oem addressed to
President Jefferson, because of his part in passing the Embargo Act by
which New England commerce had been greatly injured. These verses were
published and met with a ready sale. But far more remarkable as an early
expression of genius was _Thanatopsis_, written several months before
Bryant's eighteenth birthday. This poem deals with the subject of death
with such deep thoughtfulness and in such a stately and powerful style
that although it did not appear until six years later, it was even then
believed to have been written by the poet's father, who had sent it to
the publisher.

Though he was thoughtful beyond his years and had shown unusual poetic
power, young Bryant was in other ways quite an ordinary boy. He was
quiet and studious in the school room, but was active enough in the
games played outside. Of the sports enjoyed by himself and the other
boys of the district school, he writes: "We amused ourselves with
building dams across the rivulet, and launching rafts made of old boards
on the collected water; and in winter, with sliding on the ice and
building snow barricades, which we called forts, and, dividing the boys
into two armies, and using snowballs for ammunition, we contended for
the possession of these strongholds. I was one of their swiftest runners
in the race, and not inexpert at playing ball, but, being of a slight
frame, I did not distinguish myself in these sieges." Sometimes, on long
evenings, Cullen and his elder brother Austin would play that they were
the heroes of whom they had read in the _Iliad_, and, fitted out with
swords and spears and homemade armor, they would enact in the barn the
great battles of the Trojan War.

[Illustration: WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT
1794-1878]

Not only the _Iliad_, but other carefully chosen works of literature
were discovered by the boy in his father's library, and he read widely
and well. It proved that this reading had to take the place of a much
hoped-for course at college. After attending Williams College for only
two terms, he left there, expecting to enter Yale, but was forced to
give up his plan, owing to his father's inability to supply him with the
necessary means. He did not let this great disappointment overcome him,
however, but a few months later began the study of law, with the result
that in 1815 he was admitted to the bar.

It is a fact well worth noting that at the very beginning of his career
as a lawyer, on the day when he was w