s to the rule; for literature, like other polite professions,
is never without its disorderly followers. It is instructive to trace
their careers, which are usually short ones; but the contemplation of
the calm, well-regulated, self-respecting lives of the elder and wiser
masters is much more satisfactory. We pity the Maginns, and Mangans, and
Poes, whom we have always with us; but we admire and reverence such
writers as Wordsworth, and Thackeray, and Bryant, who dignify their high
calling. The last thirty years of the life of Mr. Bryant were devoid of
incidents, though one of them (1866) was not without the supreme
sorrow--death. He devoted himself to journalism as conscientiously as if
he still had his spurs to win, discussing all public questions with
independence and fearlessness; and from time to time, as the spirit
moved him, he added to our treasures of song, contributing to the
popular magazines of the period, and occasionally issuing these
contributions in separate volumes. He published "The Fountain and Other
Poems" in 1842; "The White-Footed Deer and Other Poems" in 1844; a
collected edition of his poems, with illustrations by Leutze, in 1846;
an edition in two volumes in 1855; "Thirty Poems" in 1866; and in 1876 a
complete illustrated edition of his poetical writings. To the honors
which these volumes brought him he added fresh laurels in 1870 and 1871
by the publication of his translation of the "Iliad" and the
"Odyssey"--a translation which was highly praised both at home and
abroad, and which, if not the best that the English language is capable
of, is, in many respects, the best which any English-writing poet has
yet produced.

There comes a day in the intellectual lives of most poets when their
powers cease to be progressive and productive, or are productive only in
the forms to which they have accustomed themselves, and which have
become mannerisms. It was not so with Mr. Bryant. He enjoyed the
dangerous distinction of proving himself a great poet at an early age;
he preserved this distinction to the last, for the sixty-four years
which elapsed between the writing of "Thanatopsis" and the writing of
"The Flood of Years" witnessed no decay of his poetic capacities, but
rather the growth and development of trains of thought and forms of
verse of which there was no evidence in his early writings. His
sympathies were enlarged as the years went on, and the crystal clearness
of his mind was colored with huma