tax.

* * * * *

In addition to supporting his new dignity he finds time and strength
for his usual work, and he writes on January 30, 1878, "I have been
mainly at work on some unimportant prose matter for pot-boilers, but I
get off a short poem occasionally, and in the background of my mind am
writing my Jacquerie." Unfortunately, "Jacquerie" remained in the
background of his mind, with the exception of two songs--all we have
to indicate what a stirring presentation our literature might have had
of the fourteenth century awakening of "Jacques Bonhomme," that early
precursor of the more terrible arousing in 'Ninety-Three.

In the latter part of the year Lanier was living at Number 180 St.
Paul Street, and in December he wrote to a friend:

"Bayard Taylor's death slices a huge cantle out of the world.... It
only seems that he has gone to some other Germany a little farther
off.... He was such a fine fellow, one almost thinks he might
have talked Death over and made him forego his stroke."

At Bayard Taylor's home, where Lanier visited, were two immense
chestnut trees, much loved by the two poets. Mrs. Taylor wrote that
one of the trees died soon after the death of its poet owner. The
other lingered until a short time after the passing of Lanier. It was
in connection with the lines of the "Cantata," written in the
Baltimore home of the Southern poet, that the poet friends began a
long-continued series of letters which one loves to read on a winter
night, when the winds are battling with the world outside, and the