Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 02.djvu/31

 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

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