ABSTRACT
Mark Twain has reached his fiftieth year, and has been warmly congratulated on his 'Jubilee' by most of the wits ofhis native land. As the Ettrick Shepherd said to Wordsworth when first they met, 'I'm glad you're so young a man,' so one might observe to Mark, and wish that he were still younger. But his genius is still young, and perhaps never showed so well, with such strength and variety, such veracity and humour, as in his latest book, Huckleberry Fin11. Persons of extremely fme culture may have no taste for Mark. When he gets among pictures and holy places perhaps we all feel that he is rather an awful being. But on a Mississippi boat, or in a bar-room, or editing (without sufficient technical information) an agricultural journal, or bestriding a Celebrated Mexican Plug, or out silver-mine hunting, or on the track of Indian Joe, Mark is all himself, and the most powerful and diverting writer, I think, ofhis American contemporaries. Here followeth, rather late, but heartily well meant, a tribute to Mark on his jubilee.
