At seventeen Irving left school and began to study for the bar. But his health, which had always been delicate, made it necessary for him to take a long rest from study, and he accordingly left America for two years of travel abroad. He visited England, France, and Italy, taking great delight in seeing those lands he had so often dreamed of, in meeting the famous people of the day, and, above all, in indulging in frequent visits to the theatre and opera, becoming in this way acquainted with all the great singers and actors whose reputation had reached America. It was after his return home that he brought out his Knickerbocker history, a work which made him so famous that when he returned to England some time afterward he found himself very well known in the best literary circles. The results of this second visit are found in the volumes comprisingGeoffrey Crayon's Sketch Book,Bracebridge Hall,Tales of a Travellerand other miscellany, in which occur charming descriptions of English country life, delightful ghost stories, the famous description of an English Christmas, the immortal legend ofRip Van Winkle,and an account of a visit to the haunts of Robin Hood, whose exploits had so fascinated him as a boy that he once spent his entire holiday money to obtain a copy of his adventures.
Abbotsfordis an account of a visit that Irving paid to Sir Walter Scott. It is a charming revelation of the social side of Scott's character, who welcomed Irving as a younger brother in art, became his guide in his visit to Yarrow and Melrose Abbey, and took long rambling walks with him all around the country made so famous by the great novelist. Irving recalled as among the most delightful hours of his life those walks over the Scottish hills with Scott, who was described by the peasantry as having "an awfu' knowledge of history," and whose talk was full of the folk-lore, poetry, and superstitions that made up the interest of the place.
In the evening they sat in the drawing-room, while Scott, with a great hound, Maida, at his feet, read to them a scrap of old poetry or a chapter from King Arthur, or told some delightful bit of peasant fairy lore, like that of the black cat who, on hearing one shepherd tell another ofhaving seen a number of cats dressed in mourning following a coffin, sprang up the chimney in haste, exclaiming: "Then I am king of the cats," and vanished to take possession of his vacant kingdom. From this time Irving's life was one of constant literary labor for many years, all of which were spent abroad. His works on the companions of Columbus, and the Alhambra, were written during his residence in Spain, where he had access to the national archives and where he became as familiar with the life of the people as it was possible for a stranger to become. He was at home both in the dignified circles of higher life and among the picturesque and simple peasantry, whose characteristics he draws with such loving grace.
After seventeen years' absence Irving returned to America, where he was welcomed as one who had won for his country great honors. He was the first writer to make American literature respected abroad, and his return was made the occasion of numerous fêtes given in his honor in New York and other cities. He now built Sunnyside, on the Hudson, the home that he loved so dearly andthat will ever be famous as the abode of America's first great writer.
His principal works following the Spanish histories wereAstoria, the history of the fur-trading company in Oregon founded by the head of the Astor family;Captain Bonneville, the adventures of a hunter in the far West; theLife of Goldsmithand theLives of Mahomet and His Successors.
He returned to Spain in 1842 as ambassador, and remained four years. In theLegends of the Conquest of SpainIrving tells the story of the conquest of Spain by the Moors, as related in the old Spanish and Moorish chronicles. The pages are full of the spirit of the warfare of the middle ages. Here we see the great Arab chieftain, Taric, the one-eyed, with a handful of men cruising along the Spanish coast to spy out its strength and weakness, and finally making a bold dash inland to capture and despoil a city and return to Africa laden with plunder to report the richness of the land. "Behold!" writes Taric's chief in a letter to the Caliph, "a land that equals Syria in its soil, Arabia in itstemperature, India in its flowers and spices, and Cathay in its precious stones."
And at this news the Caliph wrote back in haste that God was great, and that it was evidently his will that the infidel should perish, and bade the Moors go forward and conquer.
In these delightful chapters we follow Taric in his conquests from the taking of the rock of Calpe, henceforth called from him Gibraltar, the rock of Taric, to the final overthrow of the Christians and the establishment of the Moorish supremacy in Spain.
The whole story is a brilliant, living picture of that romantic age. The Spanish king goes to battle wearing robes of gold brocade, sandals embroidered with gold and diamonds, and a crown studded with the costliest jewels of Spain. He rides in a chariot of ivory, and a thousand cavaliers knighted by his own hand surround him, while tens of thousands of his brave soldiers follow him, guarding the sacred banners emblazoned with the cross. The Moorish vanguard, riding the famous horses of Arabia, advance to the sound of trumpet and cymbal, their gay robesand snowy turbans and their arms of burnished gold and steel glittering in the sunshine, which reflects in every direction the sacred crescent, the symbol of their faith. The surroundings are equally picturesque and romantic. The famous plain of Granada, adorned with groves and gardens and winding streams, and guarded by the famous Mountains of the Sun and Air, forms the foreground to the picture, while in the distance we see the gloomy mountain passes, the fortified rocks and castles, and the great walled cities, through which the Moors passed, always victorious and never pausing until their banners floated from every cliff and tower.
Scattered through the narrative of battles and sieges we find also many legends that abounded at that time both in the Moslem and Christian faiths, translated with such fidelity from the old chroniclers that they retain all the supernatural flavor of the original. Here we learn how Arab and Christian alike beheld portents, saw visions, received messages from the spirits, and were advised, encouraged, and comforted by signs and warnings from heaven, the wholenarrative being most valuable as presenting in fine literary form the every-day life and intense religious fervor of the soldier of the middle ages.
For eight hundred years the Moors held Spain. They built beautiful cities and palaces, the remains of which are marvels to this day; they made the plain of Granada a garden of flowers; they preserved classical literature when the rest of Europe was sunk in ignorance; they studied the sciences, and had great and famous schools, which were attended by the youth of all nations; they rescued the Jewish people from the oppression of the Spaniards, and made them honorable citizens; and they impressed upon their surroundings an art so beautiful that its influence has extended throughout Christendom. Their occupation of Spain at that time probably did more for the preservation of literature, science, and art than any other event in history.
In his chapters on the Alhambra, the beauties of that celebrated palace, the favorite abode of the Moorish kings, is described by Irving as seen by him during a visit in 1829. Even at that date, nearly four hundredyears after itsseizure by the Spaniards, the Alhambra retained much of its original magnificence. The great courts, with their pavements of white marble, and fountains bordered with roses, the archways, balconies, and halls decorated with fretwork and filigree and incrusted with tiles of the most exquisite design; the gilded cupolas and panels of lapis lazuli, and the carved lions supporting the alabaster basins of the fountains, all appealed to Irving so strongly that when he first entered the palace it seemed, he relates, as if he had been transported into the past and was living in an enchanted realm.
Irving remained some months in the Alhambra, living over again the scenes of Moorish story, and so catching the spirit of the lost grandeur of the old palace, that his descriptions read like a bit of genuine Arabian chronicle, which had been kept safe until then in the grim guardianship of the past.
The chapters of theAlhambraare also full of delightful legends, the fairy tales which time had woven around the beautiful ruin, and which the custodians of the place related gravely to Irvingas genuine history. It calls up a pleasant picture to think of Irving sitting in the stately hall or in his balcony, listening to one of these old tales from the lips of his tattered but devoted domestic, while the twilight was gathering and the nightingale singing in the groves and gardens beneath.
He himself said that it was the realization of a day-dream which he had cherished since the time when, in earliest boyhood on the banks of the Hudson, he had pored over the story of Granada.
In his work,The Conquest of Granada, Irving relates the story of the retaking of Granada by Ferdinand and Isabella, during a war which lasted ten years and which held nothing but disaster for the Moors. Ferdinand and Isabella took the field with an army composed of the nobles of Spain and their followers, and which represented the chivalry of Europe, for all Christendom hastened to espouse the holy cause of driving the infidel from the land. The Spanish camps glittered with the burnished armor and gold-embroidered banners of foreign knights;and whether on the march, in the field, or in camp, the whole pageant of the war as depicted by Irving passes before our eyes like a brilliant panorama. We see the Moorish king looking down from the towers of the Alhambra upon the plains once green and blooming but now desolate with fire and sword by the hand of Ferdinand. We follow the Moors as they rush from their walls in one of their splendid but hopeless sallies, to return discomfited, and hear the wail of the women and old men—"Woe! woe! to Granada, for its strong men shall fall by the sword and its maidens be led into captivity." We watch the Spaniards, tireless in endeavor, building the fortified city of Santa Fé, the city of holy faith, to take the place of the camp destroyed by fire, and which has remained famous as the place where Columbus received from Isabella his commission to sail westward until India was reached. And in the end we see the Moors in their retreat looking sadly from the hill which is called to this day, The Last Sigh of the Moor, upon the beautiful valley and mountains lost to them forever.So graphically is the scene described that Irving must ever remain the historian of the Moors of Spain, whose spirit seemed to inspire the beautiful words in which he celebrated their conquests, their achievements, and their defeats.
A favorite among Irving's books was theLife of Washington, based upon the correspondence of the great statesman. It is an appreciative story of the life work of Washington, written by one whose own work connected the past and present, and who, as a child, had felt the hand of the nation's hero laid upon his head in blessing.
In theChronicle of Wolfert's RoostIrving follows in imagination old Diedrich Knickerbocker into the famous region of Sleepy Hollow, where much of the material for the celebrated Knickerbocker's History was said to have been collected. This chronicle, it was claimed, was written upon the identical old Dutch writing desk that Diedrich used; the elbow chair was the same that he sat in; the clock was the very one he consulted so often during his long hours of composition. In these pages old Diedrichwalks as a real person and Irving follows him with faithful step through the region that he loved so fondly all his life.
Everything here is dwelt upon with lingering touch; the brooks and streams, the meadows and cornfields, the orchards and gardens, and the groves of beech and chestnut have each their tribute from the pen of one who found their charms ever fresh, who sought in them rest and happiness, and who came back to them lovingly to spend the last days of his life in their familiar companionship.
Irving died in 1859 and was buried at Sunnyside, in sight of the Hudson whose legends he had immortalized and whose beauty never ceased to charm him from the moment it first captivated his heart in his boyhood days.
The region of Otsego Lake, New York, was at the last of the eighteenth century a wilderness. Here and there rose a little clearing, the birthplace of a future village, but westward the primeval forest extended for miles around the little lake, which reflected the shadows of wooded hills on every side. Here roved deer, wolves, panthers, and bears unmolested in the green depths and following the same runways which their species had trodden for centuries. Here also lurked the red man, suspicious and cautious and ever ready to revenge on the white man the wrongs of his race.
In this beautiful spot lived the boy, James Fenimore Cooper, in the family mansion built by his father and named Otsego Hall, the startingpoint of the now famous village of Cooperstown. It was a fitting home for the boy who was hereafter to immortalize the Indian race in the pages of fiction. His life was almost as simple as that of the Indian lads who roamed through the forest fishing and hunting and knowing no ambition beyond.
The little hamlet lay far away from the highways of travel. The nearest villages were miles distant and only to be reached on foot or on horseback through miles of unbroken forest. A visitor was rare, and meant perhaps a warning that the Indians were on the war-path. Occasionally a new settler drifted into the little valley, and the village grew slowly through the lad's boyhood, Otsego Hall keeping its dignity as the Manor House. Sometimes a visitor of note brought news of the great political troubles in Europe, and thus Cooper met many men of distinction whose visits seemed to bring the great world very close to the little settlement. This glimpse of a broader life, with attendance at the village school and an intimate companionship with nature, made up his early education.It was not bad training for the future novelist. The acquaintanceship of celebrated men widened his horizon and fed his imagination; his daily life kept his mind fresh and active with the spirit that was fast turning the uninhabited regions of the frontier into busy settlements; and the familiar intercourse with nature kept pure the springs of poetry that lie in every child's heart. He learned wood-lore as the young Indian learned it, face to face with the divinities of the forest. He knew the calls of the wild animals far across the gloomy wilderness. He could follow the deer and bear to their secluded haunts. He could retrace the path of the retreating wolf by the broken cobwebs glistening in the early sunlight; and the cry of the panther high overhead in the pines and hemlocks was a speech as familiar as his own tongue. When he was thirsty he made a hunter's cup of leaves and drank in the Indian fashion. When fatigued he lay down to rest with that sense of security that comes only to the forest bred. When thoughtful he could learn from the lap of the waves against the shore, the murmur of leaves, and therustle of wings, those lessons which nature teaches in her quiet moods.
These experiences and impressions sank into Cooper's heart, and were re-lived again long after in the pages of his romances.
While still a boy Cooper went to Albany to study, and in 1803 entered Yale College, at the age of thirteen.
He played as much and studied as little as he possibly could, and the first year's preparation perhaps accounts for his dismissal from college in his junior year. This in turn led to a life much more to his liking. His father took his part in the trouble at Yale, but was now anxious to see his son embarked on the serious business of life. Both father and son liked the idea of a naval career for the boy, and it was decided that Cooper should go to sea. He left New York in the autumn of 1806 on a vessel of the merchant marine. There was then no Naval Academy in America, and a boy could fit himself for entering the navy as an officer only by serving before the mast. Cooper was away nearly a year, his ship, the Sterling, visiting London, Portugal,and Spain, carrying cargoes from one port to another in the leisurely manner of the merchant sailing-vessels of that day. It was a time of peculiar interest to all seamen, and his mind was keenly alive to the new life around him. The English were expecting a French invasion, and the Channel was full of ships of war, while every southern port was arming for defence. The Mediterranean was terrorized by the Barbary pirates, who, under cover of night, descended upon any unprotected merchant vessel, stole the cargo, scuttled the ship, and sold the crew into slavery, to Tripolitan and Algerine husbandmen, whose orchards of date and fig were cultivated by many an American or English slave.
Cooper saw all this and remembered it, being even then a student of men and events. His work was hard and dangerous; he was never admitted to the cabin of the ship; in storm or wind his place was on the deck among the rough sailors, who were his only companions. But this training developed the good material that was in him, and when in 1808 he received hiscommission as midshipman he was well equipped for his duties.
Cooper remained in the navy three years and a half. He spent part of this time at the port of Oswego, Lake Ontario, superintending the building of a war vessel, the Oneida, intended for the defence of the Canadian frontier in case of a war with England. The days passed in this wild region were not fruitless, for here in the solitude of the primeval forest Cooper found later the background of a famous story. It was the land of the red man, and during the long winter months of his residence there Cooper dwelt in spirit with the wild natives, though he little dreamed that he was to be the historian that would give the story of their lives to a succeeding generation. Cooper saw no active service during the time, and resigned his commission on his marriage.
Several succeeding years were passed partly in Westchester County, his wife's former home, and partly in Cooperstown. Here he began the erection of a stone dwelling, in Fenimore, a suburb of the old village. While living at Scarsdale,Westchester County, N. Y., he had produced his first book. Already thirty years old, a literary career was far from his thoughts. This first novel was merely the result of a challenge springing from a boast. Reading a dull tale of English life to his wife, he declared that he could write a better story himself, and as a result produced a tale in two volumes, calledPrecaution. It was founded upon English society life, and it obtained some favorable notices from English papers. But it showed no real talent. But in the next year, 1821, he published a story foreshadowing his fame and striking a new note in American literature. At that time Americans still cherished stirring memories of the Revolution. Men and women could still recall the victories of Bunker Hill and Trenton, and the disasters of Monmouth and Long Island.
Cooper's own first impressions of life were vivid with the patriotism that beat at fever heat during his youth, when the birth of American independence was within the recollection of many. In choosing a subject for fiction Cooper therefore naturally turned to the late struggle,and American literature owes him a large debt for thus throwing into literary form the spirit of those thrilling times. This novel,The Spy, was founded upon the story of a veritable spy who had been employed by the Revolutionary officer who related to Cooper some of his daring adventures. Taking this scout for a hero Cooper kept the scene in Westchester and wove from a few facts the most thrilling piece of fiction that had yet appeared in the United States. The novel appeared in December, 1821, and in a few months it had made Cooper famous both in America and Europe. It was published in England by the firm which had brought out Irving'sSketch Book, and it met with a success that spoke highly for its merit, since the story described English defeat and American triumphs. The translator of the Waverley novels made a French version, and before long the book appeared in several other European tongues, while its hero, Harvey Birch, won and has kept for himself an honorable place in literature.
Cooper had now found his work, and he continued to illustrate American life in fiction.His most popular books are theLeather Stocking Talesand his novels of the sea. TheLeather Stocking Talesconsist of five stories,The Deerslayer,The Last of the Mohicans,The Pathfinder,The Pioneers, andThe Prairie, concerning the same hero, Leatherstocking.
InThe Deerslayerthe hero of the series makes his appearance as a youth of German descent whose parents had settled near a clan of the Mohegans on the Schoharie River. At a great Indian feast he receives the name Deerslayer from the father of Chingachgook, his Indian boy friend, and the story is an account of his first war-path. The tale was suggested to the author one afternoon as he paused for a moment while riding to gaze over the lake he so loved, and whose shores, as he looked, seemed suddenly to be peopled with the figures of a vanished race. As the vision faded he turned to his daughter and said that he must write a story about the little lake, and thus the idea of Deerslayer was born. In a few days the story was begun. The scene is laid on Otsego Lake, and in the tale are incorporated many tender memories of Cooper'sown boyhood. It portrays Leatherstocking as a young scout just entering manhood, and embodies some of the author's best work. Perhaps no one was so well-fitted to illustrate the ideal friendship between Deerslayer and Chingachgook as he, who in his boyhood stood many a time beside the lakeside as the shadows fell over the forest, not knowing whether the faint crackling of the bushes meant the approach of the thirsty deer, or signalled the presence of some Indian hunter watching with jealous eye the white intruder.
InThe Last of the Mohicans, Leatherstocking, under the name Hawkeye, is represented in the prime of manhood, his adventures forming some of the most exciting events of the series. Here his old friend Chingachgook and the latter's son Uncas follow Deerslayer hand in hand, and make, next to the hero, the principal characters of the story, the scene of which is laid near Lake Champlain during the trouble between the French and English for the possession of Canada.
InThe Pathfinderthe famous scout, underthe name which gives the title to the book, is carried still further in his adventurous career. The scene is laid near Lake Ontario where Cooper spent some months while in the navy. These three tales are not only the finest of the series from a literary standpoint, but they illustrate as well the life of those white men of the forest who lived as near to nature as the Indian himself and whose deeds helped make the history of the country in its beginnings.
The Pioneersfinds Leatherstocking an old hunter living on Otsego Lake at the time of its first settlement by the whites. The character was suggested by an old hunter of the regions who in Cooper's boyhood came frequently to the door of his father's house to sell the game he had killed. The hero is in this book called Natty Bumppo and the story is one of the primitive life of the frontiersmen of that period. Their occupations, interests and ambitions form the background to the picture of Leatherstocking, the rustic philosopher, who has finished the most active part of his career, and who has gathered from nature some of her sweetest lessons.Many of the scenes in the book aretranscriptions from the actual life of those hardy pioneers who joined Cooper's father in the settlement of Cooperstown, while the whole is tinged with that tender reminiscence of the author's youth which sets it apart from the rest though it is, perhaps, the least perfect story of the series.
Leatherstocking closes his career inThe Prairie, a novel of the plains of the great West, whither he had gone to spend his last days. It is the story of the lonely life of the trapper of those days, whose love of solitude has led him far from the frontier, and whose dignified death fitly closes his courageous life. It is supposed that the actual experiences of Daniel Boone suggested this ending to the series.
The story of the war of the frontiersmen with nature, with circumstances and with the red man is told in these books. It is the romance of real history and Leatherstocking was but the picture of many a brave settler whose deeds were unrecorded and whose name remains unknown. Side by side with Leatherstocking stand those Indian characters which the genius of Cooper immortalizedand which have passed into history as typical.
Cooper began the tales without any thought of making a series, but the overwhelming success ofThe Pioneers, the first which appeared, led him to produce book after book until the whole life of the hero was illustrated.
Cooper's series of sea novels began withThe Pilot, published in 1824. It followedThe Pioneers, and showed the novelist to be equally at home on sea and land. In his stories of frontier life, Cooper followed the great Scott, whose thrilling tales of Border life and of early English history had opened a new domain to the novelist. Cooper always acknowledged his debt to the greatWizard of the North, and, indeed, spoke of himself as a chip of Scott's block. But in his sea stories Cooper was a creator. He was the first novelist to bring into fiction the ordinary, every-day life of the sailor afloat, whether employed on a peaceful merchant vessel or fighting hand to hand in a naval battle. And it is interesting to know that the creation of the sea story was another debt that he owed to Scott, thoughin a far different way. Scott's novel,The Pirate, had been criticised by Cooper as the work of a man who had never been at sea. And to prove it the work of a landsman he began his own story,The Pilot. The time chosen is that of the Revolution, and the hero is the famous adventurer John Paul Jones, introduced under another name. It was so new a thing to use the technicalities of ship life, and to describe the details of an evolution in a naval battle, that, familiar as he was with ocean life, Cooper felt some doubts of his success. To test his power he read one day to an old shipmate that now famous account of the passage of the ship through the narrow channel. The effect was all that Cooper hoped. The old sailor fell into a fury of excitement, paced up and down the room, and in his eagerness for a moment lived over again a stormy scene in his own life. Satisfied with this experiment Cooper finished the novel in content.
The Pilotmet with an instant success both in America and Europe. As it was his first, so it is, perhaps, his best sea story. Into it he putall the freshness of reminiscence, all the haunting memories of ocean life that had followed him since his boyhood. It was biographical in the same sense asThe Pioneers. A part of the romance of childhood drafted into the reality of after life.
The Red Rover, the next sea story, came out in 1828. By that time other novelists were writing tales of the sea, but they were mere imitations ofThe Pilot. InThe Red Roverthe genuine adventures of the sailor class were again embodied in the thrilling narrative that Cooper alone knew how to write, and this book has always been one of the most popular of novels.
The Red Rover, so called because of his red beard, and whose name gives the title to the book, is a well born Englishman who has turned pirate, and whose daring adventures have made him famous along the coasts of America, Europe and Africa. The scene opens in the harbor of Newport in the days when that town was the most important port of the Atlantic coast, and from there is carried to the high seas, whereon isfought that famous last sea fight of the Red Rover, the description of which forms one of Cooper's best efforts.
Wing and Wingis a tale of the Mediterranean during the exciting days of privateers and pirates in the latter part of the eighteenth century. The great admiral, Nelson, is introduced in this book, which abounds with incidents of the tropical seas and reflects much of Cooper's experience during his apprenticeship on the Sterling. The story is one of Cooper's masterpieces, and, like so much of his work, has preserved in literature a phase of life that has forever passed away.
InThe Two Admiralsis introduced, for the first time in fiction, a description of the evolution of great fleets in action. The scene is taken from English history, and in many instances the story shows Cooper at his best.
The Water Witch, andNed Myers, or Life Before the Mast, a biography almost of Cooper's own early life at sea, must be included among the tales which illustrate the author's genius as a writer of tales of the sea.
Nothing can be more different than the picture of Leatherstocking and his Indian friends in the forest retreats of nature and that of the reckless sailor race which found piracy and murder the only outcome for their fierce ambitions. Yet both are touched with the art of a master, and both illustrate Cooper's claim as one of the greatest masters of fiction.
Besides hisLeather Stocking Talesand the sea stories Cooper wrote novels, sketches of travel, essays on the social and political condition of America, and innumerable pamphlets in answer to attacks made upon him by adverse critics. But his rank in American literature will ever be determined by theLeather Stocking Talesand his best sea stories. His place is similar to that of Scott in English literature, while he enjoys also the reputation of having opened a new and enchanted realm of fiction.
Next to Hawthorne, he will long be held, probably, the greatest novelist that America has produced. With the exception of seven years abroad, Cooper spent his life in his native land. While in Europe he wrote some of his best novels, andthough he grew to love the old world he never wavered in his devotion to America.
Cooper's popularity abroad was equalled only by that of Scott. His works were translated and sold even in Turkey, Persia, Egypt and Jerusalem in the language of those countries. It was said by a traveller that the middle classes of Europe had gathered all their knowledge of American history from Cooper's works and that they had never understood the character of American independence until revealed by this novelist. In spite of defects of style and the poor quality of some of his stories, Cooper has given to fiction many creations that must live as long as literature endures.
He died in his sixty-second year at Cooperstown.
William Cullen Bryant was born in 1794 in a log farmhouse in the beautiful Berkshire Hills of Western Massachusetts. His father was the country doctor and the child was named after a celebrated physician. He began his school days in a log school-house beside a little brook that crept down from the hills and went singing on its way to the valley.
All around stood the great forest-covered hills, haunted by wolves, bears, deer and wild-cats, which occasionally crept down even to the settlements carrying terror to the hearts of the women and children. Wherever the slopes were cleared, the farm lands had taken possession, the forest often creeping up close to the little homes.
From the door-yard of the Bryant homesteadthe whole world seemed to be made up of hills and forest, and fertile fields, while in the woods grew the exquisite New England wild flowers, the laurel and azalea, the violet, the tiger lily, and the fringed gentian. Here also lived the summer birds of New England, the robins, the blue bird and the thrush, haunting the woods from early spring until late autumn.
All these sights and sounds sunk into the boy's heart and made themselves into a poem which he wrote down in words many years after, and which is as clear and fresh as the voice of the little brook itself after which it was named. This poem is calledThe Rivuletand it shows the poet-child standing upon the banks of the little stream listening to the song of the birds or gathering wild flowers.
It was his first lesson in that wonder-book of nature from which he translated so much that was beautiful that he became the distinctive poet of the woods and streams.
Lessons from books he learned in the little log school-house, preparing himself for ordeals when the minister came to visit the school. Atthese times the pupils were dressed in their best and sat in solemn anxiety while the minister asked them questions out of the catechism and made them a long speech on morals and good behavior. On one of these occasions the ten-year-old poet declaimed some of his own verses descriptive of the school.
In Bryant's boyhood New England farm life was very simple. The farmers lived in log or slab houses, whose kitchens formed the living room, where the meals were generally taken. Heat was supplied by the great fireplaces that sometimes filled one whole side of the kitchen and were furnished with cranes, spits, and pothooks. Behind the kitchen door hung a bundle of birch rods with which mischievous boys were kept in order, and in the recess of the chimney stood the wooden settle where the children sat before bed-time to watch the fire or glance up through the wide chimney at the stars.
Here, when three years old, Bryant often stood book in hand and with painful attention to gesture repeated one of Watts's hymns, while his mother listened and corrected. Here he preparedhis lessons, and wrote those first childish poems so carefully criticised by his father, who was his teacher in the art of composition. In the poem calledA LifetimeBryant long afterward described many incidents of his childhood and the influence of his father and mother upon his art, one developing his talent for composition, and the other directing his imagination to and enlisting his sympathies with humanity. This poem shows the boy by his mother's knee, reading the story of Pharaoh and the Israelites, of David and Goliath, and of the life of Christ. As he grew older Bryant shared the usual amusements of country life. In the spring he took his turn in the maple-sugar camp; in the autumn he attended the huskings when the young people met to husk the corn in each neighborhood barn successively, until all was done. He helped at the cider-making bees, and the apple parings, when the cider and apple sauce were prepared for the year's need; and at the house raisings, when men and boys raised the frame of a neighbor's house or barn. In those times the farmers depended upon each other forsuch friendly aid, and the community seemed like one great family.
On Sunday everyone went three times to meeting, listened to long sermons, and sang out of the old Bay Psalm Book. If any unlucky child fell asleep he was speedily waked up by the tithingman, who would tickle his nose with a hare's-foot attached to a long pole. Once in a while a boy might be restless or noisy, and then he was led out of the meeting-house and punished with the tithingman's rod, a terrible disgrace.
Throughout his childhood Bryant wrote verses upon every subject discussed in the family, and in those days New England families discussed all the great events of the time. The listening children became public-spirited and patriotic without knowing it. At thirteen Bryant wrote a most scathing satire upon the policy of Thomas Jefferson, intended to make the President hang his head in shame. It was quoted in all the newspapers opposed to Jefferson, and a second edition of this pamphlet was called for in a few months. Bryant here prophesies the evils in store for thecountry if the President insisted on the embargo that was then laid upon American vessels, and advises him to retire to the bogs of Louisiana and search for horned frogs; advice which Jefferson did not feel called upon to follow. It was Bryant's first introduction to the reading public, but it was not that path in literature that he was destined to follow. Only one or two of his earliest verses give any hint of the poet of nature, though it was during this time that he absorbed those influences that directed his whole life. It is from the retrospective poem,Green River, that we really know the boy Bryant to whom the charm of sky and wood and singing brook was so unconscious that it seemed a part of life itself. InGreen River, written after he became a man, we hear the echoes of his young days, and we know that the boy's soul had already entered into a close communion with nature.
But Bryant had not yet reached manhood when the true voice of his heart was heard in the most celebrated poem that he ever wrote, and one of the most remarkable ever written by ayouth. This wasThanatopsis, which his father discovered among his papers and sent to theNorth American Reviewwithout his son's knowledge, so little did the poet of eighteen, who five years before had published the tirade against Jefferson, realize that he had produced the most remarkable verses yet written in America.
Thanatopsisattracted instant attention in this country and in England. It had appeared anonymously, and American critics insisted that it could not be the work of an American author as no native poet approached it either in sublimity of thought or perfection of style. ButThanatopsisbears no trace of English influence, nor was it strange that an heir of the Puritan spirit, who had lived in daily communion with nature, should thus set to the music of poetry the hopes and inspirations of his race.
Thanatopsisis the first great American poem, and it divides by a sharp line the poetry hitherto written on our soil from that which was to follow. Henceforth the poets of the newer England ceased to find their greatest inspirationin the older land. At the time of the publication of the poem Bryant was studying law in Great Barrington, Mass., having been obliged by poverty to leave college after a two years' course. It was in the brief interval before beginning his office studies that he wroteThanatopsisputting it aside for future revision.
He was already hard at work upon his profession when his sudden literary success changed all his plans. Destined by nature to be a man of letters, he poured forth verse and prose during the whole time he was studying and practising law. Six months after the publication ofThanatopsisthe poem entitledTo a Waterfowl, suggested by the devious flight of a wild duck across the sunset sky, appeared.
It is a perfect picture of the reedy river banks, the wet marshes, and the lonely lakes over which the bird hovered, and it is full of the charm of nature herself. From this time on Bryant's touch never faltered. He was the chosen poet of the wild beauty of his native hills and valleys, and his own pure spirit revealed the most sacred meanings of this beauty.
In 1821 he published his first volume of poems under the title,Poems by William Cullen Bryant. It was a little book of forty pages, containingThanatopsis,Green River,To a Waterfowl, and other pieces, among which was the charming,The Yellow Violet, a very breath of the spring. This little book was given to the world in the same year in which Cooper publishedThe Spyand Irving completedThe 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 theEvening Post, with which he was connected until his death.
From this time his life was that of a literary man. He made of theEvening Posta 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 newspaperswere 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 theAtlantic 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 theEvening Postchampioned 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 theEvening Postdid not, however, interfere with his work as a poet, and in 1832 he published in one volume all the poems which he had written, most of which had previously appeared in magazines. A few months later an edition appeared in London with an introduction by Irving. It was this volume which gave Bryant an English reputation as great as that he enjoyed in America. Like Cooper, he revealed an unfamiliar nature as seen in American forests, hills, and streams, taking his readers with him into those solitary and quiet places where dwelt the wild birds andwild flowers. The very titles of his poems show how closely he lived to the life of the world around him.The Walk at Sunset,The West Wind,The Forest Hymn,Autumn Woods,The Death of the Flowers,The Fringed Gentian,The Wind and Stream,The Little People of the Snow, and many others disclose how Bryant gathered from every source the beauty which he translated into his verses.
Among the poems which touch upon the Indian traditions areThe Indian Girl's Lament,Monument Mountain, andAn Indian at the Burial-place of his Father. In these he lingers upon the pathetic fate of the red man driven from the home of his race and forced into exile by the usurping whites. They are full of sadness, seeming to wake once again the memories of other times when the forest was alive with the night-fires of savage man and the days brought only the gladness of freedom.
Besides his original work Bryant performed a noble task in the translation of theIliadandOdysseyof Homer. He was over seventy when he began this work, and was five years incompleting it. The poems are put into blank verse, of which Bryant was a master, and they have caught the very spirit of the old Greek bard; so faithfully did the modern poet understand that shadowy past that he might have watched with Helen the burning of Troy, or journeyed with Ulysses throughout his wanderings in the perilous seas.
The light of Bryant's imagination burned steadily to the end. In his eighty-second year he wrote his last important poem,The Flood of Years. It is a beautiful confession of faith in the nobility of life and the immortality of the soul, and a fitting crown for an existence so beneficent and exalted.
His last public work was to participate in unveiling a monument to the Italian statesman Mazzini in Central Park, when he was the orator of the day. On the same evening he was seized with his last illness. He died on June 12, 1878, and was buried at Roslyn, Long Island, one of his favorite country homes.