ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. Our obligation to the following publishers is respectfully and gratefully acknowledged, since, without the courtesies and assistance of these publishers and a number of the living authors, it would have been impossible to issue this volume. Copyright selections from the following authors are used by the permission of and special arrangement with MESSRS. HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO., their authorized publishers -Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry W. Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell, Bret Harte, Charles Egbert Craddock (Miss Murfree), Alice Cary, Phoebe Cary, Charles Dudley Warner, E. C. Stedman, James Parton, and Sarah Jane Lippincott. TO THE CENTURY CO., we are indebted for selections from Richard Watson Gilder and James Whitcomb Riley. TO CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, for extracts from Eugene Field. TO HARPER & BROTHERS, for selections from Will Carleton, General Lew Wallace, W. D. Howells, and John L. Motley. TO ROBERIS BROTHERS, for selections from Edward Everett Hale, Helen Hunt Jackson, Louise Chandler Moulton and Louisa M. Alcott. TO ORANGE, JUDD & CO., for extracts from Edward Eggleston. TO DODD, MEAD & CO., for selections from Marion Harland (Mrs. Terhune) and Amelia E. Barr. TO D. APPLETON & CO., for William Cullen Bryant. TO FUNK & WAGNALLS, for Josiah Allen's Wife (Miss Holley). TO LEE & SHEPARD, for Yawcob Strauss (Charles Follen Adams) and Oliver Optic (William T. Adams). TO J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO., for Bill Nye (Edgar Wilson Nye). TO GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS, for Uncle Remus (Joel C. Harris). TO PORTER & COATES, for Edward Ellis and Horatio Alger. TO T. B. PETERSON & BROS., for F. H. Burnett. Besides the above, we are under special obligation to a number of authors, who kindly furnished, in answer to our request, selections which they considered representative of their writings. WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. THE POET OF NATURE. T is said that "genius always manifests itself before its possessor reaches manhood." Perhaps in no case is this more true than in that of the poet, and William Cullen Bryant was no exception to the general rule. The poetical fancy was early displayed in him. He began to write verses at nine, and at ten composed a little poem to be spoken at a public school, which was published in a newspaper. At fourteen a collection of his poems was published in 12 mo. form by E. G. House of Boston. Strange to say the longest one of these, entitled "The Embargo" was political in its character setting forth his reflections on the Anti-Jeffersonian Federalism prevalent in New England at that time. But it is said that never after that effort did the poet employ his muse upon the politics of the day, though the general topics of liberty and independence have given occasion to some of his finest efforts. Bryant was a great lover of nature. In the Juvenile Collection above referred to were published an "Ode to Connecticut River" and also the lines entitled "Drought" which show the characteristic observation as well as the style in which his youthful muse found expression. It was written July, 1807, when the author was thirteen years of age, and will be found among the succeeding selections. 66 Thanatopsis," one of his most popular poems, (though he himself marked it low) was written when the poet was but little more than eighteen years of age. This production is called the beginning of American poetry. William Cullen Bryant was born at Cummington, Hampshire Co., Mass., November 3rd, 1784. His father was a physician, and a man of literary culture who encouraged his son's early ability, and taught him the value of correctness and compression, and enabled him to distinguish between true poetic enthusiasm and the bombast into which young poets are apt to fall. The feeling and reverence with which Bryant cherished the memory of his father whose life was "Marked with some act of goodness every day," is touchingly alluded to in several of his poems and directly spoken of with pathetic eloquence in the "Hymn to Death" written in 1825: Alas! I little thought that the stern power Before the strain was ended. It must cease- And on hard cheeks, and they who deemed thy skill Shalt not, as wont, o'erlook, is all I have To offer at thy grave-this-and the hope Bryant was educated at Williams College, but left with an honorable discharge before graduation to take up the study of law, which he practiced one year at Plainfield and nine years at Great Barrington, but in 1825 he abandoned law for literature, and removed to New York where in 1826 he began to edit the "Evening Post," which position he continued to occupy from that time until the day of his death. William Cullen Bryant and the "Evening Post" were almost as conspicuous and permanent features of the city as the Battery and Trinity Church. In 1821 Mr. Bryant married Frances Fairchild, the loveliness of whose character is hinted in some of his sweetest productions. The one beginning was written some years before their marriage; and "The Future Life," one of the noblest and most pathetic of his poems, is addressed to her :— 59 66 "In meadows fanned by Heaven's life-breathing wind, In the resplendence of that glorious sphere "Will not thy own meek heart demand me there.- And wilt thou never utter it in heaven? Among his best-known poems are "A Forest Hymn," "The Death of the Flowers,' 'Lines to a Waterfowl," and "The Planting of the Apple-Tree." One of the greatest of his works, though not among the most popular, is his translation of Homer, which he completed when seventy-seven years of age. Bryant had a marvellous memory. His familiarity with the English poets was |