ardor as before, but not with the same enthusiasm or pleasure. He did not like his college life, some features of which were distasteful to his shy and sensitive nature, and so with his father's permission he obtained an honorable dismissal in May, 1811, and in due time he received the degree as a member of the class of 1813, of which there are now (July, 1878) but two survivors, the Rev. Elisha D. Barrett, of Missouri, and the Hon. Charles F. Sedgwick, of Connecticut. Dr. Calvin Durfee, the historian of Williams College, writes to me that Mr. Bryant "did not graduate in a regular course with his class; still years ago, by vote of the trustees of the college, he was restored to his place in the class, and has been enrolled among the alumni."

Judge Sedgwick, under date Sharon, July 3d, writes:

"I have your favor asking me to give you some of my recollections of the college life of my classmate W. C. Bryant. It gives me great pleasure to comply with your request, so far as I am able; but the short time during which he remained a member of the college could not be productive of many events of very great interest. Since his decease, many incorrect statements in relation to this portion of his history have gone forth, most of them intimating that he was a member of the college for two years. The truth is that, having entered the sophomore class in October, 1810, and then having continued his membership for two terms, he took a dismission in May, 1811, intending to complete his collegiate education at Yale College. As stated above, he entered our class at the commencement of the sophomore year. His room-mate was John Avery, of Conway, Mass., who was some eight years his senior in age. Bryant had not then attained to the physical dimensions which he afterwards reached, but his bodily structure was remarkably regular and systematic. He had a prolific growth of dark brown hair, and I do not remember ever to have known a person in whom the progress of years made so great a difference in personal appearance as it did in the case of Mr. Bryant. I met him twice near the close of his life at Williams College Commencements, and if I had not seen pictures of him as he appeared in old age, I would hardly have been persuaded of his identity with the Bryant I knew in early life.

"When he entered college, it was known that he was the reputed author of two or three short poems which had recently been published, and which indicated decidedly promising talent on the part of their author. When spoken to in relation to these poetical effusions, he was reticent and modest, and in fact his modesty in everything was a peculiar trait of his character. It was very difficult to obtain from him any specimens of his talent as a poet. One exercise demanded of the students was the occasional writing of a composition, to be read to the tutor in presence of the class, and once Bryant, in fulfilling this requirement, read a short poem which received the decided approval of the tutor, and once he translated one of the Odes of Horace which he showed to a few personal friends. Those were the only examples of his poetry that I now remember of his furnishing during his college life. It may be stated here that the tutor who instructed Mr. Bryant in college was the Rev. Orange Lyman, who was afterwards the Presbyterian clergyman at Vernon, Oneida County, N. Y.

"Bryant, during all his college experience, was remarkably quiet, pleasant, and unobtrusive in his manners, and studious in the literary course. His lessons were all well mastered, and not a single event occurred during his residence which received the least disapproval of the faculty.

"Your letter reminds me of the fact that there are but very few persons left who knew Mr. Bryant in college. The Flood of Years' has swept them all away except the Rev

Herman Halsey, of the class of 1811, who yet survives in Western New York, and my classmate the Rev. E. D. Barrett, of Missouri, and myself. If I live to see the first day of September, I shall have completed eighty-three years of life."

The Rev. E. D. Barrett, under date Sedalia, Missouri, July 9th, writes:

"I well remember Bryant's first appearance at college in my sophomore year. Many of the class were assembled in one of our rooms when he presented himself. A friendly greeting passed round the circle, and all seemed to enjoy the arrival of the young stranger and poet. News of Mr. Bryant's precocious intellect, his poetical genius, and his literary taste had preceded his arrival. He was looked up to with great respect, and regarded as an honor to the class of which he had become a member, and to the college which had now received him as his alma mater. I was the poet's senior by more than four years, having been born in January, 1790, and am, with the single exception of Charles F. Sedgwick, the sole survivor of the Williams College class of 1813."

No American poet has equalled Bryant in early poetic development. In that particular he surpassed Pope and Cowley and Byron.* At the age of nine we find him. composing tolerably clever verses, and four years later writing "The Embargo," a political as well as a poetical satire upon the Jeffersonian party of that day. The poem is also remarkable as having manifested at that early age a political order of mind which continued to develop in an equal ratio with his poetical nature through iife. That mind, indeed, taking higher range, was not active in the turmoils and schemes of politicians; but it investigated the great questions of political economy, and grappled with principles of the gravest moment to society and humanity.

"The Embargo; or, Sketch of the Times, a Satire," we could easily imagine had been written in 1878, instead of seventy-one years ago, when, our fathers tell us, demagogism was unknown:

"E'en while I sing, see Faction urge her claim,
Mislead with falsehood, and with zeal inflame;
Lift her black banner, spread her empire wide,
And stalk triumphant with a Fury's stride!
She blows her brazen trump, and at the sound
A motley throng obedient flock around:
A mist of changing hue around she flings,
And darkness perches on her dragon wings.'

This poem, printed in Boston, attracted the public attention, and the edition was soon sold. To the second edition, containing "The Spanish Revolution" and several other juvenile pieces,† was prefixed this curious advertisement, dated February,

1809:

* The Saturday Review of June 22d says, "The death of Bryant does not indeed deprive America of her oldest poet-for the venerable Dana still survives-but even Mr. Dana can hardly have published verses earlier than the 'Infantalia' of Mr. Bryant. He lisped in numbers which were duly printed when he was but ten years of age, and in his early lines, published in 1804, shows a precocity as great as that of the late Bishop of St. David's”—Dr. Connop Thirlwall.

Mr. Bryant, in a note to the writer, says, Embargo' did not contain any other poems.

"the first edition of my poem called 'The They were added in the second edition."

"A doubt having been intimated in the Monthly Anthology of June last whether a youth of thirteen years could have been the author of this poem, in justice to his merits, the friends of the writer feel obliged to certify the fact from their personal knowledge of himself and his family, as well as his literary improvement and extraordinary talents. They would premise that they do not come uncalled before the public to bear this testimony: they would prefer that he should be judged by his works without favor or affection. As the doubt has been suggested, they deem it merely an act of justice to remove it; after which they leave him a candidate for favor in common with other literary adventurers. They therefore assure the public that Mr. Bryant, the author, is a native of Cummington, in the county of Hampshire, and in the month of November last arrived at the age of fourteen years. The facts can be authenticated by many of the inhabitants of that place, as well as by several of his friends who give this notice. And if it be deemed worthy of further inquiry, the printer is enabled to disclose their names and places of residence."

66

In September, 1817, appeared in the North American Review the poem entitled 'Thanatopsis," which Professor Wilson said “ was alone sufficient to establish the author's claims to the honors of genius." It was written in a few weeks, in his eighteenth year,* and but slightly retouched during the time that elapsed between its composition and its first appearance in print. The poem created a marked sensation at the time of its appearance, not unlike that caused by the publication of Halleck's "Marco Bozzaris," a few years later. Richard H. Dana was then a member of the committee which conducted the Review, and received the manuscript poems "Thanatopsis" and the "Inscription on the Entrance to a Wood." The former was understood to have been written by Dr. Bryant, and the latter by his son. When Dana learned the name, and heard that the author of "Thanatopsis" was a member of the State legislature, he proceeded to the senate chamber to observe the new poet. He saw there a man of dark complexion, with iron-gray hair, thick eyebrows, well-developed forehead, with an intellectual expression in which, however, he failed to find

When Bryant in

He went away puzzled and mortified at his lack of discernment. 1821 delivered at Harvard University his didactic poem entitled "The Ages"-a comprehensive poetical essay reviewing the world's progress in a panoramic view of the ages, and glowing with a prophetic vision of the future of America-Dana

* In a letter to the writer, dated March 15th, 1869, Mr. Bryant says, "I return your article, the great fault of which is too kind an appreciation of its subject. I am not certain that the poem entitled 'Thanatopsis' was not written a year earlier than you have made it; indeed I am much inclined to think it was in my eighteenth year. I was not a college student at the time, though I was pursuing college studies with a view of entering Yale College, having taken a dismission from Williams College for the purpose, which, however, was never accomplished."

The poem may be found on p. 308.

alluded in complimentary terms to Dr. Bryant's "Thanatopsis," and then learned for the first time that the son was the author of both

poems.

It is related that when the father showed a copy of "Thanatopsis" in manuscript, before its publication, to a lady well qualified to judge of its merits, simply saying, "Here are some lines that our Willie has been writing," she read the poem, raised her eyes to the father's face, and burst into tears, in which Dr. Bryant, a somewhat reserved and silent man, was not ashamed to join. "And no wonder," continues the writer; "it must have seemed a mystery that in the bosom of eighteen had grown up thoughts that even in boyhood shaped themselves into solemn harmonies, majestic as the diapason of ocean, fit for a temple-service beneath the vault of heaven."

Mr. Bryant continued his classical and mathematical studies at home with a view to entering Yale College; but, abandoning this purpose, he became a law student in the office of Judge Howe, of Worthington, afterwards completing his course of legal study with William Baylies, of West Bridgewater. He was admitted to the bar at Plymouth in 1815, and began practice at Plainfield, where he remained one year and then removed to Great Barrington (all these towns being in the State of Massachusetts). At Great Barrington he made the acquaintance of the author Catherine M. Sedgwick, who afterwards dedicated to him her novel, "Redwood," and of Miss Frances Fairchild. The lovely qualities of this latter lady the young lawyer celebrated in verses hich, for simple purity and delicate imagery, are most characteristic of our poet's genius. As they are not elsewhere given in the "Library," it will be of interest to read them here, in connection with the incidents of their origin:

66

Miss Fairchild became Mr. Bryant's wife in 1821, and for more than twoscore years was the " 'good angel of his life." She is mentioned in many of the poet's stanzas. "The Future Life" is addressed to her. "It was written," says Mr. Bryant in a note to me, during the lifetime of my wife and some twenty years after our marriage that is to say, about 1840, or possibly two or three years after." "The Life that Is" was also inspired by Mrs. Bryant, the poet having written it on the occasion of her recovery from a serious illness in Italy in 1858. It is of so personal a character that the author hesitated about publishing it.

"Twice wert thou given me; once in thy fair prime,
Fresh from the fields of youth, when first we met,
And all the blossoms of that hopeful time

Clustered and glowed where'er thy steps were set.

"And now, in thy ripe autumn, once again

Given back to fervent prayers and yearnings strong,

From the drear realm of sickness and of pain

When we had watched, and feared, and trembled long."

66

A few months after the young poet's marriage a small volume of forty-four dingy pages was published by Hilliard & Metcalf, of Cambridge, Mass., entitled "Poems by William Cullen Bryant." A copy is now lying before me. It contains The Ages, ""To a Waterfowl, ""Translation of a Fragment of Simonides," "Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood," "The Yellow Violet," 'Song,' "Green River," and "Thanatopsis." In this rare little volume the first and last paragraphs of the latter poem appear as they now stand, the version originally published in the North American Review having commenced with the lines,

"Yet a few days, and thee

The all-beholding sun shall see no more
In all his course;"

and ended with the words,

"And make their bed with thee."

Last winter I met Mr. Bryant in a Broadway bookstore and showed him a copy of this early edition of his poetical writings, which the dealer in literary wares had He laughingly remarked, "Well, that's more than I re

just sold for ten dollars.

ceived for its contents."

*To be found on page 263.