test was over, that thus far in his career he had been able to "withstand the world, the flesh and the Devil, but I find now that the Methodist Church is a little too much for me.” After this event he ceased to affiliate with the Republican party, and soon entered the fold of Populism. The reservation episode and its result was probably the occasion and not the cause of his leaving the Republican party and casting in his lot with the Populists, for even when a nominal Republican he was in sympathy with some of their cherished doctrines. In the days when resumption of specie payment was an issue he vigorously opposed it and was what was termed a "Greenbacker," and as a logical sequence, was an advocate of the free coinage of silver at a ratio of 16 to 1 when that question became an issue. In the campaign of 1892 he was strenuous in his opposition to the re-election of General Harrison, and rejoiced over his defeat. Notwithstanding his defection from its ranks, he still retained a warm spot in his heart for the old party which he had helped to organize and build up, and which had been the pride of his youth, and when his new political associates were exulting over its tremendous defeat, he manifested but little elation-remarking to a friend that an exhibition of hilarity over it would savor too much of merry making at the funeral of an old friend, although he was gratified at the downfall of Harrison. With this campaign his active participation in politics ceased, although he continued loyal to his later political affinity until his death, which occurred at Ashland in the autumn of 1895. The announcement of his passing quickened a train of sad reflections in the minds of his friends of earlier years. Their thoughts went back to the days of his young manhood, when the possibilities of the future for him seemed almost boundless, and the pathway to a glorious fame appeared unobstructed; and then traced his career, with its ever diminishing promise, until it ended in disappointment and comparative failure, and their hearts were made heavy by the thought of what he might but did not attain. Indeed, this blight of a bright promise was profoundly regretted by the companions of his young manhood, for they realized that the great mental powers with which nature had endowed him had been frittered away or injudiciously used; that a career which resulted in such meager fruitage and ended in eclipse might have been renowned for its usefulness and long remembered for its great achieve ments. "Of all the sad words of tongue and pen The saddest are these-it might have been." But notwithstanding all of his shortcomings his old friends loved him to the end, and cherish his memory as tenderly as if he had fulfilled the promises of his youth, and when departing this life, had passed through the portals of glory into everlasting fame. PERSONAL REMINISCENCES OF SAMUEL L. SIMPSON By W. W. FIDLER.* My first meeting with Oregon's sweetest singer, Samuel L. Simpson, was wholly unexpected. I had been in the habit for many years of treasuring up the superior specimens of poetry, with which he so greatly enriched our earlier literature, but had about abandoned the hope of ever making his personal acquaintance, when unlooked-for circumstances brought him to my very door. I was sitting alone in my lonesome cabin, away back in the mountains near the head of Williams Creek, Jackson County, quietly musing, as is the wont of single gentlemen similarly circumstanced, when "there came a sudden rapping at my chamber door," the same as came to Edgar Allen Poe in days of yore. I obeyed the summons with reasonable alacrity, when in walked a young lad I knew as George Huffer, followed by a medium-sized man of some thirty odd years of age, whom he introduced as "Mr. Simpson." "What, not the poet?" said I. On being assured that my implied guess was correct, I toned down my excitement as gracefully as possible, and proceeded to make them welcome. The conversation first turned to practical, matter-of-fact affairs, and not to poetry. Mr. Simpson and his companion were on an expedition to the recently discovered Josephine County caves; they had camped down by the creek and wanted some feed for their pony. Although they already had their blankets spread for a night's *Mr. William W. Fidler was born in Indiana in 1842, and a few years later his parents removed to Iowa. In 1849 his father went to the California mines. The next year he came to Oregon and took up a donation claim in Lane county where Coburg now stands. In 1852 he sold out for $600, returned to "The States" and brought his family across the plains in 1853, and settled on the Willamette river at Spores' ferry, where young William served as ferryman for awhile. In 1856 the Fidler family removed to Jackson county. In 1857 Mr. Fidler returned to Eugene to enter Columbia College, of which Rev. E. P. Hen derson was the principal. Cincinnatus Hiner Miller, better known as "Joaquin Miller, Judge James Finley Watson, and a number of other well known men were students at that early institution. The college building burned down in the winter of 1857-58, and soon afterwards Mr. Fidler returned to Jackson county, remaining until 1870, when he removed to Josephine county and took up a homestead, and at the present time he is a resident of Grants Pass. Since his permanent resi dence in southern Oregon Mr. Fidler has been engaged in mining, journalism, teaching and farming. George H. Himes, Assistant Secretary, Oregon Historical Society. repose upon mother earth, I induced them to move up to the house, promising to go with them and show them the way to the caves. Just why this brilliant writer of incomparable verse should have chosen that particular time and that particular route to visit a spot which, as yet, had excited no great furore among sightseers, never fully penetrated my comprehension until some years later, when I learned that it was a ruse of J. H. Huffer's, an uncle of Sam's by marriage, to get the author of "Beautiful Willamette" weaned off from a protracted spree that he had been cultivating with disastrous assiduity for many, many years. For it may as well be admitted right here at the beginning of our story, that this exceptional genius was sadly handicapped in his efforts to do something worthy the fame of so rare an intellect, by a master failing that mocks at noble effort, and that trails the highest ambition in the dust. And that good old charitable maxim that tells us we should "say nothing but good of the dead," cannot always be observed with the strictest fidelity. When you say nothing but good of a man, you are apt to get a misfit biography. No man has a right to assume that his worst mistakes will not be remembered and repeated against him as a warning to future generations. It is thus that we get some of our most impressive temperance sermons. The life-failure of such a man as Samuel Leonidas Simpson should be accounted for historically and truthfully, and the cause of it all is summed up in that one word we are forced to use with so much reluctance-inebriate. Somebody has already described him in print as "the most drunken poet, and the most poetical drunkard that ever made the Muses smile or weep," and I am not authorized to dispute the arraignment. But now for the caves. The next day we packed our bedding and commissary stores on the pony and took it afoot over the rough mountain ranges that separated us from the scene of our destination. "Old Grayback," as the principal mountain is fitly called, is no trivial elevation for a man to tackle whose equestrian feats have been mainly restricted to the rid ing of a Pegasus-winged or otherwise. Its lofty summit is streaked with snow nearly the entire summer, and it is of itself one of the most picturesque and prominent landmarks of the surrounding country. From its higher altitudes you get a splendid glimpse of what Joaquin Miller would call: Snow-topped towers that crush the clouds Now broken through their earthy bars. Scenery to inspire poetical imagery in the dullest mind greets the visitor to these Alpine heights. If our comrade with the Pegasus habit failed to take advantage of the situation, it was not the fault of the scenery. Possibly he was too busy with other reflections. And then big mountains are too common, and too hard to climb, for all to get a front seat in our literature at the start. To be satisfied that Sam could do good work in this line, one has only to read his royal tributes to "Hood" and other peaks. And after he has once clothed a subject, be it mountain peak, gurgling brook, flowing river or waterfall-with the classical garniture so richly provided by his poetic fancy, it is a little bit discouraging for any other genius to try to handle the same subject. Hence I am led to regret that our "Old Grayback"-despite its unlyrical name— did not get a poetical lift at his hand. That is about the only important "lift" it is now seriously in need of. It was after a hard day's travel that we reached the caves, on a western spur of Old Grayback, and struck camp in the heart of the Siskiyous. But alas for the man who was subject to bibulous temptation, some parties had been there just ahead of us and left a part of a bottle of liquor leaning up against the rocks, with its mouth open, ready to make a most tantalizing appeal to any comer afflicted with a chronic thirst. We watched Sam carefully as he eyed his familiar enemy, but he soon turned his attention to something else, with the remark that if he had run across that a day or two sooner he would have felt forced to make use of it. During the night he got up, |