lenic element was still
visible in "The Greek Partisan" and "The Greek Boy," and the aboriginal
element in "The Disinterred Warrior." The large imagination of "The Hymn
to the North Star" was radiant in "The Firmament," and in "The Past."
Ardent love of nature found expressive utterance in "Lines on Revisiting
the Country," "The Gladness of Nature," "A Summer Ramble," "A Scene on
the Banks of the Hudson," and "The Evening Wind." The little book of
immortal dirges had a fresh leaf added to it in "The Death of the
Flowers," which was at once a pastoral of autumn and a monody over a
beloved sister. A new element appeared in "The Summer Wind," and was
always present afterward in Mr. Bryant's meditative poetry--the
association of humanity with nature--a calm but sympathetic recognition
of the ways of man and his presence on the earth. The power of
suggestion and of rapid generalization, which was the key-note of "The
Ages," lived anew in every line of "The Prairies," in which a series of
poems present themselves to the imagination as a series of pictures in a
gallery--pictures in which breadth and vigor of treatment and exquisite
delicacy of detail are everywhere harmoniously blended, and the unity of
pure Art is attained. It was worth going to the ends of the world to be
able to write "The Prairies."

Confiding in the discretion of his associate Mr. Leggett, and anxious to
escape from his daily editorial labors, Mr. Bryant sailed for Europe
with his family in the summer of 1834. It was his intention to perfect
his literary studies while abroad, and to devote himself to the
education of his children; but his intention was frustrated, after a
short course of travel in France, Germany, and Italy, by the illness of
Mr. Leggett, whose mistaken zeal in the advocacy of unpopular measures
had seriously injured the _Evening Post_. He returned in haste early in
1836, and devoted his time and energies to restoring the prosperity of
his paper. Nine years passed before he ventured to return to Europe,
though he managed to visit certain portions of his own country. His
readers tracked his journeys through the letters which he wrote to the
_Evening Post_, and which were noticeable for justness of observation
and clearness of expression. A selection from Mr. Bryant's foreign and
home letters was published in 1852, under the title of "Letters of a
Traveler."

The life of a man of letters is seldom eventful. There are, of course,
exception