As a journalist, Bryant, though less popularly known to-day than such an editor as Horace Greeley, may be regarded as among the most distinguished of Americans. For a full half century he was, as proprietor and editor of the S ew York Evening Post, one of the most insist ent and uneompromisingly urgent of all the anti slavery propagandists -of the North. The prose style of his editorial art icles was simple, straight forward, and vigorous. lacking in subtlety and ambiguity, and never failing to make its point, and is marked, in substance. by common sense and breadth of view. Like all ephemeral writ ing, Bryant's leading articles are unread; and the same remark, in general, applies to his more elaborate prose productions—his books of travel, his addresses, his few stories, and his literary essays, of which that on Irving is the best. These essays belong to the judicial manner of Dr. Johnson rather than to a more modern and im pressionistic school of criticism.
It should be added that Bryant has had no superior as a poetic- describer of American seen.
ery, especially in its larger, more spacious phases. It is worth noting, also, that between 182S and 1S45, when the cares of journalism pressed heavily upon him, his poetic produc tivity suffered. After the latter date almost to his death he showed a rather surprising affluence and power, publishing many of his best poems, such as "The Flood of Years." Finally. readers should be cautioned against believing that "Thanatopsis" is entirely the product of a mere youth. since the famous passage about the quar ry-slave was apparently added several years after Bryant reached his majority.
The best edition of Bryant is that of his son in-law, Parke Godwin, in six volumes, Time Life and Works of William Cullen Bryant (New York, 1883-84). There is a Life by John Bigelow. in the American Men of Letters series (Boston, 1890). Good critical appreciations are those of E. C. Stedman, in Poets of America (Boston, 1SS5), and of Prof. Barrett Wendell, in .4 Lit•r ary History of America (New York, 1900).