sence of the Master, the Minister of the parish, and a number of
private gentlemen." They were printed on the 18th of March, 1807, in the
_Hampshire Gazette_, from which these particulars are derived, and which
was favored with other contributions from the pen of "C. B."

The juvenile poems of William Cullen Bryant are as clever as those of
Chatterton, Pope, and Cowley; but they are in no sense original, and it
would have been strange if they had been. There was no original writing
in America at the time they were written; and if there had been, it
would hardly have commended itself to the old-fashioned taste of Dr.
Bryant, to whom Pope was still a power in poetry, as Addison, no doubt,
was in prose. It was natural, therefore, that he should offer his boy to
the strait-laced Muses of Queen Anne's time; that the precocious boy
should lisp in heroic couplets, and that he should endeavor to be
satirical. Politics were running high in the first decade of the present
century, and the favorite bug-bear in New England was President
Jefferson, who in 1807 had laid an embargo on American shipping, in
consequence of the decrees of Napoleon, and the British orders in
council in relation thereto. This act was denounced, and by no one more
warmly than by Master Bryant, who made it the subject of a satire, which
was published in Boston in 1808. It was entitled "The Embargo; or,
Sketches of the Times," and was printed for the purchasers, who were
found in sufficient numbers to exhaust the first edition. It is said to
have been well received, but doubts were expressed as to whether the
author was really a youth of thirteen. His friends came to his rescue in
an "Advertisement," which was prefixed to a second edition of his
little _brochure_, published in the following year, and certified to his
age from their personal knowledge of himself and his family. They also
certified to his extraordinary talents, though they should prefer to
have him judged by his works, without favor or affection. They concluded
by stating that the printer was authorized to disclose their names and
places of residence.

The early poetical exercises of William Cullen Bryant, like those of all
young poets, were colored by the books which he read. Among these were
the works of Pope, as I have already intimated, and, no doubt, the works
of Cowper and Thomson. The latter, if they were in the library of Dr.
Bryant, do not appear to have impressed his son at this time;