152 ARTISTS AND AUTHORS The United States Review ceased, as we have seen, in 1827. Its editor seems to have foreseen its fate in advance, and provided for it ; for, before it happened, he had become connected with the Evening Post. This was in 1826, from which time dates Mr. Bryant's connection with American journalism a connection which he never relinquished, and which, while it may have lessened his poetic productiveness, undoubtedly added largely to his influence with his countrymen. The Evening Post had just completed the first quarter of a century of its existence, and stood foremost among the journals of New York. Perhaps it was the foremost, all things considered. But, however this may be, it was a journal for which a gentleman could write. It was respectable and dignified, and it was able and sarcastic. The age of personalities, through which the American press is now passing, had not commenced. Editors were neither horsewhipped in the streets, nor deserved to be, and that impertinent eavesdropper and babbler, the interviewer, was unknown. Happy age for editors and readers ! The lives of editors, like the lives of most men of letters, are not very inter- esting to the world, whatever they may be to themselves and their friends. They are passed in a routine from which there is no escape, and, if they are now and then enlivened by warfare, it is not usually of the kind to attract the sympathy of indifferent spectators. For the most part, the life editorial is a waste of the brain, and a weariness of the flesh. That it did not prove so in Mr. Bryant's case is owing, no doubt, to his love of literature, an inherent and unconquerable love, which never forsook him, even in the busiest years of journalism. While still a young man, and we may suppose not an affluent one, for his first position on the Evening Post was that of assistant editor, he wrote largely for The Talis- man, the entire contents of which were furnished by himself and his friends Sands and Verplanck. It was the best annual ever brought out in America, equal, it is said, to the best of the English annuals, which is not saying much of those of a later date, but is high praise as regards the earlier volumes, to which even Scott did not disdain to contribute. Besides editing and writing for The Talisman, which was published for three years (1827-29-30), Mr. Bryant fur- nished several papers for " Tales of the Glauber Spa," a collection of entertaining stories, the work of Sands, Verplanck, Paulding, Leggett, Miss Sedgwick, and himself This was published in 1832, as was also the first collected edition of his poems. In 1834 he took a vacation from his editorial labors, and sailed with his family for Europe, leaving the Evening Post in charge of Leggett. He resided in Italy and Germany, which were not so overrun with travelling Americans as at present, and were all the more pleasant to a quiet family on that account. It was his intention to remain abroad three years, but the sudden illness of Leggett, which threatened to result disastrously to the Evening Post, compelled him to re- turn in 1836. In 1840 Mr. Bryant published a new collection of his poetical writings " The Fountain, and other Poems," and, during the next year, visited the South- ern States, and lived for a time in East Florida. " The White-footed Deer, and other Poems," appeared in 1844. A year later, he visited England and Scotland
