n emotions.

To Bryant, beyond all other modern poets, the earth was a theatre upon
which the great drama of life was everlastingly played. The remembrance
of this fact is his inspiration in "The Fountain," "An Evening Revery,"
"The Antiquity of Freedom," "The Crowded Street," "The Planting of the
Apple-Tree," "The Night Journey of a River," "The Sower," and "The Flood
of Years." The most poetical of Mr. Bryant's poems are, perhaps, "The
Land of Dreams," "The Burial of Love," "The May Sun sheds an Amber
Light," and "The Voice of Autumn;" and they were written in a succession
of happy hours, and in the order named. Next to these pieces, as
examples of pure poetry, should be placed "Sella" and "The Little People
of the Snow," which are exquisite fairy fantasies. The qualities by
which Mr. Bryant's poetry are chiefly distinguished are serenity and
gravity of thought; an intense though repressed recognition of the
mortality of mankind; an ardent love for human freedom; and unrivaled
skill in painting the scenery of his native land. He had no superior in
this walk of poetic art--it might almost be said no equal, for his
descriptions of nature are never inaccurate or redundant. "The
Excursion" is a tiresome poem, which contains several exquisite
episodes. Mr. Bryant knew how to write exquisite episodes, and to omit
the platitudes through which we reach them in other poets.

It is not given to many poets to possess as many residences as Mr.
Bryant, for he had three--a town-house in New York, a country-house,
called "Cedarmere," at Roslyn, Long Island, and the old homestead of the
Bryant family at Cummington. He passed the winter months in New York,
and the summer and early autumn months at his country-houses. No
distinguished man in America was better known by sight than he.

"O good gray head that all men knew"

rose unbidden to one's lips as he passed his fellow-pedestrians in the
streets of the great city, active, alert, with a springing step and a
buoyant gait. He was seen in all weathers, walking down to his office in
the morning, and back to his house in the afternoon--an observant
antiquity, with a majestic white beard, a pair of sharp eyes, and a face
which, noticed closely, recalled the line of the poet:

"A million wrinkles carved his skin."

Mr. Bryant had a peculiar talent, in which the French excel--the talent
of delivering discourses upon the lives and writings of eminent men; and
he was always in reque