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BRYANT, WILLIAM CULLEN (1794-1878)

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Originally appearing in Volume V04, Page 699 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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BRYANT, See also:WILLIAM See also:CULLEN (1794-1878) , See also:American poet and journalist, was See also:born at Cummington, a farming See also:village in the See also:Hampshire hills of western See also:Massachusetts, on the 3rd of See also:November 1794. He was the second son of See also:Peter Bryant, a physician and surgeon of no mean scholarship, refined in all his tastes, and a public-spirited See also:citizen. Peter Bryant was the See also:great-See also:grandson of See also:Stephen Bryant, an See also:English Puritan emigrant to Massachusetts See also:Bay about the See also:year 1632. The poet's See also:mother, Sarah See also:Snell, was a descendant of " See also:Mayflower " pilgrims. He was born in the See also:log farmhouse built by his See also:father two years bef ore, at the edge of the See also:pioneer See also:settlement among those boundless forests, the deep See also:stamp of whose beauty and See also:majesty he carried on his own mind and reprinted upon the emotions of others throughout a See also:long See also:life spent mainly amid the activities of his See also:country's growing See also:metropolis. By parentage, by religious and See also:political faith, and by hardness of See also:fortune, the earliest of important American poets was appointed to a life typical of the first See also:century of American See also:national existence, and of the strongest single racial See also:element by which that nation's social See also:order has been moulded and promoted. Rated by the amount of See also:time given to school books and See also:college classes, Bryant's See also:early See also:education was limited. After the village school he received a year of exceptionally See also:good training in Latin under his mother's See also:brother, the Rev. Dr See also:Thomas Snell, of Brookfield, followed by a year of See also:Greek under the Rev. See also:Moses Hallock, of See also:Plainfield, and at sixteen entered the See also:sophomore class of See also:Williams College. Here he was an See also:apt and diligent student through two sessions, and then, owing to the straitness of his father's means, he withdrew without graduating, and studied See also:classics and See also:mathematics for a year, in the vain See also:hope that his father might yet be able to send him to Yale College. But the length of his school and college days would be a very misleading measure of his training.

He was endowed by nature with many of those traits which'it is often only the final See also:

triumph of books and institutional regimen to establish in See also:character, and a See also:double impulse toward scholarship and citizenship showed its ruling See also:influence with a precocity and an ardour which gave every See also:day of systelhatic schooling many times its See also:ordinary value. It is his own word that, two months after beginning with the Greek See also:alphabet, he had read the New Testament through. Onabandoning his hope to enter Yale, the poet turned to and pursued, under private guidance at Worthington and at See also:Bridgewater, the study of See also:law. At twenty-one he was admitted to the See also:bar, opened an See also:office in Plainfield, presently withdrew from there, and at Great See also:Barrington settled for nine years in the See also:attorney's calling, with an aversion for it which he never lost. His first See also:book of See also:verse, The See also:Embargo, or Sketches of the Times; A See also:Satire by a Youth of thirteen, had been painted at See also:Boston in 18o8. At the See also:age of twenty-six Bryant married, at Great Barrington, See also:Miss Frances Fairchild, with whom he enjoyed a happy See also:union until her See also:death nearly See also:half a century later. In the year of his See also:marriage he suffered the bereavement of his father's death. In 1825 he ventured to See also:lay aside the practice of law, and removed to New See also:York See also:City to assume a See also:literary editorship. Here for some months his fortunes were See also:precarious, until in the next year he became one of the editors of the Evening See also:Post. In the third year following, 1829, he came into undivided editorial See also:control, and became also See also:chief owner. He enjoyed his occupation, fulfilling its duties with an unflagging devotion to every worthy, public See also:interest till he died in 1878, in the See also:month of his choice, as indicated in his beautiful poem entitled " See also:June." Though Bryant's retiring and contemplative nature could not overpower his warm human sympathies, it yet dominated them to an extent that made him always, even in his journalistic capacity and in the strenuous See also:prose of daily debate, a councillor rather than a, See also:leader. It was after the manner of the poet, the seer, that he was a patriot, See also:standing for principles much more than for See also:measures, and, with an exquisite correctness which belonged to every phase of his being, never prevailing by the See also:accommodation of himself to inferiors in foresight, insight or rectitude.

His vigorous and stately mind found See also:

voice in one of the most admirable See also:models of journalistic See also:style known in See also:America. He was founder of a distinct school of American journalism, characterized by an equal fidelity and See also:temperance, See also:energy and dignity. Though it is as a poet that See also:lie most emphatically belongs to See also:history, his verse was the expression of only the gentler motions of his mind; and it gathers influence, if not lustre, when behind it is seen a life intrepid, upright, glad, and ever potent for the nobler choice in all the largest affairs of his time. His renown as a poet antedated the See also:appearance of his first See also:volume by some four or five years. " American See also:poetry," says See also:Richard See also:Henry See also:Stoddard, " may be said to have commenced in 1817 with .. . (Bryant's) ` Thanatopsis ' and ` Inscription for the entrance of a See also:wood.' " " Thanatopsis," which revealed a voice at once as new and as old as the See also:wilderness out of which it reverberated, had been written at Cummington in the poet's eighteenth year, and was printed in 1817 in the See also:North American See also:Review; the " Inscription " was written in his nineteenth, and in his twenty-first, while a student of law at Bridgewater, he had composed his lines " To a See also:Water-See also:fowl," whose exquisite beauty and exalted faith his own See also:pen rarely, if ever, surpassed. The poet's See also:gift for See also:language made him a frequent translator, and among his See also:works of this sort his rendering of See also:Homer is the most noted and most valuable. But the muse of Bryant, at her very best, is always brief-spoken and an interpreter initially of his own spirit. Much of the See also:charm of his poems lies in the equal purity of their See also:artistic and their moral beauty. On the ethical See also:side they are more than pure, they are—it may be said without derogation--Puritan. He never commerces with unloveliness for any loveliness that may be plucked out of it, and rarely or never discovers moral beauty under any sort of See also:mask. As See also:free from effeminacy as from indelicacy, his highest and his deepest emotions are so dominated by a perfect self-See also:restraint that they never rise (or stoop) to transports.

There is scarcely a distempered utterance in the whole See also:

body of his poetical works, scarcely one passionate exaggeration. He faces life with an invincible courage, an inextinguishable hope and heavenward See also:trust, and the dignity of a benevolent will which no compulsion can break or See also:bend. The billows of his soul are not waves, but hills which tempests ruffle but can never heave. Even when he essays to speak for See also:spirits unlike his own—characters of history or conceptions of his own imagination—he never with See also:signal success portrays them in the bonds, however transient, of any overmastering See also:passion. For merriment he has a generous smile, for sorrow a royal one; but the nearest he ever comes to mirth is in his dainty See also:rhyme, " See also:Robert of See also:Lincoln," and the nearest to a wail in those exquisite notes of grief for the loss of his See also:young See also:sister, " The Death of the See also:Flowers," which only draw the See also:tear to fill it with the See also:light of a perfect resignation. As a seer of large and See also:noble contemplation, in whose pictures of See also:earth and See also:sky the presence and care of the Divine mind, and every See also:tender and beautiful relation of See also:man to his Creator and to his See also:fellow, are melodiously celebrated, his See also:rank is among the See also:master poets of America, of whom he is historically the first. Bryant published volumes of Poems in 1821 (See also:Cambridge) and 1832 (New York), and many other collections were issued under his supervision, the last being the Poetical Works (New York, 1876). Among his volumes of verse were " The See also:Fountain " and other poems (New York, 1842); The See also:White-Footed See also:Deer and Other Poems (New York, 1844) ; See also:Thirty Poems (New York, 1864) ; and See also:blank-verse See also:translations of The Iliad of Homer (Boston, 187o) and of The Odyssey of Homer (Boston, 1871). His Poetical Works and his See also:Complete Prose Writings (New York, 1883 and 1884) were edited by Parke See also:Godwin, who also wrote A See also:Biography of William Cullen Bryant, with Extracts from his private See also:Correspondence (New York, 1883). See also J. See also:Grant See also:Wilson, Bryant and his See also:Friends (New York, 1886) ; See also:john See also:Bigelow, William Cullen Bryant (Boston,189o), in the "American Men of Letters " See also:series; W. A.

See also:

Bradley, Bryant, in the " English Men of Letters " series (19o5); E. C. See also:Stedman, Poets of America (1885) ; and _biographical and See also:bibliographical introductions by Henry C. Sturges and Richard Henry Stoddard to the " Roslyn edition " of his Poetical Works (New York, 1903). (G. W.

End of Article: BRYANT, WILLIAM CULLEN (1794-1878)

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