prejudice. Mr. Oakhurst received his sentence with philosophic calmness, none the less coolly that he was aware of the hesitation of his judges. He was too much of a gambler not to accept Fate. With him life was at best an uncertain game, and he recognized the usual percentage in favor of the dealer. A body of armed men accompanied the deported wickedness of Poker Flat to the outskirts of the settlement. Besides Mr. Oakhurst, who was known to be a coolly desperate man, and for whose intimidation the armed escort was intended, the expatriated party consisted of a young woman familiarly known as 66 The Duchess"; another, who had won the title of "Mother Shipton"; and "Uncle Billy," a suspected sluice-robber and confirmed drunkard. The cavalcade provoked no comments from the spectators, nor |