BRYANT.
BRYANT.
the New England skies, and, while imvising to
-contemplate the rosy splendor, with rapt admira-
tion, a solitary bird made its winged way along
the illuminated horizon. He watched the lone
wanderer imtil it was lost in the distance. He
then went on with new strength and courage.
When he reached the house where he was to stop
for the night he immediately sat down and wrote
the lines 'To a Waterfowl.'" In 1818 he was
■elected pne of the tithing men and town clerk of
Great Barrington, holding the latter office until
he left ^lassachusetts five j^ears later. He was
also appointed a justice of the peace. He was
married June 11, 1821, to Fannj- Fairchild, with
whom he passed forty-five years of happy mar-
Tied life. In 1823 he wrote the poem The Ages,
which he read before the Phi Beta Kappa society
of Harvard college. He was urged to publish
it, and from the suggestion resulted the first
publication of a collection of Br5'ant's poems, a
small volume, consisting of the eight iwems:
Tlie Ages, To a Waterfoid, Fragment from
Sinionicles, An Inscription for the Entrance to
a Wood, The YeJloio Violet, The Song, Green
River, and Tlianatopsis, which appeared in
1823. In 1824 he became a contributor to
the United States Literary Gazette, and wrote
m;iny of his most charming poems for its
pages. About this time also were written The
Death of the Flowers and The Past, for each of
which he asked two dollars, " with which remu-
neration," he wrote, he should be "abundantly
satisfied." His publishers, however, made him
a more generous projjosition, suggesting a yearly
salary of two hundred dollars for an average of one
hundred lines a month, expressing their regrets
that they were ' ' unable to offer a compensation
more adequate." In 1824 Mr. Bryant removed to
New York, and as.siuned the editorship of the
New York Revieiv and Athenceum Magazine. He
delivered a course of lectures on English poetry
before the Athenasum society, and in the same
year accepted a professorship connected with the
New York academy of design, where he lectured
on Greek and Roman mythology. In July, 1826,
the Review was amalgamated with the United
States Gazette of Boston, under the title of the
United States Review, Mr. Bryant being the New
York and J. G. Carter the Boston editor. In 1827,
'2-i. '29 Mr. Bryant was associated with Verplanck
and Robert C. Sands in the publication of an an-
nual entitled the Talisman, and in 1823, in con-
junction with Mr. Sands, issued two volumes
entitled, Tales of the Glauber Spa. In this
year also was published a comi)lete collection of
liis poems, which was re-published in England,
and won him European reputation. In 183(5 he
accepted an editorial chair on the New York
Evening Post, and acquired a small interest in
the paper; five months later, on the death of Mr.
Coleman, the editor-in-chief and proprietor, Mr.
Bryant was promoted to his chair and purcliased
a further interest in the property. Mr. Bryant's
course as a journalist was dignified and consist-
ent; he accepted no favors from individuals or
parties, and was fearless in opposing jjopular
measures and questions when he esteemed it
essential to the public interest to do so. He was
at the inception of his journalistic career a Dem-
ocrat in principle, but before the war became a
strong Republican. The Evening Post, which
had been chiefly occupied with matters of local
interest, sanitary and fiscal reforms and the like,
under Mr. Bryant's leadership became an advo-
cate of free trade principles at a time when pro-
tective duties were favored by both houses of
Congress and by the north generally. In 1836 he
maintained in the columns of the Post the valid-
ity of trade unions; he favored international
copyright, the abolition of capital punishment,
supported President Jackson in his most vmiiopu-
lar measures, and the tariff of '46, a tariff for
revenue with incidental protection; opposed
slavery as " a foul and monstrous idol, a jugger-
naut under which thousands are crushed to
death," and suggested the fullest and freest
emancipation as the only fit remedy for the evil.
He was conscientious and impartial in the state-
ment of facts, and temperate in debate. Solici-
t o u s for
honor as a
man of let-
t e r s , his
carefully
prepared
and finely
phrased
edit orials,
and his
rules im-
posed upon svibordinates, for the use of pure
Saxon English, materially elevated the literary
tone of journalism. In 1851 he published a short
history of the Evpning Post, then half a century
old, and he terminated his editorial labors in 1870.
George William Curtis wrote of him: "What
nature said to him was plainly spoken and
clearly heard and perfectly repeated. His art
was exquisite. It was absolutely unsuspected,
but it served its truest purpose, for it removed
every obstruction to full and complete delivery
of his message."' From 1834 to 1867 Mr. Bryant
made six visits to the old world, and in 1872 vis-
ited Cuba and the city of Mexico for the second
time. In 18.-)0 he published Letters of a Trav-
eller, a collection of the letters he had sent to
the Post (lining his travels abroad, and in the
winter of lyGD he issued a supplementary volume
<^7:s
^^i
^..
^^3^^\ x^J^f iZ/S'- '
HOUSE AT ROSLYN ,L. ISLAND.)
