A note in General James Grant Wilson's Bryant and his Friends, p. 42, reads: "The writer met Mr. Bryant in a bookstore in the winter of "78, and showed him a copy of this edition he had just purchased for $10. Mr. Bryant remarked, 'Well, that is more than I received for its contents.""

The poetry of the Gazette was republished under the title of Miscellaneous Poems in 1826. See criticisms in North American Review, vol. xxii, p. 43, 1826. Also Mr. Bryant's own criticism of the poems in New York Review, vol. i, p. 389, mentioning poems by H. W. L. (We know not who he is).

He did not at this time neglect his practise of law. He argued cases at Northampton, New Haven, and before the Supreme Court at Boston. Mr. Trueman Smith, at one time Senator from Connecticut, says that he was associated with Mr. Bryant in the conduct of an important trial at New Haven "in which he evinced the very highest learning, acumen, and assiduity."

For report of his last law case, see Massachusetts Reports, 2d Pickering, p. 320. He alleged the decision was not in accordance with equity, citing in proof one of the last cases in which he was employed. He lost his case on an appeal to the Supreme Court. (Poetical Works, vol. i, p. 99—I broke the spell that held me long.) Interesting data on this period will be found in Godwin's Life, pp. 202-204.

"His solitary brooding habits, his dislike of his occupation (law), his love of the thickets along Green River and the Housatonic, and his reticent, austere manner with strangers contrasted with his cheerful, entertaining, joyous ways among his friends. He had a strange fondness for talking with farmers, woodmen, and stage-drivers. He was a passionate botanist, and knew the name of every tree, flower, and spire of grass. In court he often lost his self-control when provoked by adversaries. He was punctual in going to church, but was terribly prone to pick the sermons all to pieces. A French officer of Napoleon's army, a friend of Lafayette, named Bounton, gave him lessons in French and fencing."

On May 11th of this year Thanatopsis was first published in the Evening Post, with editorial note by Mr. Coleman.

1825.

"Mr. Bryant visited New York in both January and February, 1825-'A literary adventurer' he describes himself. He was three days and nights making the journey by stage. The population of New York was then about 150,000. Broadway extended to Canal Street, the city limit. Then came orchards and fields. Greenwich village, about Twelfth Street, was a summer resort. The fashionable residences were around the Battery and the finest shops were in Maiden Lane.

"Mr. Bryant became joint editor with Mr. Henry J. Anderson of a new publication called The New York Review and Athenæum Magazine, the first number appearing in June. This publication was an amalgamation of the Atlantic Magazine, which had been started in 1824 by Robert C. Sands, edited by him for six months, and sold out to Henry J. Anderson, who was editing The Literary Review. The first number of The New York Review and Athenæum Magazine appeared May 1st, and contained a review of a poem by James A. Hillhouse, entitled Hadad, and an original poem by Bryant called A Song of Pitcairn's Island."

In July he visited Cummington, writing the poems The Skies and Lines on Revisiting the Country. In the autumn he prepared four lectures on poetry, and delivered them before the American Athenæum Society in April, 1826.

1826.

There had been for years in New York an institution called The American Academy of Art, of which Jonathan Trumbull was president, and of which Chancellor Livingston and De Witt Clinton and others were members. This association was managed by laymen, and the artists organized a drawing association, November 8th, which met in the old almshouse building behind the City Hall, January 18, 1826. This became the National Academy of the Arts of Design, with S. F. B. Morse as president. It opened schools and gave exhibitions. Mr. Bryant was appointed one of the professors and read to the classes five lectures on mythology, December, 1827;

repeated in February, 1828; January, 1829; and November, 1831.

Mr. Bryant contributed largely to The New York Review both poetry and prose, but the publication was not a success. It ended with the May number. It was republished from May 13th to August 26th, under the title The New York Literary Gazette and American Athenæum. This too proved a failure. It was then joined with The United States Literary Gazette of Boston, and reissued October 1st with the new title of The United States Review and Literary Gazette, under the joint editorship of James G. Carter in Boston (afterward of Charles Folsom) and William C. Bryant in New York. Mr. Bryant's contributions will be found under their appropriate head later on in this work. This Review ran until October, 1827, and then died a natural death.

Mr. Bryant renewed his license to practise law in the courts of New York in March, and was associated with Mr. Henry Sedgwick in the prosecution of a claim for the recovery of part of the fund raised for the Greeks. He was asked to become temporary editor of The Evening Post.

1827.

"As assistant editor of The Evening Post Mr. Bryant's life from this date became largely that of a journalist, and reference must be made to the columns of the above-mentioned paper for data of this period. In politics he was an ardent free trader, but was never an active politician.'

His poetical contributions to The United States Review and Literary Gazette in this year were few. He wrote a review of Dana's poems for The North American. (See No. 26, p. 239, 1827.)

In the latter part of this year the first volume of The Talisman was prepared under the joint editorship of R. C. Sands, G. C. Verplanck, and William C. Bryant. It was published in the name of an imaginary editor, Mr. Francis Herbert. The Talisman was continued in 1829-'30, three volumes in all, and republished in 1832 under the title of Miscellanies by G. C. Verplanck, Robert C. Sands, and

William C. Bryant. The contributions to The Talisman will be found under the proper dates in the Chronology of Bryant's Poems.

1828.

On the 8th of January an Ode was delivered by Mr. Bryant at the Jackson dinner in Masonic Hall, the Democratic meeting place. This was published in the columns of The Evening Post soon after.

1829.

Mr. Bryant became editor-in-chief of The Evening Post on the death of Mr. Coleman in July. For a time his interests were so concentrated on the management of his paper as to leave no time for poetic composition. After a visit to the prairies of the West in 1832 he wrote one poem, but nothing else for three years.

1831.

In this year he prepared a small volume of poems, containing all that he had written since the edition of 1831. This volume was most favorably received, and criticized by William J. Snelling and Henry W. Longfellow in The North American for April, 1832. See also H. W. Prescott in the July number.

1832.

At the suggestion of Mr. Verplanck a copy of the poems was sent to Washington Irving in London, and issued with a dedication to Samuel Rogers. For important letters on this subject, see pp. 264-274, Godwin's Life. To Dana he writes, "I printed a thousand copies, and more than half are disposed of." The reception of the poems in England was favorable. (See Foreign Quarterly Review, 1832, and Retrospective Review, vol. i, p. 311, 1824.) John Wilson in Blackwood's for April, 1832, was loudest in his praise.

In a letter to his brother under date of February 9, 1832, he says: "If it [the volume of poems] brings me two hundred or two hundred and fifty dollars, I shall think myself doing pretty well."

In a letter to Mr. Dana, October 8th, he says concerning his

visit to the prairies: "I have seen the great west (Illinois), where I ate corn bread and hominy; slept in log houses with twenty men and women and children all in the same room. At Jacksonville, where my two brothers live, I got on a horse and traveled a hundred miles to the northward over the immense prairies."

Before leaving for the west Mr. Bryant had arranged a volume of tales called The Sextad, from the number of authors engaged in it. Mr. Verplanck retired from the work, and the title was changed to Tales of the Glauber Spa, and published soon after his return. The five authors were Miss Sedgwick and Messrs. Sands, Leggett, Paulding, and Bryant; his own contributions consisting of two stories, Medfield and Skeleton's Cave.

Mr. Sands died very suddenly this year, December 17th, and Mr. Bryant wrote a short memoir of his life, which appeared in the first number of The Knickerbocker Magazine, 1833.

1833.

In this year Mr. Bryant wrote no poetry. In the summer he went to Canada, visiting Montreal and Quebec. Just before his departure he was asked to prepare an address on the occasion of a benefit to be given to Mr. William Dunlap. Charles Kemble, Fanny Kemble, and a young actor, Edwin Forrest, had volunteered to appear. Bryant, however, refused. Among his papers was found a prologue for a theater (not named). (See Godwin's Life, p. 293.)

Writing to Dana (p. 295 Godwin's Life), he says: "The edition of my poems by Bliss is sold, all but a handful of copies. ... I think of publishing another edition soon. . . .' ." On October 17, 1833, he writes to Dana: "Will you see your booksellers, Russell, Odiorne & Co., and ask whether they will give me $250 for one thousand copies of my book." November 2d he writes: "I have completed the bargain with Mr. Odiorne, and have given him my book with such corrections and additions as I have been able to make." This edition was published at Boston by Russell, Odiorne & Metcalf in 1834, and is nowhere mentioned in any bibliography of American poets.