Page:History of Oregon Literature.djvu/273

 after he

began to write poetry, this habit of plagiarism was not abandoned, if his wife's testimony is worth anything, and if we do not misinterpret the following quotation taken from her "Sacrifice Impetro," a reply to Miller's farewell on leaving Oregon: And he through books and bays Delveth for pretty words To weave in his languid lays Of women, and streams, and birds. For this and many other better reasons we don't hesitate to pronounce the belief that this so-called poet is what is termed, in the vernacular of the coast, a first-class bilk, and that besides the other injuries that he has inflicted upon his unhappy wife, he has filched from her the literary jewels and published them as his own. Up to the date of his marriage Miller had published no poetry, if indeed he had written any. But up to that time and for a long time prior thereto, the people of this state had been charmed by the verses of Mrs. Miller, then "Minnie Myrtle." Minnie Myrtle's poetry left off where Miller's begun. Those who take the trouble to compare Miller's Joaquin et al with these verses of Mrs. Miller, published ten years ago, will readily detect her poetic genius upon the best pages of the book. In some of them they will recognize the woman, as for instance, in the Sierra Nevadas, which makes them look As though Diana's maid last night, Had in the liquid, soft moonlight, Washed out her Mistress' garment bright And on yon bent and swaying line Hung all her linen out to dry. It is much more likely that the simile of a line hung with linen and which employs the idea of washing garments in moonlight, should occur to a woman of strong poetic imagi nation, the routine of whose life was the wash-tub and the kitchen, than to a languid and dyspeptic man. The quotation has the credit of being the best in