he Yellow Violet_, a very
breath of the spring. This little book was given to the world in the
same year in which Cooper published _The Spy_ and Irving completed
_The Sketch Book_.

In 1825 Bryant removed to New York to assume the editorship of a
monthly review, to which he gave many of his best-known poems. A year
later he joined the staff of the _Evening Post_, with which he was
connected until his death.

From this time his life was that of a literary man. He made of the
_Evening Post_ a progressive, public-spirited newspaper, whose field
embraced every phase of American life. When he became its editor five
days were required for the reports of the Legislature at Albany
to reach New York, these being carried by mail coach. The extracts
printed from English newspapers were a month old, and even this was
considered enterprising journalism. All the despatches from different
cities of the United States bore dates a fortnight old, while it
was often impossible to obtain news at all. The paper contained
advertisements of the stage lines to Boston, Philadelphia, and the
West; accounts of projects to explore the centre of the earth by means
of sunken wells; reports of the possibility of a railroad being built
in the United States; advertisements of lottery tickets; a list of
the unclaimed letters at the post-office, and usually a chapter of
fiction. Such was the newspaper of 1831.

During the fifty-two years of his editorship the United States were
developed from a few struggling colonies bound together by common
interests into one of the greatest of modern nations. And through all
the changes incident to this career Bryant stood always firm to the
principles which he recognized as the true foundations of a country's
greatness.

When he was born the United States consisted of a strip of land lying
between the Atlantic and the Alleghany Mountains, of which more than
half was unbroken wilderness. At his death the Republic extended from
the Atlantic to the Pacific and from the Gulf to Canada. His life-time
corresponded with the growth of his country, and his own work was
a noble contribution to the nation's prosperity. In all times of
national trouble the _Evening Post_ championed the cause of justice,
and Bryant was everywhere respected as a man devoted above all to the
"cause of America and of human nature."

The conduct of the _Evening Post_ did not, however, interfere with his
work as a poet, and in 1832 he published