William Cullen Bryant

Preface

If there is any excuse for this publication, it must be found in the fact that I was associated with Mr. Bryant for many years in the management of " The Evening Post " newspaper, my connection with it commencing at about the same period of life as his ; in the fact that we there contracted personal relations which he was pleased late in life to crown by naming me one of the executors of his will; and finally in the hope I entertain that a compendious and comparatively inexpensive sketch of his instructive career may reach a class, not inconsiderable in numbers, who have neither the leisure nor opportunities for perusing the elaborate and scholarly biography by Mr. Godwin.

Whatever may be the imperfections of this work, — and no one is likely to be more sensible of them than I am, — I permit myself to indulge the hope that in quarters where the nature and importance of Bryant's life-work are little known

VI PREFACE.

or imperfectly appreciated, it may assist to awaken a curiosity which will not be satisfied until the name of Bryant has become a household word, and his example the very lowest standard of public and private morals in any American family.

The Squirrels, February 3, 1890.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Ancestry 1

II. School-Days 8

Chapter I. Ancestry

Early in the summer of 1817, a package of manuscript poems was left at the office of the " North American Review" x without their author's name or any intimation of their real parentage. In due time they found their way into the hands of Mr. William Phillips, one of the editors of the " Review," to whom they were addressed.

No sooner had he finished their perusal — such is the tradition — than he seized his hat and set out in hot haste for Cambridge, to submit them to his editorial colleagues, Richard H. Dana and Edward T. Channing, who with Mr. Phillips constituted the Editorial Trinity to whom the management of the " Review " was then confided.

They listened while the manuscript was read, and what little was known of its history was recapitulated to them. " Ah, Phillips,' f said Dana at last, his face breaking the while into a skeptical

1 This Review was published in Boston, and at this time was but two years old.

smile, " you have been imposed upon. No one on this side of the Atlantic is capable of writing such verse." Mr. Dana's view seemed to have so many presumptions in its favor that he set out at once to Boston to investigate the subject, with the aid of such clues as the package itself afforded. The final result of his inquiries was that Phillips, though under an erroneous impression as to the author, had not been imposed upon as to its American genesis.

The verses which had produced such a fluttering among the presiding justices of our highest literary tribunal in those days were not an imported article, still less the work of any American literary notability of the period, but of a country lad of only seventeen years, residing at Cummington, in the western part of Massachusetts, who had never been out of his native county in his life. One of the poems was entitled u Thanatopsis." It appeared in the September number of the " North American Review" for 1817, and proved to be not only the finest poem which had yet been produced on this continent, but one of the most remarkable poems ever produced at such an early age, and a poem which would have added to the fame of almost any poet of any age, while it would have detracted from the fame of none.

From the day this poem appeared, the name of its author, which till then had scarcely been heard farther from home than the range of the human voice, was classed among the most cherished liter-

ANCESTRY. 3

ary assets of the nation. Like the mythic Hermes, who before the sun had reached its zenith on the day of his birth had stolen and slaughtered the cattle of Apollo, young William Cullen Bryant, with scarcely less startling precocity, before he was out of his teens had possessed himself of Apollo's lyre, and established himself as the undisputed laureate of America.

One of the wisest of Spanish proverbs says, 1 " There is little curiosity about the pedigree of a good man."

There certainly is no higher patent of nobility than goodness, and yet the biographer cannot help dwelling with satisfaction upon the fact that the gifted bard whose career is to be the theme of the following pages was descended through both his parents from passengers in the Mayflower, the oldest and noblest pedigree of which our republican heralds take any note. One of these ancestors, Josiah Snell, married Anna Alden, the granddaughter of Captain John Alden of the Mayflow r er party and Priscilla Mullins, whose story is so sw T eetly told by Longfellow. 2

The first of the name in this country and founder of the family, Stephen Bryant, was also one of the Mayflower party. The poet's great

2 '• I cannot refer to this poem," says Mr. Godwin, "without remarking how much it adds to our interest in John and Priscilla to know that our two earliest and most eminent poets, Bryant and Longfellow, were descended from them." — Godwin's Life, i. 50.

grandfather, Ichabod Bryant, was noted for his gigantic size and strength. His grandfather, Dr. Philip Bryant, who was a physician, lived to the age of eighty-five, and visited his patients till within a fortnight of his death. It is related of the poet's uncle, Ebenezer Snell, Jr., that while at work in his father's cornfield, hearing unusual sounds he put his ear to the ground and recognized the thundering roar of distant cannon. It was the memorable battle of Bunker Hill. He enlisted at once as a volunteer, and later had the distinguished privilege of witnessing the surrender of Burgoyne at Saratoga.

Dr. Peter Bryant, the father of William Cullen, in defiance of obstacles and privations in early life to which a feeble nature must have succumbed, attained an honorable rank as a physician and surgeon, was fond of books, was well read in his profession according to the standard of the time, had a more than elementary acquaintance with some of the ancient and modern tongues, delighted in poetry and music, played the violin, and was sufficiently handy with tools to make for himself a bass-viol, upon which he also learned to play.

His son has described him as a man of a mild and indulgent temper, somewhat silent, though not hesitating in conversation, not thrifty in a worldly sense, his patients usually paying him whatever they pleased. He was careful, however, and scrupulously neat in his attire, and " had a certain metropolitan air." In figure he was square built,

ANCESTRY. 5

with muscular arms and legs, and in " his prime was possessed of great strength." He took a lively interest in politics, and belonged to the party called Federalists, who at that time were strong in Massachusetts, but in the Union at large in a minority. He represented Cummington for several successive years in both branches of the Massachusetts legislature.

Of his mother, Sarah Snell, the daughter of Ebenezer Snell, of Cummington, the poet has left the following graphic portrait : —

" She was born in North Bridge water, and was brought by her father when a little child to Cummington. She was tall, of an erect figure, and until rather late in life of an uncommonly youthful appearance. She was a person of excellent practical sense, of a quick and sensitive moral judgment, and had no patience with any form of deceit or duplicity. Her prompt condemnation of injustice, even in those instances in which it is tolerated by the world, made a strong impression upon me in early life, and if in the discussion of public questions 'I have in my riper age endeavored to keep in view the great rule of right without much regard to persons, it has been owing in a great degree to the force of her example, which taught me never to countenance a wrong because others did. My mother was a careful economist, which the circumstances of her family compelled her to be, and by which she made some amends for my father's want of attention to the main chance. She had a habit of keeping a diary, in which the simple occupations of the day and the occurrences in which the family or the neighborhood had an interest were noted down."

Having been taken to a new settlement when she was only six years old, Mrs. Bryant had enjoyed few of the advantages of a school-taught education. She had managed, nevertheless, to acquire a creditable mastery of the rudimentary branches of learning. As a wife and mother she did most of the household work. She spun and wove, cut and made most of the clothing of her large family, wove her own carpets, made her own candles, taught her children to read and write, and was one of the first at the bedside of the sick and afflicted of her neighborhood. She took a lively interest in public affairs, both state and national, and exerted no inconsiderable influence in promoting township and neighborhood improvements. She w r as, in fact, a housewife fashioned on the old Hebrew model : —

" The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her. She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life.

" She seeketh wool, and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands.

u She riseth also while it is yet night, and giveth meat to her household, and a portion to her maidens.

" She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff.

ANCESTRY. 7

H She stretcheth out her hand to the poor ; yea, she reacheth forth her hands to the needy.

" Strength and honor are her clothing ; and she shall rejoice in time to come.

u She openeth her mouth with wisdom ; and in her tongue is the law of kindness.

" She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness.

" Her children rise up, and call her blessed ; her husband also, and he praiseth her." l

1 Proverbs xxxi.

CHAPTEE II.

SCHOOL-DAYS.

1794-1810.

William Cullen Bryant, the second of seven children of Dr. Peter and Sarah Snell Bryant, was born at Cummington, 1 in the county of Hampshire,

1 In the Massachusetts Historical Society Collection, vol, xx. p. 41, may be found the following account of Cummington as it was in 1820: —

1 'Name derived from Col. Cummings (John) of Concord, who purchased this town of the General Court June 2d, 1762.

1 ' Situated on a ridge of mountains and owing to the abrupt declivities of the hills, the pastures and woods may be viewed as a picture.

il Westfield River, a considerable stream, rising in Windsor runs through this town in a southeast direction, and empties into the Connecticut at Westfield.

" The inhabitants have a library of 72 volumes. The largest private library belongs to Peter Bryant, Esq. , and contains about 700 volumes.

" Hon. Peter Bryant, member of Massachusetts Medical Society, died of pulmonary consumption at his residence March 19, 1820, in the 53d year of his age. Born at Bridge water August 12, 1767. Studied physic and surgery at Norton with Dr. Prilete, a French practitioner. When about twenty-two years of age came to Cummington, where he settled and acquired a very extensive and lucrative practice and a reputation truly enviable. He was also in the habit of instructing students in medicine. These were attracted from different parts of the country in the State of Massachusetts, on the third day of the month of November, 1794. Our republic, consisting then of only fifteen States, was not quite ten years old ; the second term of oar first President had not expired; Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, Adams, Gallatin, and Madison were foremost among the statesmen to whom the nation had confided its political destinies ; they were also the models it commended to the young men of that and suc= ceeding generations. Europe was convulsed by the new idea of human rights which for the first time received national sanction and guaranties from her wronged and exiled offspring on this side the Atlantic, while Kant, Goethe, Schiller, and Burns were in an unconscious way doing what in them lay to reconcile her people to greater social and political changes which were impending.

William Cullen was thought to be a precocious child. On his first birthday there is a record that " he could go alone, and when but a few days more than sixteen months old, that he knew all the letters of the alphabet."

by his well-selected library, his extensive practice, and his general reputation. The advantages enjoyed at this school are thought to have been superior to any in the western part of the State.

' ' In 1806 Williams College conferred on him the degree of Master of Arts, University of Cambridge that of Doctor of Physic 1818.

According to the Census of 1820 population of Cummington 1060."

Cummington was incorporated June 23, 1779. The first town meeting was held December 20th, same year. At this meeting Ebenezer Snell among others was elected one of the selectmen and assessors.

Though apt to learn, he is reported to have been " puny and very delicate in body, and of a painfully delicate nervous temperament."

Before he had completed his fourth year he was sent to the district school, " but not with much regularity."

" I have no recollection," he has told us, " of irksomeness in studying my lessons or in the discipline of the school. I only recollect gathering spearmint by the brooks in company with my fellow scholars, taking off my hat at their bidding in a light summer shower that the rain might fall on my hair and make it grow, and that I once awoke from a sound nap to find myself in the lap of the schoolmistress, and was vexed to be thus treated like a baby."

In the spring of 1799, Dr. Bryant went to live at the homestead of his wife's father, Ebenezer Snell, a property which is still in the family. While there William went with his elder brother Austin to a district school kept in a little house which then stood near by on the bank of the rhailet which flows by the dwelling. The instruction which he received there was of the most elementary character, stopping at grammar, unless we include theology as learned from the Westminster Catechism, which was one of the Saturday exercises.

" I was an excellent, almost an infallible speller," he tells us, " and ready in geography ; but in the Catechism, not understanding the abstract terms, I made but little progress." He was also one of the fleetest runners in the school, and not inexpert at playing ball, though his frame was too light for distinction in some of the rougher games.

In the year 1808, and in the twelfth year of his age, it having been decided that he was worth a collegiate education, he was sent to live with his uncle, the Rev. Thomas Snell, at North Brookfield, to perfect himself in Latin. In eight months he had mastered all the language then required for admission to the Sophomore class at Williams College, and on the 9th of August, 1809, he was transferred to the care of the Rev. Moses Halleck, in the neighboring township of Plainfield, to be equipped with the requisite knowledge of Greek. He always thought himself most fortunate in his instructors, especially in the moral influence which they exerted upon him at that tender age.

" My Uncle Snell," he tells us, " was a man of fine personal appearance and great dignity of character and manner, the slightest expression of whose wish had the force of command. He was a rigid moralist, who never held parley with wrong in any form, and was an enemy of every kind of equivocation. As a theologian, he was' trained in the school of Dr. Hopkins, which then, I think, included most of the country ministers of the Congregational Church in Massachusetts. The Rev. Moses Halleck was somewhat famous for preparing youths for college, and his house was called by some the Bread and Milk College, for the reason that bread and milk was a frequent dish at the good man's table. And a good man he really was, kind and gentle and of the most scrupulous conscientiousness. ' I value Mr. Halleck,' my grandfather used to say, ' his life is so exemplary.' He was paid a dollar a week for my board and instruction. ' I can afford it for that,' he was in the habit of saying, ' and it would not be honest to take more.' "

With such guides and under such influences young Bryant made marvelous proficiency. He went through the Colloquies of Corderius, the .ZEneid, Eclogues, and Georgics of Virgil, and a volume of the Select Orations of Cicero with his uncle Snell in eight months, and in two months with the Rev. Mr. Halleck, " knew the Greek Testament as if it had been English." He then returned to his father's house to perfect his preparations for admission to college by himself, with the exception of two months in the following spring spent with Mr. Halleck in the study of mathematics.

Bryant began to rhyme at almost as early a period of life as a chicken begins to scratch, and when scarce ten years old received a ninepenny coin from his grandfather for a rhymed version of the first chapter of the book of Job. The same year he wrote and declaimed a rhymed description of the school he attended, which was thought worthy of a place in the columns of the county paper. Though these early verses gave no particular poetical promise, they were remarkable for two characteristics by which all his poetry was destined to be distinguished : the correctness both of the measure and the rhyme.

At this early age he had already conceived the hope and was inflamed by the ambition to be a poet. There seemed to him to be no other kind of success in life so desirable. He greedily devoured whatever poetry fell in his way, and even made the favors of the muse one of the subjects of his daily devotions.

" In a community so religious," he relates, " I naturally acquired habits of devotion. My mother and grandmother had taught me, as soon as I could speak, the Lord's Prayer and other little petitions suited to childhood, and I may be said to have been nurtured on Watts' devout poems composed for children. The prayer of the publican in the New Testament was often in my mouth, and I heard every variety of prayer at the Sunday evening services conducted by laymen in private houses. But I varied in my private devotions from these models in one respect, namely, in supplicating, as I often did, that I might receive the gift of poetic genius and write verses that might endure. I presented this petition in those early years with great fervor, but after a time I discontinued the practice, I can hardly say why. As a general rule, whatever I might innocently wish I did not see why I should not ask, and I was a firm believer in the efficacy of prayer. The Calvinistic system of divinity I adopted, of course, as I heard nothing else taught from the pulpit, and supposed it to be the accepted belief of the religious world."

Bryant has recorded the delight with which in those early days he and his brothers welcomed the translation of the Iliad by Pope, when it was added to their household library. He thought them the finest verses that had ever been written, not a very surprising estimate for a lad whose poetical diet had consisted mainly of the hymns of Dr. Watts. Already, too, his peculiar susceptibility to the poetical aspects of the varied phenomena of nature was fully devoloped.

"I was always," he says, "from my earliest years, a delighted observer of external nature, — the splendors of a winter daybreak over the wide wastes of snow seen from our windows, the glories of the autumnal woods, the gloomy approaches of the thunderstorm and its departure amid sunshine and rainbows, the return of the spring with its flowers, and the first snow-fall of winter. The poets fostered this taste in me, and thoiigh at that time I rarely heard such things spoken of, it was none the less cherished in my secret mind."

The embargo laid upon all the ports of the republic at the suggestion of President Jefferson proved disastrous to many private interests in New England, and rendered the President and his party extremely unpopular in that section of the Union. Dr. Bryant was a zealous Federalist, and as he represented that party in the legislature for many years, a good deal of political reading of an inflammatory character naturally found its way into the Bryant household, and made all the boys more or less ardent partisans.

It had already become so much the habit of William Cullen to reduce to verse whatever interested him deeply, that it was probably without surprise that his father learned his son had found relaxation from the study of Virgil and Cicero in inditing a satire against democracy and its accredited chieftain.

The tone of his verses harmonized so completely with the temper of the Federalists of Massachusetts in those days, that his father encouraged him to extend them until they numbered some five hundred lines, which the proud father took to Boston and had published in a little pamphlet, partly no doubt to indulge his zeal as a politician, but more to indulge his fatherly pride. 1

Some disparaging lines about President Jefferson, concluding with a recommendation to him to resign his office, have given to this poem a notoriety which it never would have acquired but for the fact that Mr. Bryant lived to become one of

1 This poem appeared in a thin pamphlet under the title of The Embargo, or Sketches of the Times. A Satire by a Youth of Thirteen. Boston. Printed for the purchasers, 1808. It sold promptly, and received enough praise from the press to have turned a lighter head than Bryant's.

The prompt sale of this satire encouraged the father to publish a second edition the following year, with the addition of some half-dozen shorter poems, and the author's name on the titlepage. In his mature years Bryant declined any responsibility for these juvenilia.

the most influential champions of the so-called Jeffersonian democracy, and for the lack of more effective weapons, it delighted the Federal press occasionally to quote these lines about Jefferson, omitting the fact that they were written when the author was a schoolboy in roundabouts,

" And thou the scorn of every patriot's name Thy country's ruin and thy council's shame ! Poor servile thing ! derision of the brave ! Who erst from Tarleton fled to Carter's Cave ; Thou who when menaced by perfidious Gaul, Did'st prostrate to her whisker' d minion fall; And when our cash her empty bags supplied Did'st meanly strive the foul disgrace to hide ; Go, wretch, resign the Presidential chair, Disclose thy secret measures, foul or fair. Go search with curious eye for horrid frogs Mid the wild wastes of Louisianian bogs ; Or where Ohio rolls his turbid stream, Dig for huge bones, thy glory and thy theme. Go scan, Philosophist, thy Sally's charms, And sink supinely in her sable arms ; But quit to abler hands the helm of State.''

Not discouraged by Jefferson's neglect to resign the presidency at his bidding, the young poet is next found disciplining Napoleon, who also had incurred the censure of the good people of Hampshire County. The genius of Columbia is invoked, and ten stanzas only are required to bring " the Eastern despot's dire career " to an ignominious close.

While neither the embargo nor any of the forty or fifty smaller pieces of verse which date from his school-days were thought by their author to be worthy of appearing in any collection of his writings, they were justly regarded by his contemporaries as " the flowering laurel on his brow." Though but " surface indications " of vernal fertility, they were conspicuous for their correctness both in measure and rhyme, about which he was always singularly conscientious. Nor had his time been lost upon them, for they had given him an uncommon dexterity in handling the tools of the poet. Had he not acquired this dexterity early in life and before he was thrown upon his own resources for a livelihood, it may be doubted if he would now be most widely known to the world as a poet.

Bryant entered the sophomore class at Williams College on the 9th of October, 1810. " He was well advanced in his sixteenth year," says one of his classmates, "tail and slender in his physical structure, and having a prolific growth of dark brown hair." He was quick and dexterous in his movements, and his younger brother used to brag to other boys about his " stout brother," but afterwards learned that his strength was not so remarkable as his skill and alertness in the use of it. He passed also for being comely in his appearance.

Dr. Fitch was President of Williams College when Bryant entered, and was the sole instructor of the senior class. Professor Chester Dewey taught the junior class, and two recent graduates superintended the recitations of the two lower classes. As these four gentlemen represented the entire educational force of this seat of learning at that time, we are not surprised to learn from the poet himself " that the standard of scholarship was so low that many graduates of those days would be no more than prepared for admission as freshmen now." 1

Before the close of his first year he asked from the college an honorable dismission. His purpose then was to enter Yale at the commencement of the next collegiate year. 2 The reason assigned for this step was the example of his room-mate, to whom he w T as greatly attached, and who had formed the purpose of going to Yale at the same time. From some verses, however, which he delivered before one of the college societies, the existence of motives less complimentary to the college were disclosed. They show that he was satisfied neither with the climate, town, college, nor its authorities. The strength of his feeling upon the subject may be inferred from the following extract : —

" Why should I sing- these reverend domes Where Science rests in grave repose ?

1 1874-1875.

2 In a note addressed to the Rev. H. W. Powers, written only a few months before his death, in 187S, Mr. Bryant said : —

" I entered Williams College a year in advance, that is to say, I was matriculated as sophomore, never having been a freshman. I remained there two terms only, but I pursued my studies with the intent to become a student at Yale, for which I prepared myself, intending to enter the junior class there. My father, however, was not able, as he told me, to bear the expense. I had received an honorable dismission from Williams College, and was much disappointed at being obliged to end my college course in that way."

All me ! their terrors and their glooms Only the wretched inmate knows.

Where through the horror breathing hall The pale-faced moping students crawl Like spectral monuments of woe : Or, drooping, seek the unwholesome cell Where shade and dust and cobwebs dwell, Dark, dirty, dank and low.' '

The facts were that the college was poor, the students were generally poor, the instruction in the main must have been poor, and, to a person brought up as Bryant had been, the diet and domestic accommodations seemed and doubtless were poor.

" When the time drew near that I should apply for admission at Yale," says Bryant, " my father told me that his means did not allow him to maintain me at New Haven, and that I must give up the idea of a full course of education. I have always thought this unfortunate for me, since it left me but superficially acquainted with several branches of education which a college course would have enabled me to master and would have given me greater readiness in their application."

We only feel the want of what we have not, commonly overlooking what Providence may have substituted in its place, and it was natural for Bryant to regret his ignorance of what he might have learned in the two succeeding years at Yale ; but I have little doubt that he passed that time far more profitably than he was likely to have passed it in any American college of that period, or, indeed, perhaps of any period. He was at home, and surrounded, as he would not have been at college, with the choicest domestic influences, and was as diligent a student as he could or should have been anywhere. If he lacked some advantages, he secured others of equal or greater value, among which the employments of the farm and an active open-air life were to him of prime importance. 1