the age of
eight; at ten he made contributions in this kind to the county gazette,
and produced a finished and effective rhymed address, read at his school
examination, which became popular for recitation; and in his thirteenth
year, during the Presidency of Thomas Jefferson, he composed a political
satire, 'The Embargo.' This, being published, was at first supposed by
many to be the work of a man, attracted much attention and praise, and
passed into a second edition with other shorter pieces.

But these, while well wrought in the formal eighteenth-century fashion,
showed no special originality. It was with 'Thanatopsis,' written in
1811, when he was only seventeen, that his career as a poet of original
and assured strength began. 'Thanatopsis' was an inspiration of the
primeval woods of America, of the scenes that surrounded the writer in
youth. At the same time it expressed with striking independence and
power a fresh conception of "the universality of Death in the natural
order." As has been well said, "it takes the idea of death out of its
theological aspects and restores it to its proper place in the vast
scheme of things. This in itself was a mark of genius in a youth of his
time and place." Another American poet, Stoddard, calls it the greatest
poem ever written by so young a man. The author's son-in-law and
biographer, Parke Godwin, remarks upon it aptly, "For the first time on
this continent a poem was written destined to general admiration and
enduring fame;" and this indeed is a very significant point, that it
began the history of true poetry in the United States,--a fact which
further secured to Bryant his exceptional place. The poem remains a
classic of the English language, and the author himself never surpassed
the high mark attained in it; although the balanced and lasting nature
of his faculty is shown in a pendant to this poem, which he created in
his old age and entitled 'The Flood of Years.' The last is equal to the
first in dignity and finish, but is less original, and has never gained
a similar fame.

Another consideration regarding Bryant is, that representing a modern
development of poetry under American inspiration, he was also a
descendant of the early Massachusetts colonists, being connected with
the Pilgrim Fathers through three ancestral lines. Born at Cummington,
Massachusetts, November 3d, 1794, the son of a stalwart but studious
country physician of literary tastes, he inherited the stro