Page:The Poets and Poetry of the West.djvu/207

 JOHN H. BRYANT. John Howard Bryant was born on the twenty-second day of July, 1807, at Cummington, Massachusetts. He applied himself in early life with much dihgence to mathematical studies and to the investigation of natural science, manifesting at the same time not only a love for poetical literature, but a pi'omising capacity for the writing of rhymes. His father, a man of decided character, as well as literary cul- ture, took pride in evidences of poetic ability which his sons early exhibited. He taught them the difference between true poetic feeling and the mere rhyming faculty, and they repaid his good care by producing, in boyhood, poems which have been pre- served for their excellence. At fourteen years of age (1809) William Cullen pub- lished " The Embargo and other Poems," at Boston. " Thanatopsis " was written when he was nineteen years old. John Howard's first published poem appeared in 1826, in the United States Revieio, of which his brother, William Cullen Bryant, was one of the editors. It was entitled " My Native Land," and it elicited much hearty encouragement for the young poet, both in New York city and in Boston — in which cities the Review was simultaneously published. Having been seized with the " Western fever," Mr. Bryant became a " squatter " in Bureau county, Illinois, in 1831. When the public lands of that part of the State came into market, he purchased a large farm, took to himself a wife, and has ever since been a resident of the county in which he was an " early settler." Mr. Bryant has been honored with many tokens of public confidence by the people among whom he resides. In 1842, he was elected a Representative to the State Leg- islature, from Bureau county, and, in 1852, was the candidate for Congress of the Freesoil party in the third Congressional District of Illinois. He has held several local offices of trust, and was, in 1858, a second time State Representative from Bureau county. Mr. Bryant, though an active and successful business man, conducting with energy ■ varied agricultural affairs, as well as taking lively interest in public concerns, has preserved the poetic taste and faculty, and redeemed the promise which his first production gave. In the " Poets and Poetry of America," Rufus Wilmot Gris- wold said : His poems .... have the same general characteristics as those of his brother. He is a lover of nature, and describes minutely and effectively. To him the wind and the stream ai-e ever musical, and the forests and prairies clothed in beauty. His versification is easy and correct, and his writings show him to be a man of taste and kindly feelings, and to have a mind stored with the best learning. In 1855, Mr. Bryant collected his poems in a duodecimo volume of ninety-three pages, wlrich was pubhshed by D. Appleton and Company, New York. (191)