TO 
 
 William Cullen Bryant, 
 
 AT EIGHTY YEARS, 
 
 FROM HIS 
 
 Friends and Countrymen. 
 
 NEW YORK : 
 
 SCRIBNER, ARMSTRONG & CO. 
 
 743 and 745 Broadway. 
 
 1876. 
 
 II 2 
 
 .B81lt 
 
FROM THE LIBRARY OF 
 REV. LOUIS FITZGERALD BENSON, D. D. 
 
 BEQUEATHED BY HIM TO 
 
 THE LIBRARY OF 
 
 PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 
 

 

 
 i'HK BRYANT VA31< 
 
 MADK BY TIFFANY* 
 
 
 ■ 
 
TO 
 
 
 William Cullen Bryant, 
 
 AT EIGHTY YEARS, 
 
 FROM HIS 
 
 Friends and Countrymen. 
 
 NEW YORK : 
 
 SCRIBNER, ARMSTRONG & CO. 
 
 743 and 745 Broadway. 
 
 1876. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2012 with funding from 
 
 Princeton Theological Seminary Library 
 
 http://archive.org/details/wicullenbOObrya 
 
PRESENTATION 
 
 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT, 
 
 June 20th, at 8 P.M., Chickering Hall. 
 
 Music. 
 
 Reception of the Commemorative Vase from the 
 Makers by the Committee. 
 
 Music. 
 
 Presentation to Mr. Bryant, with an 
 Address by the Chairman. 
 
 Address by Mr. Bryant. 
 
 Music. 
 
 Opportunity for the audience to examine the Vase. 
 
 Mr. George William Warren presented his services 
 at the Organ. 
 
BRYANT TESTIMONIAL COMMITTEE. 
 
 SAMUEL OSGOOD, Chairman. 
 
 DANIEL HUNTINGTON, HENRY W. BELLOWS, 
 
 JOHN TAYLOR JOHNSTON, HOWARD CROSBY, 
 
 BAYARD TAYLOR, THEODORE ROOSEYELT, 
 
 JOHN BIGELOW, FREDERICK DE PEYSTER, 
 
 WILLIAM H. APPLETON, HENRY C. POTTER, 
 
 ASHER B. DURAND, WILLIAM ADAMS, 
 
 JOSEPH H. CHOATE, A. A. LOW, 
 
 WILLIAM M. EVARTS, FRANKLIN H. DELANO, 
 
 GEORGE RIPLEY, WILLIAM J. HOPITN, 
 
 HENRY E. PIERREPONT, J. G. HOLLAND, 
 
 FREDERICK STURGES, JOHN A. WEEKS, 
 
 J. PIERPONT MORGAN, HENRY W. FOOTE, Boston. 
 
 S. J. TILDEN, JAMES T. FIELDS, 
 
 F. A. P. BARNARD, JAMES R. OSGOOD, 
 
 R. S. STORRS, NOAH PORTER, New Haven. 
 
 BENJAMIN H. FIELD, CHAS R. INGERSOLL, " 
 
 EDWIN HARWOOD New Haven. 
 
 JAMES L. CLAGHORN Philadelphia. 
 
 GEORGE W. CHILDS 
 
 JOHN WELSH 
 
 JAMES II. LATROBE Baltimore. 
 
 EDWIN C. LARNED Chicago. 
 
 ROBERT COLLYER 
 
 WM. G. ELIOT St. Louis. 
 
 CARL SCHURZ 
 
 WILLIAM T. SHERMAN Washington. 
 
 HENRY PROBASCO Cincinnati. 
 
 OGDEN HOFFMAN San Francisco. 
 
 GEO. F. HOAR Worcester. 
 
 ALEXANDER H. BULLOCK 
 
 MARK HOPKINS WlLLIAMSTOWN. 
 
 J. R. IIAWLEY Hartford. 
 
 GEORGE CABOT WARD, Treasurer. 
 
 WENTWORTH S. BUTLER, Secretary. 
 
PRESENTATION 
 
 OF 
 
 THE BRYANT VASE. 
 
 JUNE 20TH, 1876. 
 
 OPENING REMARKS OF THE CHAIRMAN. 
 
 " Ladies and Gentlemen : This occasion, that 
 calls us together to do honor to our distinguished 
 guest, is of a most genial and festive nature, yet 
 none the less, on that account, may we regard it as 
 having its serious aspects. Surely a life so long 
 and so faithful as his, lifts us up by its very presence, 
 and I know that it is proof alike of respect for his 
 character and for your wishes and your disposition, 
 to open these proceedings devoutly. These verses 
 are from hymns in which our poet himself serves 
 us as our chaplain : 
 
 " Hear this call to our nation to give glory to 
 
 the God of our fathers, and to His beloved Son : 
 
 " ' Oh, North, with all thy vales of green ! 
 Oh, South, with all thy palms ! 
 From peopled towns and fields between, 
 Uplift the voice of psalms. 
 
6 THE BRYANT VASE. 
 
 Raise, Ancient East ! the anthem high, 
 And let the youthful West reply. 
 
 " ' Lo ! in the clouds of Heaven appears 
 God's well-beloved Son ; 
 He brings a train of brighter years ; 
 
 His Kingdom is begun ; 
 He comes a guilty world to bless 
 With mercy, truth, and righteousness.' 
 
 " Again let us follow our poet in his prayer for 
 wisdom from above : 
 
 " 'Mighty One, before whose face 
 Wisdom had her glorious seat, 
 When the orbs that people space 
 Sprang to birth beneath thy feet ! 
 
 " * Source of Truth, whose beams alone 
 Light the mighty world of mind ! 
 God of Love, who, from thy throne, 
 Watchest over all mankind ! 
 
 " ' Shed on these who, in thy name, 
 Teach the way of truth and right, 
 Shed that Love's undying flame, 
 Shed that Wisdom's guiding light.' 
 
 " Now, Ladies and Gentlemen, with God's bless- 
 ing upon us, let us turn to the first business of the 
 evening, and receive from the makers the beauti- 
 ful work of art which is to be presented to our 
 guest. This, indeed, is not the harvest-time of 
 
THE BRYANT VASE. 7 
 
 nature, and the fields are not yet ripe for the sickle 
 and the scythe ; but art has all seasons for her own, 
 and here a rich fruit is brought to us from her ever- 
 teeming fields, by the hands of the producers 
 themselves. Honor to the skilled and industrious 
 workmen, and let honor go with their hire to fill 
 out their just reward. 
 
 " Mr. Whitehouse and Gentlemen, Artists and' 
 Workmen, we now look to you to unvail your 
 work, and to allow the Bryant Testimonial Com- 
 mittee to receive it from your hands for its high 
 purpose." 
 
 THE REMARKS OF MR. WHITEHOUSE, THE DE- 
 SIGNER OF THE VASE, ON PRESENTING IT TO 
 THE COMMITTEE. 
 
 " Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Commit- 
 tee : We are here to-night at your request to 
 formally make over to you the Testimonial Vase on 
 which we have been so long engaged ; and the 
 house I represent has seen fit to place it in my 
 hands for that purpose. 
 
 " Before doing so, I must thank you in the name 
 of our firm for having intrusted us with so im- 
 portant and interesting a piece of work ; interest- 
 ing indeed, for no testimonial piece was ever 
 made in this country in which, so far as the silver- 
 
8 THE BRYANT VASE. 
 
 smith community is concerned, such wide-spread 
 interest has been shown. One cause of this was 
 the loner roll of distinguished names of which the 
 Committee is formed ; the other and chief cause was 
 the knowledge that it was to be presented to so 
 upright and beloved a citizen, to so charming, 
 truthful, and distinguished a poet. We are all 
 proud of our connection with it, from the hon- 
 ored head of our house to the very boy who 
 helped to place the silver in the crucible. Every 
 stroke of the pencil, every thought, every touch 
 of the modeling stick, every blow of the hammer 
 has been indeed a work of love. 
 
 " I must also thank you in behalf of the actual 
 workers on this vase, who, at your invitation, are 
 here to-night. This, to me, is a very pleasing 
 feature of the evening's programme, for it is a 
 feature too often overlooked. The art-worker in 
 silver — the successful art- worker in silver — must 
 possess ability of the highest order. He is just as 
 much an artist in his particular line as the painter 
 or sculptor. He is equally enthusiastic, bringing 
 up with the hammer from the dead surface of the 
 metal objects of life and inspiration ; day by day 
 and week by week his interest growing with his 
 work ; going home at night to the equally interested 
 and anxious wife, who in her pride and innocence 
 
THE BRYANT VASE. 9 
 
 thinks the time has come at last, and soon the 
 town will ring with the praises of her John. But 
 alas, false hopes ! the piece is finished, the presen- 
 tation takes place, the work is admired, the giver 
 and receiver are both glorified ; but John, poor 
 John, he is never even dreamed of, and the wife 
 can't understand it ; she thinks there must be 
 something wrong. You, gentlemen, have been the 
 first in this country to look beyond the surface ; 
 you have torn down this vail of seclusion, and 
 brought the art-workman and his merit to the 
 front. In this particular instance, the silent con- 
 sciousness of having been engaged on a testimonial 
 to the father of our country's poetry, was in itself 
 reward enough ; and we thank you, every one of 
 us, firm, designer, modeler, maker, and chaser, for 
 having given us the opportunity to lay this our one 
 small green leaf tribute at his feet. 
 
 " Gentlemen, in the name of Tiffany & Co., I 
 make over to you the Bryant Testimonial Vase." 
 
 DR. OSGOOD'S ADDRESS TO THE MAKERS OF THE 
 
 VASE. 
 
 " Mr. Whitehouse and Fellow- Artists and Work- 
 men : Your speech is short, but your art is long, 
 and this beautiful work of your heads and hands 
 speaks louder than any ambitious words, and 
 
IO THE BRYANT VASE. 
 
 speaks for itself. In the name of the Bryant Testi- 
 monial Committee I thank you for your presence 
 here to-night, with this masterpiece of your taste 
 and skill. The design is apt and original, worthy 
 of the subject and the occasion. The work is 
 careful and exquisite, and every line and feature is 
 proof to all, of what some of us know from obser- 
 vation, that heart as well as time has gone into 
 your toil, and that you have entered into the spirit 
 of this commemorative gift to the patriarch of 
 American letters. I thank you each and all ; and I 
 thank also your employers, who have done their 
 part with such courtesy, enterprise, and public 
 spirit. These gentlemen are supposed to under- 
 stand their business, as we have here ample proof, 
 and we all know that their prosperous house will 
 not suffer by their generous execution of the order 
 committed to them ; but it is cheering to know 
 that they interpret business on so high a plane, and 
 carry into it so much of the sentiment of beauty, 
 and the heart of patriotism and humanity. 
 
 " This personal acknowledgment is cordial and 
 just, but it is not all that it is proper for me to say 
 to you now. You have not only done honor to 
 yourselves, but to your art — even to the ancient and 
 honorable art of the goldsmith and the silversmith 
 — and you have done your part to put it where it 
 
THE BRYANT VASE. I I 
 
 belongs in the fellowship of useful and beautiful 
 arts. All the arts belong together, and it has been 
 well said that art is one, while its instruments are 
 many. Art is one, and its aim is to give life and 
 force to knowledge, and to render into action the 
 science which is light. The Spirit of the living 
 God who called the Cosmos out of Chaos, and 
 who is ever making the many into one, is the 
 great Master of Arts, and has given your craft of 
 metal-workers especial commission, as when of old 
 He called Bezaleel the son of Uri to his service 
 and said : ' I have filled him with the spirit of God, 
 in wisdom and in understanding, and in knowledge 
 and in all manner of workmanship, to devise 
 cunning works, to work in gold and in silver, and 
 in brass, and in cutting of stones to set them, and 
 in carving of timber, to work in all manner of 
 workmanship.' Why wonder at the consecration 
 of your craft ? Why make light of your art, 
 which now, as in the time of the old tabernacle 
 and temple, can so embody and interpret the 
 affections of the household, the loyalty of the 
 nation, the wisdom of the schools, and the sancti- 
 ties of the altar? How much of the mind and 
 heart of mankind has been perpetuated in gold 
 and silver and bronze, and precious stones ! From 
 the plain gold ring and the christening token to 
 
12 THE BRYANT VASE. 
 
 the seal of covenants and cup of Communion, 
 how your work rises in dignity, and lifts the metals 
 of the earth toward the soul of man and the 
 image of God ! How much of high history lives 
 in metal-work, and how many noble statues of 
 sages, prophets, and heroes rise before us to-night 
 as we add this memorial work of yours to the 
 treasures of art and to the annals of culture ! 
 
 " How nobly your art is ministering now to the 
 harmony of nations at our great Centennial jubilee 
 of industry and taste, and bringing offerings in brass 
 and iron, silver and gold, from all lands to join their 
 gifts to yours ! How grand is the conception of 
 the monument of Liberty, which France asks to 
 place upon an island in our harbor — the colossal 
 statue with hand uplifting the torch which throws 
 cheer upon the sailor's benighted way, and the 
 head crowned with rays that flash light upon the 
 dark waters, and inspire hope in all who despair ! 
 God guard beautiful France, and secure to her the 
 Liberty that she sends now as of old to us ! 
 
 " One thought more and I close this acknowledg- 
 ment. Your work is honorable to yourself and 
 to your art, and in connection with your presence 
 here, it tells upon the future of humanity and the 
 progress of civilization. You are here, artists and 
 workmen, with your wives and children, and your 
 
THE BRYANT VASE. I 3 
 
 employers are with you, and we are all one in the 
 generous spirit of the occasion. Let this be a 
 prophecy of the good future of labor in its rela- 
 tions with skill and capital. Many perplexing 
 questions are connected with this subject, and I 
 cannot argue them now, nor can I expose the 
 fearful mistakes that have so often wrecked labor 
 in the name of friendship, and betrayed the work- 
 man with a kiss. The age of true co-operation 
 must come, and this beautiful work is one of the 
 signs of its promise. A hundred years ago, Adam 
 Smith, who had before written of sympathy as the 
 ground of moral sentiment, published his ' Wealth of 
 Nations,' that great charter of the dignity of labor ; 
 and that same year, Benjamin Franklin, who had 
 taught workmen sobriety and thrift, signed the 
 Declaration of Independence that made us a nation. 
 Adam Smith and Benjamin Franklin are in the air 
 here to-night, and they help us in our presentation 
 of this vase to William Cullen Bryant, who wears 
 their mantle in his purpose and his thought. 
 
 " Let the organ sound the hopes that I cannot 
 speak ; and I leave to the organist, who has the 
 Bunker Hill blood and name that went through the 
 fire of battle, to touch the notes of love and life, 
 that mean the peace of nations, the fellowship of 
 the arts, and the brotherhood of mankind." 
 
14 THE BRYANT VASE. 
 
 DR. OSGOOD'S ADDRESS TO MR. BRYANT. 
 
 " We and our children have received many and 
 precious gifts from you, Mr. Bryant ; and now we 
 bring a gift to you in return, not to cancel, but to 
 express our obligation. This piece of silver means 
 you and what we owe to you ; and as we now pre- 
 sent it, we take the liberty to interpret its signifi- 
 cance. 
 
 " This occasion is the sequel and fulfillment of 
 our interview with you November 3d, 1874, when, 
 headed by Mr. Jonathan Sturges, your old and 
 devoted friend, whose name now brightens the 
 record of our best citizens, noblest patriots, and 
 most humane and godly men, we paid our respects 
 to you upon the eightieth anniversary of your 
 birthday, and announced to you this tribute of 
 honor. This work of art has thus a memorial 
 meaning, and it recounts the more than fourscore 
 years of your life, and makes your age stand for 
 the age in which we live. 
 
 " Permit us then first of all to salute in you the 
 goodly spirit of the age which you represent, 
 and to see the nineteenth, with six years of the 
 eighteenth century, looking down upon us from 
 your honored head. 
 
 " You came into this troubled world at a signal 
 
THE BRYANT VASE. I 5 
 
 period, when mighty forces were in deadly conflict, 
 and you have done your work as at once a liberator 
 and a peacemaker, an assailant of tyranny and a 
 champion of law, a leader of light and liberty, and 
 of reverence and faith. When you were born, 
 Robespierre and his crew had just fallen under the 
 guillotine, and Napoleon was a young adventurer, 
 writing of 'life as a flimsy dream soon to be over,' 
 and suspected of sympathizing with the destructives. 
 He lived to be First Consul, then Emperor, and to 
 boast of putting the crown of empire upon the 
 head of the Revolution. He has gone, and the 
 second and the third Napoleon after him. You 
 have lived to assist in putting upon the head of 
 Revolution the crown of order, and in our second 
 or renewed republic you have made your pen 
 mightier than the sword in defense of the op- 
 pressed, in the restraint of the proud, in break- 
 ing the shackles of the slave, and bringing master 
 and servant, rich and poor, under the rule of equal 
 law. This medallion of the old-fashioned printing 
 press, in connection with this design illustrating 
 your career as a journalist, marks well this part of 
 your life, and we salute you as representative of the 
 Press, the Free Press, now the great power on 
 earth, and the greater always as freedom goes 
 hand in hand with justice and truth. 
 
1 6 . THE BRYANT VASE. 
 
 " We salute in you this good spirit of the age, 
 and we honor your part in its literature as well as 
 its law. When you came into the world the storm- 
 spirits were abroad in letters, and were rising in 
 number and power, in spite of the reaction against 
 the reign of terror. Byron was a child of six 
 years, and Shelley an infant of two, and Coleridge 
 and Wordsworth, young men of twenty-four, were 
 still in the unrest and frenzy of radicalism, and had 
 neither found each other nor the faith and love 
 that so exalted them and the new literature which 
 they founded. The masters of German literature, 
 Goethe and Schiller, were friends and fellow- 
 workers, but little known to the great world, and 
 with hardly a public to appreciate them in the 
 Germany that had been so much under the thought, 
 as well as the power, of Frederick the Great. Your 
 life belongs to the great record, and you rank with 
 the spirits of light and reconciliation that led on 
 the Renaissance from the night of bigotry and 
 skepticism. You belong to the goodly company 
 who with Wordsworth and his fellows opened to 
 men the life of nature and the truth of God. It is 
 a simple fact for me to say that you began our 
 new American literature, and that, although not 
 eldest in years, you are eldest in authorship among 
 the poets of America. 
 
THE BRYANT VASE. I 7 
 
 " This sculptured harp, with its neighbor the 
 book decked with the lily, tells well the story of the 
 spirit of your school of poetry and letters ; and in 
 you we welcome your goodly fellowship of our 
 American poets. How great the contrast between 
 your rendering of nature and life and that of the 
 school of liberalism that went before ! Who can 
 withhold admiration from Rousseau, the champion 
 of nature against artifice, or refuse to acknowledge 
 the great work of liberation that he did ? Yet how 
 full of grossness were his pages and his life. What 
 relief there is in our liberty to love nature with 
 you, and to read no line, which, dying, you might 
 wish to blot. 
 
 " We salute you thus as the representative of 
 our home literature as well as of the culture of 
 the age. Great names had gone before, and 
 the Revolution produced masters of prose speech 
 under the lead of Franklin, their chief, and Jeffer- 
 son, Madison, Jay, Hamilton, and their associates 
 in his company. As we pay our respects to you, 
 the poets and authors whom you have known and 
 honored stand with you, and they that have passed 
 away speak to us again. Irving, Cooper, Halleck, 
 Verplanck, Prescott, and all are here, and the living 
 join in honor to the dead. Dana, now on the 
 threshold of fourscore and ten years, Longfellow, 
 
1 8 THE BRYANT VASE. 
 
 Whittier, and Emerson, rich in genius as ripe in 
 years, with the brilliant fellowship of younger 
 poets, come before us now and win our gratitude 
 for their treasures of beauty and wisdom. How 
 pure our poets have been in life, and how pure the 
 speech which they have set to music for the 
 tongue of the nation ! You, sir, have done more 
 than we can say to form our language, and we, 
 who have caught pure diction as well as stirring 
 thought and winning sentiment from your poems 
 in our school days, are glad indeed to set our 
 thanks before you in this expressive gift, with its 
 lessons from the nature that you have interpreted, 
 the country that you have served, and the litera- 
 ture that you have formed. 
 
 " One thing let us say, which this vase signifies 
 by its Greek severity and by its Gothic lines of 
 interlacing branches and upward pointing. This 
 means the union of the Greek culture with the 
 Hebrew faith, the culture that delights in nature 
 and humanity, and the faith that never forgets the 
 God over all, never loses the Great First Cause in 
 pantheist visions or humanitarian pride. There 
 may be more delirium and inebriation in other 
 schools of poetry, whether in sensual madness or 
 mystical absorption, but we part with our birthright 
 when we desert the God of our fathers and set 
 
THE BRYANT VASE. 1 9 
 
 nature or man on His throne. We congratulate 
 you that, in the whole round of your service as 
 poet, journalist, historian, jurist, teacher of political 
 and social science, you have stood by essential 
 ethics, and never deserted the faith. 
 
 " It only remains for me to say that this gift ex- 
 presses, also, our respect and affection for you as 
 our friend and fellow-citizen. Many offerings, 
 great and small, are in this piece of silver, and 
 they come from all parts of the country, not with- 
 out complaint that more was not called for. We 
 who live in and around New York have not been 
 behindhand in this tribute, and we enter into this 
 presentation with peculiar earnestness. You are 
 our neighbor and companion, and for more than 
 fifty years you have taken interest in the welfare 
 of this city, and helped us in every way. We can 
 all join in this deference, whether native or foreign 
 born, Knickerbockers or New-Englanders, East- 
 ern, Western, Northern, or Southern, for we all 
 know you and respect you. You have helped turn 
 out the knaves and put honest men into power. 
 You stood by the old flag in the great struggle 
 when ' God and Our Country ' was the motto, and 
 you are standing by it now when ' Honest Men 
 and Honest Money ; is the issue of the time. You 
 have not shrunk from the duty that now so presses 
 
20 THE BRYANT VASE. 
 
 upon us — the duty of charity and justice to those 
 who have been our enemies ; and you counsel 
 conciliation without cowardice, whilst you give the 
 same rights that you ask — the right of each State 
 to control its own affairs under the Constitution 
 that makes the nation supreme in its own sphere. 
 Here, too, these sculptures speak the lesson of the 
 hour, and speak of you. The cotton and the 
 corn here come together, and the bird of peace is 
 singing between the two. May the promise be 
 fulfilled, and North and South not only hear but 
 repeat the same song of loyalty, the same hymn 
 of faith and good-will ! 
 
 " You have not lost ground by living with us, 
 and you have risen from a young man of thirty to 
 a full-grown man, I will not say an old man, of over 
 eighty, as hearty and active as ever. You have 
 seen the city double its numbers and wealth many 
 times, not without some signs of growth in wisdom 
 as well as bulk. We have been in some respects 
 a little more fast than your advice and example 
 taught us to be, but in being generally cheerful 
 we have followed your lead, and kept up a brave 
 heart through all changes of fortune. We are glad 
 to have you with us to cheer us on to the great 
 future as we turn the leaf of a new century. You 
 still live the life which this vase embodies. You 
 
THE BRYANT VASE. 21 
 
 still see and enjoy the charm of nature ; the gen- 
 tian, the violet, the primrose, and the apple-blos- 
 som delight you as ever ; you hear the hymn of 
 the forest and the song of the stars ; the merry 
 Robert of Lincoln sings for you his genial glee, 
 and the solemn water-fowl preaches faith with 
 untiring wingf. Your muse, that be^an with 
 ' Thanatopsis,' promises to make ' Athanasia ' 
 her swan song as the lengthening shadows point 
 toward morning. 
 
 " Accept this gift, with all its sculptures and 
 memorials, the study of many thoughtful hours and 
 the trophy of more than a thousand days' work, all 
 throbbing with heart-beats, as at once our record 
 and our blessing. This exquisite form brings 
 beauty from the land of old Homer to join with 
 truth and grace from our new America in celebrat- 
 ing your birthday. It means more than we can 
 say. But we can say, for our country and for 
 ourselves, that it means, ' God bless you, Mr. 
 Bryant.' " 
 
 MR. BRYANT'S ADDRESS. 
 
 " I shall begin what I have to say with thanks, 
 and with thanks I shall end it — thanks to my ex- 
 cellent friends who have concurred in the presenta- 
 tion of this beautiful vase, thanks to the artists by 
 
2 2 THE BRYANT VASE. 
 
 whom it is designed and executed, thanks to my 
 friend the chairman of the Committee for the obli^- 
 ing expressions with which he has accompanied the 
 presentation, and thanks to this fair audience for 
 the encouragement of their presence. After ex- 
 pressing my acknowledgments for the honor done 
 me, it would be easiest for me to take refuse in 
 silence ; but this would hardly become me after the 
 kind words addressed to me and the superb gift 
 offered to my acceptance. I fear that I might be 
 accused of imitating an example of which I remem- 
 ber to have read some forty years since. A vol- 
 unteer military company in a provincial town of 
 England on a time presented their captain with a 
 silver pitcher. The non-commissioned officer who 
 presented it, approaching his commander, held it out 
 to him and said, ' Captain, here's the jug.' To this 
 the captain replied, ' Ay, is that the jug ? ' and 
 there the speech-making ended, and the company 
 were ready for the festivities of the evening. I am 
 afraid that a similar condensation of what I have 
 to say might be as ridiculous. 
 
 " Mr. Chairman of the Committee, and you, my 
 good friends who have done me the honor to be 
 here, I would not have you understand that I have 
 the great presumption to take the obliging things 
 said of me as my due, or this superb gift before me 
 
THE BRYANT VASE. 23 
 
 as earned by any service which I have rendered in 
 any quarter. I wish I deserved it all, but, knowing 
 better in my heart, I put a large balance — a very 
 large one. — to the credit of your generosity. What 
 merit would be yours if I had fairly earned all 
 that you are bestowing upon me ? You would be 
 simply doing your duty ; you would be paying a 
 debt. I should have no thanks to give, and you 
 no honor for your benefaction. But consider it 
 in the other light : suppose that I receive these 
 testimonials of your kindness without having 
 earned them, and this proceeding becomes an act 
 of munificence, noble, princely, imperial — a muni- 
 ficence deserving to be extolled in the choicest 
 phrases which language can supply, inasmuch as it 
 is like the bounty which showers the genial rain 
 and pours the sweet sunshine on the unjust as well 
 as the just, and under the influence of benignant 
 seasons ripens the harvests of the field for Tweed 
 as well as for Dr. Muhlenberg. 
 
 " And now a word concerning the superb vase 
 which is before me, the work of artists who are the 
 worthy successors of Benvenuto Cellini, and emi- 
 nent in their department. It has been greatly 
 admired by those who have seen it, and deserves 
 their admiration. I remember to have read, I 
 think some half a century ago, a definition of the 
 
24 THE BRYANT VASE. 
 
 term genius — making it to consist in the faculty of 
 accomplishing great results by small means — the 
 power, in short, which an individual has of over- 
 coming difficulties by a forecast and vigor not pos- 
 sessed by others, converting obstacles into instru- 
 ments of success. This vase I may call a product 
 of genius, both in the design and the execution ; 
 for who would suppose that any skill of the artist 
 could connect with such a subject as he had before 
 him images so happily conceived, so full of ex- 
 pression, and so well combining expression with 
 grace ? My friends, we authors cultivate a short- 
 lived reputation ; one generation of us pushes 
 another from the stage ; the very language in 
 which we write becomes a jargon, and we cease to 
 be read ; but a work like this is always beautiful, 
 always admired. Age has no power over its 
 charm. Hereafter some one may say, 'This beau- 
 tiful vase was made in honor of a certain American 
 poet, whose name it bears, but whose writings are 
 forgotten. It is remarkable that so much pains 
 should have been taken to illustrate the life and 
 writings of one whose works are so completely 
 unknown at the present day.' Thus, gentlemen 
 artists, I shall be indebted to you for causing the 
 memory of my name to outlast that of my 
 writings." 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 THE PRESENTATION. 
 DESCRIPTION OF THE VASE. 
 THE BIRTHDAY VISIT. 
 TRIBUTES OF THE PRESS. 
 
APPENDIX, 
 
 There having 1 been a general desire that the 
 proceedings connected with the recent tribute of 
 honor to Mr. Bryant should be preserved in per- 
 manent and suitable form, they have been collected 
 together with the approval of the parties concerned, 
 and they are now published with the authority of 
 the Executive Committee who had charge of the 
 preparation and presentation of the Testimonial. 
 This publication is purely a historical record, and 
 its aim is not to express opinions, but simply to 
 chronicle facts. The record speaks for itself, and 
 it is not necessary to prove that the occasion is 
 not only a tribute to one man, but to the whole 
 national literature which he represents, and that 
 thus these proceedings form an interesting chapter 
 of American history. 
 
 In completing their task, the Committee have 
 the satisfaction of reporting to the subscribers that 
 after paying five thousand dollars for the Vase, 
 according to contract, and meeting all demands for 
 incidental expenses, they found in the treasurer's 
 
28 THE BRYANT VASE. 
 
 hands the sum of one hundred and ninety-nine 
 dollars and fifty cents, which they were happy to 
 send to the Rev. Dr. Muhlenberg, as a donation 
 toward the comprehensive and unsectarian chari- 
 ties of St. Luke's Hospital. They take pleasure 
 also in the enterprise and public spirit of Messrs. 
 Tiffany & Company, who expended on the Vase 
 more than double the amount of money received 
 by them according to contract, and who are content, 
 as they have reason to be, with their reward in 
 their own professional feeling, and before the 
 tribunal of public opinion. Their work will speak 
 for them and their art in the years that are to 
 come. The Committee have transmitted to Mr. 
 Bryant the full title to the Vase, with the simple 
 request that when he ceases to have it in charge, 
 his heirs may be instructed by him to have it kept 
 in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, or a similar 
 institution, where posterity may learn in what 
 esteem he was held in his own generation. 
 
 The documents which are here added are from 
 the journals of the day, and are published in order 
 to complete the account. 
 
 Samuel Osgood, 
 Joseph H. Choate, 
 George Cabot Ward. 
 
THE BRYANT VASE. 29 
 
 ITS PRESENTATION— ADDRESSES BY DR. OSGOOD, 
 MR. WHITEHOUSE, MR. BRYANT, AND OTHERS. 
 
 The Testimonial Vase which was tendered to 
 William Cullen Bryant, on his eightieth birthday, 
 by a large Committee of prominent persons in this 
 and other cities, was formally presented to him at 
 Chickering Hall last evening. The hall was filled 
 by a remarkably brilliant company of ladies and 
 gentlemen, including many of distinction in various 
 walks of life. Among the persons present were 
 Charles O'Conor, Peter Cooper, A. A. Low, Parke 
 Godwin, Daniel Huntington, John Taylor John- 
 ston, William H. Appleton, Joseph H. Choate, 
 Frederick Sturges, J. Pierpont Morgan, George 
 Cabot Ward, Henry W. Bellows, Howard Crosby, 
 J. G. Holland, Theodore Roosevelt, F. A. P. Bar- 
 nard, William J. Hoppin, the Rev. Dr. Henry C. 
 Potter, Henry E. Pierrepont, the Rev. Dr. Men- 
 des, Jackson S. Schultz, Bayard Taylor, Comp- 
 troller Green, and many others equally well known 
 to the public. Letters of regret were received 
 from Bishop Potter, General Sherman, Dr. John 
 Hall, Carl Schurz, the Rev. Robert Collyer, and 
 others. 
 
 " Hail to the Chief" was played upon the organ 
 by George William Warren, as Mr. Bryant was 
 conducted to the platform by the Rev. Dr. Samuel 
 Osgood, and the whole audience rose. Dr. Os- 
 good, as Chairman of the Testimonial Commit- 
 
30 THE BRYANT VASE. 
 
 tee, then made a few remarks in regard to the 
 object of the assembly. 
 
 James H. Whitehouse, of Tiffany & Co., next 
 presented the Vase to the Committee on behalf of 
 the makers. He said that he was proud to hand 
 over so fine a piece of workmanship for so noble 
 a purpose. He created considerable merriment 
 by reminding his hearers that the men who really 
 did all the labor on a work of art like the Vase, 
 seldom or never got any credit for their pains, or 
 were seldom even heard of; and in order to make 
 an exception to a general rule, he said that the 
 men who had done the entire work on the Vase 
 were present, and he felt certain they would not 
 be overlooked in the general praisegivings. At 
 the request of Dr. Osgood, the five workmen who 
 were on the stage stood up, and were received 
 with hearty applause. The address of Mr. White- 
 house was very appropriate and graceful. 
 
 Dr. Osgood spoke as already reported on 
 receiving the Vase. 
 
 After the rendering of some national airs on 
 the organ, Dr. Osgood presented the Vase to Mr. 
 Bryant in the speech as printed. 
 
 Applause followed, and " See the Conquering 
 Hero Comes " was played upon the organ. Mr. 
 Bryant then advanced to respond, and was received 
 with long-continued applause. 
 
 Mr. Bryant's address was received with loud 
 applause. The exercises on the programme were 
 then ended by some organ selections, but there 
 
THE BRYANT VASE. 3 1 
 
 were loud calls from the audience for Joseph H. 
 Choate, who was upon the platform. Mr. Choate 
 at length said that he did not wish to detain the 
 company by any words of his, but he could say 
 that the thousand people gathered there repre- 
 sented not only all the people of this country, but 
 all who spoke and wrote the English tongue, in 
 their feelings toward the venerable and distin- 
 guished poet. The American people were proud 
 of their productions. They were proud of their 
 great statesmen and great warriors, but most of all 
 of their great poets. • The works of American 
 authors, of Bryant, of Longfellow, of Whittier, and 
 Holmes, were to be found in every drawing-room 
 in the British empire, and no one could now ask, 
 " Who reads an American book ? " He advised 
 the persons present to take this opportunity for 
 " shaking hands with our honored friend, and 
 examining this beautiful Vase." 
 
 A large part of the audience then advanced to 
 the platform to congratulate Mr. Bryant and to 
 inspect the silver Vase, a full description of which 
 has been published. 
 
 It was announced by Dr. Osgood that, with Mr. 
 Bryant's permission, the Vase would be taken to 
 the Centennial Exhibition. — The Evening Post, 
 June 21, 1876. 
 
32 THE BRYANT VASE. 
 
 DESCRIPTION OF THE VASE. 
 
 (From Harper's Magazine for July, 1876.) 
 
 * * It was thought by the friends of 
 William Cullen Bryant in this city that some trib- 
 ute of respect was due to him when he reached 
 eighty years of age, and the suggestion was made 
 by one among them that a commemorative Vase, 
 of appropriate' original design and choice work- 
 manship, would be the best form of the intended 
 tribute, especially since Mr. Bryant did not need 
 any material aid, and, moreover, the sculptor and 
 painter and engraver and publisher had already 
 conspicuously paid their respects to him. Our 
 leading artists and men of taste were consulted, 
 and the plan of a commemorative Vase was ap- 
 proved and acted upon. * * * 
 
 As the Vase required much time for its comple- 
 tion, no effort was made to have it ready for pres- 
 entation then, but immediately afterward effective 
 measures were taken to carry out the assurance 
 contained in the address by completing the sub- 
 scription of five thousand dollars, and securing the 
 best design. The field of competition was thrown 
 open to the whole craft of silversmiths, and while 
 the first attempts showed crudeness and inexperi- 
 ence, and not a few persons declared it to be 
 
THE BRYANT VASE. 33 
 
 impossible for our designers and workmen to make 
 a first-class work of ideal and historical art such as 
 would be fit for presentation to the patriarch of 
 American letters, the final result removed all 
 these misgivings, and the fine designs that were 
 offered at the closing competition in February, 
 1875, put all fears at rest, and proved that our 
 silversmiths were up to the best standard of their 
 guild, and that, with full preparation and fair notice, 
 they can do as good work in their way as is done 
 anywhere in the world. All the designs were 
 creditable to their authors, and the specimens of 
 modeling in wax and of casting and chasing in 
 metal-work were interesting and encoura^inor. 
 The design of Mr. Whitehouse, of the house of 
 Tiffany & Co., was accepted unanimously, alike 
 from its beauty and its fitness, while the other 
 designs were carefully examined, generously ap- 
 preciated, and the public were encouraged to study 
 their merits by friendly comments from the Com- 
 mittee, and by articles in the newspapers and illus- 
 trations in the magazines. Our readers have now 
 an opportunity to judge for themselves of the 
 merits of the successful design, and the visitors at 
 the Centennial Exposition are seeing the work 
 itself with their own eyes. 
 
 It is not a very ambitious production, and in its 
 3 
 
34 THE BRYANT VASE. 
 
 severity of form and in its careful and exquisite 
 details there is a combination of simplicity and 
 beauty which belongs to the subject, and which 
 ventures upon no point which cannot be thorough- 
 ly worked out. This piece of silver means William 
 Cullen Bryant, the living father of our literature, 
 and it siiQfQfests the America in which he has lived 
 and labored and sung. The artist, Mr. James H. 
 YVhitehouse, well expressed the spirit of his work 
 in his remarks before the Committee, when he 
 said : " When the Bryant Testimonial was first 
 mentioned to me, my thoughts at once flew to the 
 country — to the crossing of the boughs of trees, to 
 the plants and flowers, and to a general contem- 
 plation of Nature ; and these, together with a cer- 
 tain Homeric influence, produced in my mind the 
 germ of the design — the form of a Greek vase, 
 with the most beautiful American flowers crowing 
 round and entwining themselves gracefully about 
 it, each breathing its own particular story as it 
 grew." 
 
 Thus it is that the Vase is entirely covered with 
 a fret-work formed of apple-branches and their 
 blossoms, or a delicate basket-work from the apple- 
 tree, which so well expresses Mr. Bryant's poetry 
 in its fragant bloom and its wholesome fruit. Be- 
 neath this fret-work, and forming the finer lines of 
 
THE BRYANT VASE. 35 
 
 its fret, are the primrose and the amaranth, which 
 out of the lips of their loveliness speak their lessons 
 of inspiration and of immortality. The body of the 
 Vase, which is thus formed and enriched, bears ex- 
 pressive and elaborate medallions of the poet, and 
 of the main aspects of his life and works. The most 
 prominent of these medallions is the portrait bust. 
 Above his head is the lyre, which represents his 
 art, and below is the printing-press in its primitive 
 form, which suggests his career of journalism, while 
 more prominent still, farther below, is the elaborate 
 and beautiful design of the water-fowl, which so 
 presents God over Nature in the charming and ex- 
 alting poem of that name. On the opposite side of 
 the Vase there is a carefully designed and executed 
 study of Poetry contemplating Nature — two female 
 figures, which balance wisely the somewhat se- 
 verely masculine character of the other designs, 
 and give their womanly grace to the honor of the 
 poet whose life and works so well harmonize in 
 respect for woman, and for the home, marriage, 
 and religion that give her the best defense and 
 power. Between these two principal medallions 
 there are on each side two groups illustrating 
 scenes in the poets life, making four groups in all. 
 The first group presents him in company with his 
 
36 THE BRYANT VASE. 
 
 father, who points to Homer as a model in poetic 
 composition : 
 
 "For he is in his grave who taught my youth 
 The art of verse, and in the bud of life 
 Offered me to the Muses. " 
 
 The next group presents him as the student of 
 Nature, such as he appears in " Thanatopsis " or 
 " A Forest Hymn " : 
 
 "Stranger, if thou hast learned a truth which needs 
 No school of long experience, that the world 
 Is full of guilt and misery, and hast seen 
 Enough of all its sorrows, crimes, and cares 
 To tire thee of it, enter this wild wood 
 And view the haunts of Nature. " 
 
 The third design illustrates his life as journalist ; 
 and the fourth represents him in his good old age 
 as translator of the Iliad and the Odyssey. The 
 lower part of the bowl bears ornamentation from 
 the characteristic products of American agricul- 
 ture — cotton and Indian corn. The neck is encir- 
 cled with primrose and ivy in token of youth and 
 old age, while the " fringed gentian" suggests the 
 grave thought from its blue petals : 
 
 " I would that thus, when I shall see 
 The hour of death draw near to me, 
 Hope, blossoming within my heart, 
 May look to heaven as I depart." 
 
THE BRYANT VASE. 3/ 
 
 The famous line, "Truth crushed to earth shall 
 rise again," is also given here in the form of an 
 ornamental border inlaid in gold. The ornament 
 at the foot of the bowl is the water-lily, the emblem 
 of fluency and eloquence. The handles are richly 
 decorated with the fern, the cotton, and Indian 
 corn, while the bobolink represents the whole tribe 
 of his fellow-singers, and does honor to the poet 
 and to his humorous verse on "Robert of Lincoln" 
 from his perch. The base bears the lyre and 
 broken shackles, which so represent the poet as 
 patriot and emancipator. The idea of justice as 
 the animating motive of his public career is given 
 in the vigorous handling" of the Rudbeckia flower, 
 
 o o 
 
 which is the type of that virtue ; and this idea gains 
 power from the book without a name, and which 
 from its prominent place can be none other than 
 the Book of books. 
 
 Such are the form and features of this memorial 
 Vase, and, as in a graceful and spirited man, they 
 make one whole, and the various parts indicate the 
 dominating spirit, the robe of flower- work, with 
 its cincture of medallions, the golden fillet emblaz- 
 oned with the name of Truth, the arms that hold 
 the emblems of the nation's wealth, the corn and 
 water-lilies at the foot, the solid base with the lyre 
 and broken chain, the bird, the two typical flow- 
 
38 THE BRYANT VASE. 
 
 ers, the printing-press and the Bible — all these 
 details gather around the life which they express, 
 and make this piece of silver a work of ideal and 
 historical art. As a whole, the work has a look of 
 simplicity, and seems easy of execution, yet the 
 process was very laborious and costly ; and a care- 
 ful examination of its various stages and methods, 
 with the help of the best judges and books, justifies 
 the opinion that industrial art in America has taken 
 some steps forward by this tribute, and that suc- 
 cess in this instance is likely to tell upon the whole 
 future of the silversmith's craft anions us. * * * 
 
 1794— 1874. 
 MR. BRYANT'S BIRTHDAY. 
 
 A SIMPLE AND NATIONAL COMMEMORATION. 
 
 The eightieth anniversary of the birthday of Mr. 
 Bryant was the occasion yesterday of a greeting of 
 his friends, which partook so much of a public 
 character that a simple narrative of some of the 
 particulars is due to our readers. 
 
 An informal meeting of a number of gentlemen 
 was held in this city a few weeks ago, to consider 
 how the eeneral desire to commemorate the anni- 
 versary might find a suitable expression. At this 
 
THE BRYANT VASE. 39 
 
 meeting the suo-^estion was made that a silver vase 
 of original design and choice workmanship, sym- 
 bolizing in its sculpture the character of Mr. 
 Bryant's life and writings, should be procured by a 
 popular subscription, to be ultimately placed in the 
 Metropolitan Museum of Art. By the request of 
 numerous friends of Mr. Bryant, residing both here 
 and elsewhere, the suggestion was also adopted 
 that an address should be drawn for their signature, 
 to express to him their friendship. 
 
 In pursuance of the first suggestion, a Committee, 
 of whom the following is a list, were organized to 
 execute the project of the commemorative Vase : 
 Jonathan Sturges, of New York city, Chairman ; 
 Samuel Osgood, Daniel Huntington, John Taylor 
 Johnston, William H. Appleton, Asher B. Durand, 
 William T. Blodgett, William M. Evarts, George 
 Ripley, Frederick A. P. Barnard, William Butler 
 Duncan, Benjamin H. Field, Henry W. Bellows, 
 Howard Crosby, Theodore Roosevelt, Frederick 
 De Peyster, Henry C. Potter, William Adams, and 
 Franklin H. Delano, of New York city; Henry E. 
 Pierrepont and A. A. Low, of Brooklyn ; John 
 Bigelow, of Highland Falls, N. Y.; Bayard Taylor, 
 of Pennsylvania ; Edward Everett Hale, of Boston ; 
 Edwin Harwood, of New Haven ; James L. Gag- 
 horn, of Philadelphia ; James H. Latrobe, of Balti- 
 
4-0 THE BRYANT VASE. 
 
 more ; Edwin C. Larned, of Chicago ; William G. 
 Eliot, of St. Louis ; Henry Probasco, of Cincinnati ; 
 Ogden Hoffman, of San Francisco; Alfred Haven, 
 of Portsmouth, N. H.; and George F. Hoar, of 
 Worcester, Mass.; George Cabot Ward, of New 
 York city, Treasurer ; Wentworth S. Butler, of 
 New York city, Secretary. 
 
 In accordance with the second sucf^estion, the 
 following address was prepared by the Rev. Dr. 
 Samuel Osgood, for the signature of Mr. Bryant's 
 friends : 
 
 " November 3, 1874. 
 " William Citllen Bryant : 
 
 " Honored and Dear Sir : We, your friends 
 and fellow-citizens, congratulate you upon complet- 
 ing your eightieth year in such vigor of body and 
 mind. We give you our heartiest wishes for your 
 continued health and happiness, and we inform you 
 respectfully of the intention to embody in a com- 
 memorative Vase, of original design and choice 
 workmanship, the lessons of your literary and 
 civic career in its relations with our country, whose 
 nature, history, liberty, law, and conscience you 
 have so illustrated. We believe that such a work 
 will be an expressive fact of our coming National 
 Centennial, and a permanent treasure of our Met- 
 ropolitan Museum of Art. We only add that we 
 
THE BRYANT VASE. 4 1 
 
 desire that this tribute of gratitude should come 
 from your friends throughout the country, without 
 distinction of party or section, and that our Ameri- 
 can women shall be encouraged to unite in the act, 
 since our mothers, wives, and daughters are ready 
 to declare their obligation to you for the pure lan- 
 guage and sentiment which you have given to the 
 homes and the schools of the nation." 
 
 Mr. Bryant was yesterday at work at his edito- 
 rial desk in the Evening Post building until noon. 
 Between i and 2 o'clock in the afternoon, Mr. Stur- 
 ges, with many of his associates in the Committee, 
 and other friends, presented to him, at his house in 
 Sixteenth Street in this city, a copy of the address, 
 bearing several hundreds of signatures of names 
 illustrious in almost every honorable pursuit in this 
 community, and at the same time other copies 
 which had up to yesterday morning been returned 
 to the Committee with signatures from Chicago, St. 
 Louis, Philadelphia, and other centers of American 
 population, culture, and enterprise. The proceed- 
 ings were all simple and informal. Mr. Bryant was 
 accompanied by his daughters — Mrs. Parke God- 
 win and Miss Julia Bryant — and among the gentle- 
 men in company with Mr. Sturges were the Rev- 
 Drs. William Adams, Henry W. Bellows, Howard 
 Crosby, and Samuel Osgood ; Mr. Daniel Hunting- 
 
42 THE BRYANT YASE. 
 
 ton, Mr. Samuel J. Tilden, Mr. A. A. Low, Mr. 
 Benjamin H. Field, Mr. Frederick De Peyster, Mr. 
 George Cabot Ward, Mr. John H. Gourlie, Mr. 
 Albert G. Browne, Jr., Professor Van Amringe, of 
 Columbia College, Mr. Wentworth S. Butler, and 
 Mr. Gilbert L. Beeckman. In delivering to Mr. 
 Bryant the copy of the address, Mr. Sturges said : 
 " We have come, dear Mr. Bryant, to congratu- 
 late you upon reaching the ripe age of eighty year's 
 in such vigor of health and intellect ; to thank you 
 for all the good work that, you have done for your 
 country and for mankind ; and to give you our 
 best wishes for your happiness. For more than 
 sixty years you have been an author, and from your 
 first publication to your last you have given to us 
 and our children the best thought and sentiment in 
 the purest language of the English-speaking race. 
 For more than fifty years you have been a journal- 
 ist, and advocated the duties as well as the rights 
 of men, with all the genuine freedom, without any 
 of the license, of our age, in an editorial wisdom 
 that has been a blessing to our daughters as well 
 as our sons. You have been a good citizen and 
 true patriot, ready to bear your testimony to the 
 worth of your great literary contemporaries, and 
 steadfast from first to last in your loyalty to the 
 liberty and order of the nation. You have stood 
 
THE BRYANT VASE. 43 
 
 up manfully for the justice and humanity that are the 
 hope of mankind and the commandment of God. 
 We thank you for ourselves, for our children, for 
 our country, and for our race, and we commend you 
 to the providence and grace of Him who has 
 always been with you, and who will be with you 
 to the end. 
 
 " We present to you this address of congratula- 
 tion, with signatures from all parts of the country, 
 and with the proposal of a work of commemora- 
 tive art that shall be sculptured with ideas and im- 
 ages from your poems, and be full of the grateful 
 remembrances and affections of the friends who 
 love you as a friend, and the nation that honors 
 you as the patriarch of our literature." 
 
 Mr. Bryant then made the following brief and 
 evidently unpremeditated reply : 
 
 "Mr. Sturges and Gentlemen : I thank you 
 for the kind words referring to me in the address 
 which has just been read, and am glad that you 
 find it possible to speak of what I have done with 
 so much indulgence. I have lived long, as it may 
 seem to most people, however short the term ap- 
 pears to me when I look back upon it. In that 
 period have occurred various most important 
 changes, both political and social, and on the whole 
 I am rejoiced to say that they have, as I think, im- 
 
44 THE BRYANT VASE. 
 
 proved the condition of mankind. The people 
 of civilized countries have become more enlicdit- 
 ened and enjoy a greater degree of freedom. They 
 have become especially more humane and sympa- 
 thetic, more disposed to alleviate each others' suf- 
 ferings. This is the age of charity. In our day 
 charity has taken forms unknown to former ages, 
 and occupied itself with the cure of evils which 
 former generations neglected. 
 
 " I remember the time when Bonaparte filled the 
 post of First Consul in the French Republic — for 
 I began early to read the newspapers. I saw how 
 that republic grew into an empire ; how that em- 
 pire enlarged itself by successive conquests on all 
 sides, and how the mighty mass, collapsing by its 
 own weight, fell into fragments. I have seen from 
 that time to this change after change take place, 
 and the result of them all, as it seems to me, is 
 that the liberties and rights of the humbler classes 
 have been more and more regarded, both in fram- 
 ing and executing the laws. For the greater part of 
 my own eighty years it seemed to me, and I think 
 it seemed to all, that the extinction of slavery was 
 an event to be accomplished by a remote posterity. 
 But all this time its end was approaching, and sud- 
 denly it sank into a bloody grave. The union of 
 the Italian principalities under one head, and the 
 
THE BRYANT VASE. 40 
 
 breaking up of that anomaly in politics, the posses- 
 sion of political power by a priesthood, seemed, 
 during the greater part of the fourscore years of 
 which I have spoken, an event belonging to a dis- 
 tant and uncertain future, yet was it drawing near 
 by steps not apparent to the common eyes, and it 
 came in our own day. The people of Italy willed 
 it, and the people were obeyed. 
 
 " There is yet a time which good men earnestly 
 hope and pray for — the day when the populations 
 of the civilized world shall prepare for a universal 
 peace by disbanding the enormous armies which 
 they keep in camps and garrisons, and sending their 
 soldiery back to the fields and workshops from 
 which, if the people were wise, their sovereigns 
 never should have withdrawn them. Let us hope 
 that this will be one of the next great changes. 
 
 " Gentlemen, again I thank you for your kind- 
 ness. I have little to be proud of, but when I look 
 round upon those whom this occasion has brought 
 together, I confess that I am proud of my friends." 
 
 While Mr. Bryant was speaking, the following 
 telegram was received from Governor Dix : 
 
 "Albany, November 3, 1874. 
 1 ' To William Cidlen Bryant : 
 
 "I unite with your friends in the city of New York in cor- 
 dial congratulations on this anniversary of your birth. 
 
 "John A. Dix." 
 
46 THE BRYANT VASE. 
 
 It is impossible to give but a small part of the 
 names of the signers of the address, but the follow- 
 ing hasty and imperfect selection will indicate the 
 general, spontaneous, and cordial character of their 
 token of respect, esteem, and friendship : 
 
 New York City : Benjamin G. Arnold, George S. Appleton, 
 Charles Butler, James Brown, William A. Butler, D. W. Bishop, 
 O. B. Bunce, P. T. Barnum, Julius Bing, Robert Carter, J. D. 
 Champlin, George S. Coe, C. E. Detmold, Bowie Dash, W. J. 
 Easton, Cortlandt de P. Field, Alfred H. Guernsey, Thomas 
 Hillhouse, Roswell D. Hitchcock, Rossiter Johnson, William 
 W. Kip, Richard A. McCurdy, Robert Morris, L. P. Morton, 
 W. N. McVickar, R. Heber Newton, George Opdyke, William 
 Orton, Richard Patrick, O. H. Palmer, Charles A. Peabody, T. 
 M. Peters, George Ripley, John Cotton Smith, Joseph Seligman, 
 Isaac Sherman, W. T. G. Shedd, Philip SchafT, C. C. Tiffany, 
 Hugh Miller Thompson, Sinclair Tousey, W. M. Vermilye, 
 Frederick S. Winston, George D. Wildes, John E. Williams, 
 James Grant Wilson, Edward A. Washburn, E. L. Youmans. 
 
 Brooklyn : F. R. Schroeder, H. B. Claflin, E. H. R.Lyman, 
 Demas Barnes, P. C. Cornell, Alden Wattles, Charles P. Cha- 
 pin, C. T. Christensen, Josiah O. Low, James A. Briggs. 
 
 St. Loin's: General William T. Sherman, and General Whipple, 
 and Colonels Audenried and Tourtellotte, of his staff; Wayman 
 Crow, John R. Shepley, James E. Yeatman, S. T. Glover, 
 Henry Hitchcock, Henry Pomeroy. 
 
 Chicago : Lyman Trumbull, Robert Collyer, David Swing, 
 Horace White, W. E. Doggett, Charles Hitchcock, Charles A. 
 Dupee, W. B. Ogden, Wirt Dexter, F. B. Peabody. 
 
 Philadelphia: A. J. Drexel, J. B. Lippincott, George W. 
 Childs. 
 
THE BRYANT VASE. 47 
 
 Worcester (Mass.): Alexander H. Bullock, Joseph Sargent, 
 T. L. Nelson, George W. Richardson, Henry Chapin, W. W. 
 Rice, E. B. Stoddard, Adin Thayer. 
 
 Williamstown (Mass.) : Mark Hopkins, P. A. Chadbourne, 
 Joseph White, Arthur L. Perry, Sanborn Tenney, Henry L. 
 Sabin. 
 
 Providence (R. I.) : Seth Padleford, Bishop Thomas M. 
 Clark. 
 
 Hartford (Conn.) : Joseph R. Hawley. 
 
 Neiv Haven (Conn.) : Charles R. Ingersoll, Noah Porter. 
 
 Stamford (Conn.) : C. S. Henry. 
 
 Catskill (N. Y.) : Samuel M. Cornell. 
 
 Rye (N. Y.) : R. R. Anthony. 
 
 Garden City (N. Y.) : John E. Irwin. 
 
 Flushing (N. Y.) : F. Elliman. 
 
 Troy (N. Y.) : D. L. Boardman. 
 
 Bergen (N. J. ) : George Z. Gray, Thomas B. Bickwell. 
 
 Newark (N. J.) : E. C. Benedict, S. W. Corwin, S. H. John- 
 son. 
 
 Montclair (N. J.) : J. Romeyn Bury, jr., George H. Ripley. 
 
 Orange (N. J. ) : Charles A. Meguire, J. M. Meredith. 
 
 Rosette (N. J.) : M. R. Hibbard. 
 
 Milburn (N. J.) : J. R. Hopkins. 
 
 New Brunswick (N. J. ) : Oscar Johnson, jr. 
 
 Morristown (N. J.) : John D. Stewart. 
 
 Plainfidd (N. J.) : Frederick E. Busby, R. B. Brown. 
 
 Tenafly (N. J.) : George F. Lyman. 
 
 Minnesota : Bishop H. B. Whipple. 
 
 Dacotah : Bishop William H. Hare. 
 Vienna (Austria) : John Jay. 
 
 The Committee received letters from Mr. John 
 Taylor Johnston and Rev. Dr. H. C. Potter, of 
 
48 THE BRYANT VASE. 
 
 their number, regretting; their unavoidable absence 
 on the occasion. The following is the letter of 
 
 o 
 
 Dr. Potter : 
 
 "Grace Church Rectory,) 
 Monday Evening. ) 
 
 " Dear Sir : I am heartily sorry that to-morrow is the last 
 day of the session of our General Convention, and that my 
 engagements as Secretary of the House of Bishops will require 
 my incessant attention throughout the day. 
 
 "I cannot, therefore, accompany the Committee who are to 
 wait upon Mr. Bryant, but my sympathies will follow them 
 on their most appropriate and becoming errand, and I shall 
 account it a kindness if you will convey to Mr. Bryant my con- 
 gratulations and the expression of my unfeigned regret that I 
 am prevented from tendering them in person. 
 
 " Very faithfully yours, 
 
 "H. C. POTTER. 
 
 "Jonathan Sturges, Esq." 
 
 A number of poems addressed to Mr. Bryant 
 were also received by the Committee ; among them 
 the two following, the first from Mr. Charles K. 
 Tuckerman, now in London, England, and the sec- 
 ond from Rev. Dr. Horatio N. Powers, of Chicago : 
 
 TO WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT, 
 
 ON THE EIGHTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF HIS BIRTHDAY. 
 
 A Tribute from an Atnerican Abroad. 
 
 The silver wheels of thy melodious years 
 Have rolled thee to the laurel post again : 
 
THE BRYANT VASE. 49 
 
 Again our eager hands renew the crown ; 
 
 Again our mingling voices utter thanks. 
 
 We thank thee for the plenitude of fame 
 
 Which riseth o'er the landscape of thy life 
 
 Like the New England pine, serenely strong, 
 
 Filling the autumn air with scent of balm. 
 
 We thank thee for the good thou hast conferred 
 
 At times when Poets' thoughts are best for man, 
 
 Speeding the idle hour with swift delight, 
 
 Soothing the sorrowing hour with calm of peace. 
 
 We thank thee in their names, the weary ones, 
 
 When, lying sleepless with solicitude, 
 
 They have bethought them of thy melody — 
 
 Those unaffected, simply-flowing strains, 
 
 So clear in their conception, yet so vast 
 
 In comprehensive wisdom — and have risen 
 
 And sought the book, and with thee moved awhile 
 
 Over the meadows and by running streams 
 
 And under fragrant boughs of singing trees, 
 
 Till, lost, like children, in the sylvan scene, 
 
 They've closed the page and dreamed they had no cares. 
 
 Thy walk has ever been towards heaven, Great Heart ! 
 And when thou goest in, methinks the sound 
 Of upper voices will accord with thine 
 As if a missing tone were found again. 
 Even in thy youth, alone and undismayed, 
 Fair Nature found thee on her mountain heights 
 Singing the songs of freedom : or in groves — 
 Those consecrated temples of thy choice — 
 Chanting the unpremeditated prayer 
 Born of poetic faith and reverend love. 
 Not thine the dusty-footed pilgrimage 
 4 
 
5o THE BRYANT VASE. 
 
 In quest of inspiration ; no far clime 
 
 Lends thee its book of beauty ; but at home, 
 
 In the warm midst of its familiar scenes, 
 
 Thy harp-strings sing the sweetest. All around 
 
 The forms of recognition welcome thee : 
 
 The laughing rivulet, with morning light, 
 
 " Comes singing down the narrow glen " to thee ; 
 
 The water-fowl, "lone wandering but not lost," 
 
 Sees thee and feels no fear : at thy approach 
 
 The timorous squirrel, busy with its nut, 
 
 Sits undisturbed : "The century-living crow " 
 
 Caws at thy coming — thou, whose flight of fame 
 
 Shall far outdistance all his length of years — 
 
 And to thy listening ear the evening wind, 
 
 With " strange deep harmonies " reveals itself. 
 
 These shall thy mourners be when thou art gone, 
 
 These, and the hearts of wild flowers and of waves, 
 
 These, and the hearts of sunbeams and of stars, 
 
 For these dost thou interpret unto man : 
 
 Drawing him closer to the throbbing breast 
 
 Of purifying Nature. 
 
 Not in vain 
 Doth her beneficent wisdom lengthen out 
 Thy days of ministration, for thy days 
 Are verses of the everlasting hymn 
 She teacheth ever to the hearts of those 
 Who, " to the beautiful order of her works 
 Conform," like thee, " the order of their lives." 
 
 London, October, 1874. C. K. T. 
 
THE BRYANT VASE. 5 I 
 
 TO WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT, 
 
 ON THE EIGHTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF HIS BIRTHDAY, 
 NOVEMBER 3, 1 874. 
 
 The sweetest blossoms any bring 
 To-day, to deck thy muse's throne, 
 
 Are those that out of pure hearts spring, 
 From seed thy fruitful life has sown. 
 
 How deep thy living thoughts struck down 
 In countless souls throughout the land ! 
 
 The splendid flowers of thy renown 
 In myriad leaves of light expand. 
 
 They bloom in virtues strong and true, 
 In deeds that make our kinship sweet,. 
 
 Chaste homes, and lives of spotless hue, 
 In love that serves with tireless feet ; 
 
 In patriot zeal, in Honor's breast ; 
 
 Where Duty runs without debate ; 
 Where Nature feasts her reverent guest, 
 
 And Faith waits calmly " at the gate>" 
 
 These garlands of the spirit live, 
 While festal splendors pass away — 
 
 Millions their fadeless tribute give 
 To thee, O wondrous seer ! to-day. 
 
 Thanks for thy pure, majestic song. 
 Thy golden years o'er measured span, 
 
 Thy valiant will to smite the wrong, 
 Thy vast unconquered love of man. 
 
52 THE BRYANT VASE. 
 
 Thanks for thy simple faith and truth ; 
 
 Thanks for thy wisdom, deep and calm, 
 The freshness of thy generous youth, 
 
 Thy life — a sweet triumphant psalm ! 
 
 Earth's children catch its strain sublime, 
 
 As ages onward bear thy name, 
 And down the glowing fields of time 
 
 The wise and good reflect thy fame ! 
 Chicago, 1874. Horatio N. Powers. 
 
 Mr. Bryant was in his place as Vice-President 
 of the Historical Society last evening. At the 
 close of the meeting, after the reading of the inter- 
 esting paper upon Historical Portraits in Paris, by 
 Mr. William J. Hoppin, Mr. James W. Beekman 
 moved a resolution of thanks to Mr. Bryant for the 
 honor of his presence, and of congratulation to 
 him upon reaching eighty years of age that day, 
 and the whole audience accepted the resolution 
 with acclamation and by rising. 
 
 At Chicago, last evening, the anniversary was 
 celebrated by a " Bryant Testimonial Dinner" of 
 the Chicago Literary Club. — Evening Post, Novem- 
 ber 4, 1874. 
 
 TRIBUTES OF THE PRESS. 
 
 The following are some of the grateful tributes 
 of the American press on the occasion : 
 
 [New York Times, November 4.] 
 It is pleasant to turn from the din of the elections to an in- 
 teresting social incident, which we record with greater pleasure 
 
THE BRYANT VASE. 53 
 
 than Democratic victories. Yesterday Mr. William Culle'n 
 Bryant completed his eightieth year, and received from the 
 members of the Century Club a congratulatory address, ex- 
 pressive of the esteem and affection with which he is regarded. 
 Nor are these sentiments confined to the members of the club ; 
 they are shared by the general public, which has long been 
 familiar with Mr. Bryant's honorable services to the literature 
 of the country. A life more useful and industrious, or more 
 blameless, has seldom been spent among us, and we hope that 
 the day is still distant when it will be brought to a close. Such 
 greetings as those which Mr. Bryant received yesterday are 
 worth far more to a man than all the wealth and official honors 
 in the world. 
 
 [New York Sun, November 3.] 
 
 Mr. William Cullen Bryant, now the most eminent citizen 
 of this State, is eighty years old to-day, and, we are happy to 
 say, is perfectly vigorous and active in mind and body. May he 
 still be continued "waiting at the gate" among us for many 
 years to come. 
 
 [New York Tribune, November 4,] 
 
 Yesterday will be a memorable date in this country for a 
 better reason than can be found in the defeat or success of 
 any transitory political organization ; for on that day William 
 Cullen Bryant completed his eightieth year. In the joy with, 
 which his fellow-citizens contemplate the advance of his serene 
 and glorious age, there is no tinge of sadness. No one who' 
 sees the hale poet in his daily walks ever looks forward to the 
 day when his grand career will be ended. We are forced to 
 disobey the precept of the Greek sage and call this life a happy 
 one before it closes. There are no chances readily discernible, 
 even to the eye of fancy, which can dim the tranquil beauty of 
 the long and rosy evening promised to this great poet and 
 
54 THE BRYANT VASE. 
 
 good citizen. His birthdays are kept as holidays in the hearts 
 of all who know him, and every succeeding one grows dearer 
 and more sacred. 
 
 [New York Herald, November 4] 
 
 William Cullen Bryant, the most venerable and honored 
 member of the editorial profession in this country, the first of 
 our poets, the model of every public and every private virtue, 
 completed his eightieth year yesterday. We join our congratu- 
 lations with those of his other admirers on an occasion of so 
 much interest. Mr. Bryant has outlived Cooper, our first 
 novelist ; he has outlived Irving, our greatest master of elegant 
 prose ; he has outlived Jackson, Clay, Calhoun, Webster, the 
 most gifted statesmen who were conspicuous in the active 
 period of his life ; he has outlived Bennett, and Greeley, and 
 Noah, and Crosswell, and Ritchie, and Gales (but not Blair, 
 who still lives at an age as advanced and with facilities as 
 vigorous as Mr. Bryant's, nor Weed, who is nearly as old); 
 but if several of Mr. Bryant's distinguished journalistic contem- 
 poraries, who were so potent and so vigorous in the days of 
 his prime, still survive, he is the only one of them who retains 
 an active connection with journalism. Mr. Blair dissolved his 
 editorial relation to the Globe nearly thirty years ago, and re- 
 tired to Silver Spring. It is some thirteen or fourteen years 
 since Mr. Weed retired from the Albany Journal and Mr. Webb 
 from the Courier and Enquirer, so that Mr. Bryant is the oldest 
 editor in the United States who retains his connection with 
 the press. We tender him our sincere congratulations on this 
 anniversary, and recognize him as the most distinguished mem- 
 ber of the editorial profession in the United States. Mr. 
 Bryant's reputation is less ephemeral than if it rested on his 
 services as a journalist. His is one of the most important 
 names in American literature, as well as in American jour- 
 
THE BRYANT VASE. 55 
 
 nalism, and the tasteful compliment paid him yesterday, in the 
 presentation of a costly and appropriately engraved vase, was a 
 tribute to his literary eminence, the only character in which he 
 will be much known to posterity. His vigorous editorials in 
 the Evening Pod for so many years merely influenced the pass- 
 ing opinions of the day ; but his best poems will be read and 
 loved long after the transient politics of Mr. Bryant's time are 
 forgotten. In celebrating his eightieth birthday we recognize 
 the superior luster of purely literary merits ; but if Mr. Bryant 
 himself were to pronounce on his own career we have little 
 doubt that he would give the preference to his patriotic attempts 
 to serve the country as a journalist. 
 
 [New York Graphic, November 2.] 
 To-morrow, the eightieth birthday of William Cullen Bryant 
 will be remembered by his numerous friends in a manner at 
 once unique and creditable. They have contributed some 
 five thousand dollars for a vase of original design and choice 
 workmanship, artistically representing the lessons of his career, 
 in its literary, political, and journalistic relations, and the vase 
 will be placed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The 
 money has been contributed by gentlemen in other cities as well 
 as our own, and the testimonial will be the spontaneous expres- 
 sion of public respect and veneration for our oldest living poet. 
 Charles Sprague is his senior by several years, but Sprague has 
 written comparatively little, and has scarcely more than a local 
 fame. Whittier is thought of as one of our oldest poets, but 
 he was born in the same year as Longfellow, and both were 
 mere schoolboys when " Thanatopsis " was written. Greeley 
 was Bryant's junior by seventeen years, and was a printer on 
 the paper after Mr. Bryant became editor. He was born during 
 the administration of Washington, and his life covers all the 
 literature of the country that anybody cares to remember. His 
 
56 THE BRYANT VASE. 
 
 own works are among the best productions of the American 
 mind, and whatever he may think of "Thanatopsis " — which 
 was written in his nineteenth year — it is one of the few Ameri- 
 can poems that the people will never let die. * 
 
 Mr. Bryant has been connected with New York journalism 
 for half a century, first as editor of the New York Review, and 
 next as editor of the Evening Post. Of his signal ability, in- 
 dustry, and other journalistic qualities, it is needless to remark. 
 They are well known, and have gained for him the respect of 
 the country. His paper early won a high place for its literary 
 merit, its sound judgment on financial questions, its courtesy 
 towards opponents, and its high moral tone. Mr. Bryant 
 early became a champion of the free-trade policy. His 
 paper represented the best Democratic sentiment of the city 
 for a long period of years, and only broke with that party to 
 support the Republicans in the conduct of the war. And 
 though he has written little for it of late years, the character 
 he gave it and the honorable traditions affixed to its name by 
 his conduct, give it an influence far out of proportion to its in- 
 tellectual weight or circulation. It is one of the institutions of 
 New York, and the new building, now in process of erection, 
 will stand as a fitting monument of his industrious and honor- 
 able career. It is a pity that a niche is not reserved in its walls 
 for his statue, as his name will be identified with the paper while 
 it is published. But Mr. Bryant has been more than a journalist. 
 He has taken an active part in the movements of the day, and 
 most important charities of the city. His life has been pure, 
 and his influence high-toned and honorable. His character is 
 a precious possession, and his life teaches a lesson of temperance 
 
 and virtue. 
 
 [ The Independent. \ 
 
 Sir Walter Scott relates that, when some one was mentioned 
 as a "fine old man" to Dean Swift, he exclaimed with violence 
 
THE BRYANT VASE. Sj 
 
 that there was no such thing. "If the man you speak of had 
 either a mind or a body worth a farthing they would have worn 
 him out long ago." Voltaire, Goethe, Lyndhurst, Brougham, 
 Beranger, Humboldt, Palmerston, Guizot, Moltke, and among 
 Americans, Adams, Taney, Winfield Scott, Horace Binney, 
 Richard H. Dana, may be cited in refutation of this theory, 
 which, we presume, has nothing to do with thews or stature. 
 But if we wanted another bright and brilliant example of facul- 
 ties, and faculties of a high order, remaining unimpaired in 
 mind and body till long past the grand climacteric, we might 
 name William Cullen Bryant, the patriarch of American poetry, 
 who, on Tuesday, November 3, completed his "fourscore years," 
 cheerful and happy and full of conversation, and continuing 
 to heartily enjoy what Dr. Johnson happily calls "the sunshine 
 of life." 
 
 No name in our contemporaneous literature, either in England 
 or in America, is crowned with more successful honors than that 
 of William Cullen Bryant. Born at a period when our colonial 
 literature, like our people, was but recently under the dominion 
 of Great Britain, he has lived to see that literature expand from 
 its infancy and take a proud place in the republic of letters, and 
 survived to see the Republic itself, starting from its revolutionary 
 birth, spring up to a giant power, after passing triumphantly 
 through a giant rebellion. Surrounded by such historical and 
 heroic associations, men who survive them embody in their lives 
 the annals of a people, and represent in their individuality the 
 history of a nation. 
 
 What Macaulay said of Charles, Earl Grey — alluding to his 
 having survived all the great statesmen contemporaneous with 
 him — might with equal propriety be applied to Bryant and his 
 contemporaries : " He is the sole surviving link of an age which 
 has passed away." Bryant saw Cooper, in the full glory of his 
 renown, lead the host of historic names in our national literature, 
 
58 THE BRYANT VASE. 
 
 and then followed in succession to an honored tomb by Irving, 
 Prescott, Paulding, Halleck, Simms, and Kennedy. The orator 
 on the occasion of the funeral honors paid to the pioneer of 
 American novelists, Mr. Bryant, was associated in the perform- 
 ance of those rites wiih the renowned Webster, and the hall 
 which had resounded with applause to the eloquence of Kossuth 
 and to the matchless melodies of Jenny Lind, re-echoed the 
 brilliant poetic periods of Bryant in commemoration of his con- 
 temporary and friend, Fenimore Cooper. 
 
 Pursuing to the age of fourscore an active literary career, the 
 poet has been a co-laborer in all worthy movements to promote 
 the advancement of the arts and literature. A liberal patron of 
 art himself, he has always been the eloquent advocate of the 
 claims of artists. Mr. Bryant, on its completion, a few years 
 ago, delivered the address inaugurating the beautiful temple to 
 art of the New York Academy of Design. Foremost in the lit- 
 erary circle of his adopted city, he is President of the Century 
 Club — a time-honored institution of New York — numbering 
 among the poet's predecessors Gulian C. Verplanck and George 
 Bancroft, and embracing among its members men of letters, 
 artists, and leading gentlemen of the liberal professions. Philan- 
 thropic in his nature, Mr. Bryant has been the consistent pro- 
 moter of all objects having for their tendency the elevation and 
 furtherance of the interests of humanity. Connected with one 
 of the leading metropolitan journals, and one of the oldest in the 
 United States, he is enabled to bring the powerful influence of 
 the press to bear, with his own personal influence and literary 
 renown, upon whatever measure he supports in the cause of 
 philanthropy, letters, and the promotion of arts. 
 
 Some men seem gifted of Nature with the very purple bloom 
 of immortality — in their youth old and wise beyond their years, 
 and retaining in their age the warm lire and young vigor of early 
 
THE BRYANT VASE. 59 
 
 manhood. Their boyhood anticipates the wisdom of years, and 
 their years retain the freshness of youth. "I have often won- 
 dered," said Benjamin Franklin, in his address on the last day 
 of the convention which framed our Constitution, "whether 
 yonder picture on the wall represents the rising or the setting 
 sun." And, had we not the calendar of his years to inform us, 
 we should have been in doubt whether the " Thanatopsis" 
 might not be the meditation of William Cullen Bryant's age and 
 the Homeric translations the work of his vigorous youth. Poets 
 make age the climax of hopeless evil. Gray saw before the 
 heedless schoolboy sickness, poverty, famine, and worst and last 
 of all, "slow, consuming age ; " and Milton, in his last years, 
 hunted and dishonored, knew but one thing more pitiful : 
 
 "Blind among enemies, O worse than chains, 
 Dungeon, or beggary, or decrepit age ! " 
 
 But by some strange favor of Heaven we see now and then a 
 son of the gods who in his cradle has the strength to strangle 
 serpents, and whose unconsuming years seem to feed on the 
 ambrosia of perpetual youth. 
 
 On our first page we have given, through our contributors, our 
 good hail on his eightieth birthday to the still youthful veteran 
 poet and journalist of America. Here we need say little more 
 than to tender to him most heartily our own congratulations 
 and those of all our readers, and to tell him how warmly his 
 countrymen respect and love him. 
 
 Much as we admire the poet whose verse made him many 
 years ago the first of our bards, we would mention it as his espe- 
 cial honor that he has not been satisfied with beauty or senti- 
 ment, but has, like England's blind poet, made himself a man 
 of affairs, and has been a wise counsellor in the conduct of the 
 State. If he has been known for sixty-two years as a poet, he 
 has been an editor for forty-nine years, and his first published 
 
60 THE BRYANT VASE. 
 
 political paper was written sixty-seven years ago. Other poets 
 have not forgotten that they were citizens. Longfellow for a 
 year or two sang songs of freedom, asking — 
 
 '* What holy angel 
 
 Brings the slave this glad evangel ? " 
 
 and Whittier, most like Bryant, was for many years an editor 
 and active philanthropist ; but in the case of no other of our 
 writers have poetry and politics held the scale in such even 
 balance. The first political paper of his, "The Embargo," a 
 satire in verse, was the prophecy of his life. The Evening Post, 
 the wisest and soundest of all our newspapers, the most influen- 
 tial certainly of our afternoon press, has long been edited by 
 William Cullen Bryant, with whom Iliads, and Congresses, and 
 reconstructions, and impeachments, and Odysseys, seem to be 
 objects of impartial interest. For this we especially admire him 
 — for that completeness of taste and culture, too rare in America, 
 which unites a care for the public weal with a love for letters and 
 learning. Were our men of culture generally to take Milton 
 and Bryant as their examples, we should have less reason to 
 complain of the corruption of public life. 
 
 Personally, Mr. Bryant is known to the American people as 
 a poet. As a poet his monument will ever be their affectionate 
 respect. Nothing more can a poet ask. But a journalist is a 
 man without personality. His identity is swallowed up in his 
 paper. As a journalist, Mr. Bryant's fitting memorial will be 
 that more material but less substantial one, the fine building on 
 Broadway erecting for the Evening Post. Waiting and hoping 
 for the time when our own journal shall be similarly provided 
 for, we heartily congratulate both the excellent veteran paper 
 and the excellent veteran editor on this proof of wise manage- 
 ment and public appreciation, and hope that the time is not 
 near when William Cullen Bryant shall cease to sharpen his 
 
THE BRYANT VASE. 6 1 
 
 youthful quill in rebuke of the follies of false statecraft, or shall 
 forget the cunning which has taught him to paint the grace of 
 running brooks and the majesty of forest trees. 
 
 May the October of his life be that which he has himself 
 described : 
 
 " Wind of the sunny South ! oh. still delay 
 In the gay woods and in the golden air, 
 Like to a good old age released from care, 
 
 Journeying, in long serenity, away. 
 
 In such a bright, late quiet would that I 
 
 Might wear out life like thee, 'mid bowers and brooks, 
 And, dearer yet, the sunshine of kind looks 
 
 And music of kind voices ever nigh ! 
 
 And, when my last sand twinkled in the glass, 
 
 Pass silently from men, as thou dost pass." 
 
 [Troy Times, November 3.] 
 
 This is the eightieth birthday of the venerable poet and 
 editor, William Cullen Bryant. We are glad to hear that his 
 friends are to commemorate the event by the presentation of a 
 valuable and artistically designed vase. Few men have lived 
 so long as Mr. Bryant with equal blamelessness and honor. 
 We are glad to know that he is still hale and hearty, and 
 promises to remain with us for some time to come. 
 
 [Rochester Express, November 3.] 
 
 William Cullen Bryant, the venerable and distinguished poet, 
 becomes an octogenarian to-day. Mr. Bryant is one of the 
 purest and noblest of Americans. Achieving fame, while still 
 a young man, by that poem of solemn beauty, " Thanatopsis," 
 he has, during a long life, stood before the world exemplifying 
 in his character and his works the truest qualities of manhood 
 
62J j THE BRYANT VASE. 
 
 and genius. During the formative period of our literary history 
 he gave to his countrymen an example of thought and style 
 which, by its purity and elegance, first afforded a rebuking 
 contrast to the buncombe and spread-eagleism of our early 
 writings, and then, with the writings of Washington Irving and 
 others of his class, steadily and surely permeated American 
 thought, and won admirers and imitators among our aspirants 
 for literary fame, until a higher and truer school of authorship 
 was created. Bryant does not rank among the greatest writers, 
 but few excel him in purity of thought and expression. For 
 him the world of thoughtful readers entertain a sincere affec- 
 tion, and though his works that will go far into the future are 
 few, yet there are passages and even entire poems that have the 
 gift and destiny of immortal fame. 
 
 Long as the poet has been among us, yet hale and vigorous 
 he enters upon the ninth decade of life, and from two conti- 
 nents will pour in upon him congratulations for his lengthened 
 life, and sincere wishes that it may be prolonged until he and 
 his friends may celebrate his centennial. 
 
 [Boston Transcript, November 3.] 
 
 William Cullen Bryant, poet, patriot, editor, man of letters ; 
 the American citizen, whom all American citizens honor for 
 his blameless private and his fruitful public life ; still in the 
 possession of unabated natural and acquired mental and moral 
 forces ; still active in a venerableness that surpasses the beauty 
 of youth and manhood, to the eyes of troops of loving and 
 revering friends, to-day becomes an octogenarian. It is an 
 occasion that will be gratefully seized upon to extend to him 
 warm and rich testimonials of regard, expressed in words of 
 affectionate respect and in significant and artistic symbolic 
 gifts. 
 
 Independent, upright, a lover of truth and beauty, of charac- 
 
THE BRYANT VASE. 63 
 
 ter unstained, gradually closing a long career whose evening 
 has gathered up and preserved not a little of the fair light and 
 brilliancy of its midday — he merits indeed an anniversary to be 
 rendered truly golden, in his native and in other lands, by 
 esteem for a manifold greatness, of unquestioned integrity, free 
 from all low ambitions, full to overflowing with usefulness to 
 his times and humanity, by the prolonged manifestations of 
 genius consecrated to high aims, and the work of talents and 
 learning devoted to the advancement of whatever contributes to 
 the genuine nobility, the sterling virtues, and the refined adorn- 
 ments to true living ; a vigorous and almost saintly patriarch, 
 whose silver locks need no crown of gold and jewels to make 
 him a king among his fellows, by reason of the divinity of his 
 unwearied and multiform faithfulness. 
 
 [Boston Advertiser, November 3.] 
 
 TO BRYANT AT FOURSCORE. 
 
 Born November 3, 1794. 
 
 Psalm xc. 10. 
 
 Poet, whose voice is of the winds and woods, 
 Whose calm verse flows as does the mountain rill, 
 Rippling and murmuring through the shade and sheen, 
 And o'er the cool, clean stone ; 
 Poet, whose voice is of the ocean floods, 
 When thou dost hear, along the wooded hill, 
 The footsteps of the Lord, and thou may'st lean 
 
 To listen, stilled, alone — 
 Nature's Interpreter — the wind, the stream, the tree, 
 The human soul, all find a friend in thee. 
 
 Thine is the music of the fountain's flow, 
 Or Autumn's wind, fresh in the fading tree : 
 Men quicken at thy word ; they feel thee nigh — 
 One dear to childhood's day. 
 Thou art a stream born of the mountain snow, 
 
64 THE BRYANT VASE. 
 
 Which sought, unsoiled, the city by the sea, 
 Winding where fair things fail and pure things die ; 
 
 And springing, white with spray, 
 A fountain where, despite the multitudinous tread, 
 Faith is refreshed and faint hearts comforted. 
 
 Bryant ! thy word is best when thou dost write 
 Of life, of hopes, of human destiny — 
 Of the grave joy which keeps the heart content — 
 Of Nature's constant calm ! 
 Comforter, thou dost show the Infinite ! 
 Thou dost unseal the fount when eyes are dry 
 And hearts are breaking ! Thy wise words are blent 
 
 With weeping ; and a Psalm 
 Of Life goes up, and not unheard : while thou dost sing, 
 Hearts grateful, though unseen, shall listen lingering. 
 
 So shall men listen when all these are gone : 
 Still shalt thou sing when the invisible vail 
 Hath wrapped thee from man's vision. Lightly lie 
 On thee thy years fourscore ! 
 In thine eternal youth thou shalt sing on ; 
 Thy strain, a voice of Nature, shall not fail ; 
 And thee labor and sorrow come not nigh ! 
 
 But when the silent oar 
 Of Charon stirs, not too late or soon, that voiceless sea, 
 Wake to thy twofold immortality. 
 
 H. C. B.