ng
the first rank. Perhaps, on the whole, the preponderance of native
authority justifies us in heading the list with Bryant, who, at any
rate, has the additional title of seniority in authorship, if not in
actual years.

"William Cullen Bryant is, as we learn from Mr. Griswold, about
fifty-five years old, and was born in Massachusetts, though his
literary career is chiefly associated with New York, of which he is
a resident. With a precocity extraordinary, even in a country where
precocity is the rule instead of the exception, he began to write _and
publish_ at the age of thirteen, and has, therefore, been full forty
years before the American public, and that not in the capacity of
poet alone--having for more than half that period edited the _Evening
Post_, one of the ablest and most respectable papers in the United
States, and the oldest organ, we believe, of the Democratic party in
New York. He has been called, and with justice, a poet of nature.
The prairie solitude, the summer evening landscape, the night wind of
autumn, the water-bird flitting homeward through the twilight--such
are the favorite subjects of inspiration. _Thanatopsis_, one of
his most admired pieces, was written at the age of _eighteen_, and
exhibits a finish of style, no less than a maturity of thought, very
remarkable for so youthful a production. Mr. Bryant's poems have
been for some years pretty well known on this side the water,--better
known, at any rate, than any other transatlantic verses; on which
account, being somewhat limited for space, we forbear to make any
extracts from them.

"FITZ-GREENE HALLECK is also a New-Englander by birth and a New Yorker
by adoption. He is Bryant's contemporary and friend, but the spirit
and style of his versification are very different; and so, it is
said, are his political affinities. While Bryant is a bulwark of
the Democracy, Halleck is reported to be not only an admirer of the
obsolete Federalists, but an avowed Monarchist. To be sure, this is
only his private reputation: no trace of such a feeling is observable
in his writings, which show throughout a sturdy vein of republicanism,
social and political. In truth, the party classification of American
literary men is apt to puzzle the uninitiated. Thus Washington Irving
is said to belong to the Democrats; but it would be hard to find in
his writings anything countenancing their claim upon him. His sketches
of English society are a panegyric of old inst