examined his case and said,
"My advice is that you go and see Charles Mathews." "Alas! Alas!" said
the man, "I myself am Charles Mathews."

In the loss of William Cullen Bryant I felt it as a personal bereavement
of a close friend. Nowhere have I seen the following incident of his
life recorded, an incident which I still remember as one of the great
events in my life.

In the days of my boyhood I attended a meeting at Tripler Hall, held as
a memorial of Fenimore Cooper, who at that time had just died.
Washington Irving stepped out on the speaker's platform first,
trembling, and in evident misery. After stammering and blushing and
bowing, he completely broke down in his effort to make a speech, and
briefly introduced the presiding officer of the meeting, Daniel
Webster. Rising like a huge mountain from a plain this great orator
introduced another orator--the orator of the day--William Cullen Bryant.
In that memorable oration, lasting an hour and a half, the speaker told
lovingly the story of the life and death of the author of "Leather
Stocking" and "The Last of the Mohicans."

George W. Bethune followed him, thundering out in that marvellous flow
of ideas, with an eloquence that made him the pulpit orator of his
generation in the South. Bryant's hair was then just touched with grey.
The last time I saw him was in my house on Oxford Street, two years ago,
in a company of literary people. I said: "Mr. Bryant, will you read for
us 'Thanatopsis'?" He blushed like a girl, and put his hands over his
face and said: "I would rather read anything than my own production; but
if it will give you pleasure I will do anything you say." Then at 82
years of age, and without spectacles, he stood up and with most pathetic
tenderness read the famous poem of his boyhood days, and from a score of
lips burst forth the exclamation, "What a wonderful old man!" What made
all the land and all the world feel so badly when William Cullen Bryant
was laid down at Roslyn? Because he was a great poet who had died? No;
there have been greater poets. Because he was so able an editor? No;
there have been abler editors. Because he was so very old? No; some have
attained more years. It was because a spotless and noble character
irradiated all he wrote and said and did.

These great men of America, how much they were to me, in their example
of doing and living!

Probably there are many still living who remember what a disorderly
place Brooklyn once wa