Page:History of Oregon Literature.djvu/329

Rh journalist and a poet throughout his life and in all the communities where he lived. It was not a small triumph for a man who was not always sober to be so well thought of when he was, and to have the one condition affect the other so little in public opinion.

As has been mentioned, his poems were not published in book form until after his death. During his lifetime they were contributed to newspapers and magazines, and he was mainly content to leave them there. He was associated, however, in the making of a few books.

In the 70's, Dr. A. W. Patterson of Eugene entered into contract with A. L. Bancroft & Company of San Francisco to furnish a speller and a set of five school readers in a Pacific Coast series. After doing three of the readers and the speller, he recommended to the publishers that the fourth and fifth readers be assigned to Sam. L. Simpson. These he ably prepared. Though once widely used from San Diego to Seattle, they have become scarce like all old school-books of half a century ago, and are now collector's items.

In the preface to the fifth reader, he stated the wise principle that had governed his selection of material: "The literature of the Pacific Coast has received, as is believed to be proper, some special recognition, but not to the extent of being sectional or exclusive." Of 77 lessons in prose, five were from Pacific Coast writers: "The Fate of Vasco Nunez", by Hubert H. Bancroft; "David C. Broderick", by Col. E. D. Baker; "Select Passages—Loyalty, Science, Freedom, The Comet", by Col. E. D. Baker; "An Old Edition of Shakespeare", by Matthew P. Deady; "An Address