yant read them with amazement and delight,
hurried at once to the house of a neighbor, a lady of whose sympathy
he felt sure, thrust them into her hands, and, with the tears running
down his cheeks, said, 'Read them; they are Cullen's.'

[Illustration: WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT
From a photograph from life]

"Now it had happened only a short time before, that Dr. Bryant had
been asked in Boston to urge his son to contribute to the newly
established _North American Review_, and had written him a letter on
the editor's behalf. Here was the opportunity of a proud father.
Without telling his son of his discovery or his purpose, he left the
poems one day, together with some translations from _Horace_ by the
same hand, at the office of _The North American_. The little package
was addressed to his editorial friend, Mr. Willard Phillips, of whom
tradition tells us that as soon as he read the poems he betook himself
in hot haste to Cambridge to display his treasures to his associates,
Richard H. Dana and Edward T. Channing. 'Ah, Phillips,' said Dana,
when he had heard the poems read, 'you have been imposed upon. No one
on this side of the Atlantic is capable of writing such verse.' But
Phillips, believing Dr. Bryant to be responsible for it, declared that
he knew the writer, and that Dana could see him at once if he would go
to the State House in Boston. Accordingly the young men posted into
town, and Dana, unconvinced after looking long and carefully at Dr.
Bryant in his seat in the Senate, said, 'It is a good head, but I do
not see _Thanatopsis_ in it.'"

Bryant is never thought of as a humorist, and his poetry is devoid of
playfulness. But in this letter to his mother, in which he announces
his marriage with Frances Fairchild, we have evidence that Bryant had
a strong sense of humor.

DEAR MOTHER: I hasten to send you the melancholy intelligence
of what has lately happened to me.

Early on the evening of the eleventh day of the present month
I was at a neighboring house in this village. Several people
of both sexes were assembled in one of the apartments, and
three or four others, with myself, were in another. At last
came in a little elderly gentleman, pale, thin, with a solemn
countenance, pleuritic voice, hooked nose, and hollow eyes. It
was not long before we were summoned to attend in the
apartment where he and the rest of the company were gathered.
We went in and took