The New York herald., 1922-12-03

threatened her own supremacy as Athens.
Other literary men plucked up their spirits
and renewed the attempts to float maga-
zines in city whose harbor was now float
ing to it prosperity in everything else. 1t
was the promise of a literary market which
these gave that made Bryant decide for
New York Father than for Boston. He
guessed right, but mot in the way he
imagined.
He found there none of these hopeful,
young writer's rash enough to follow
Browns example and try to live by !itera-
ture alone. Yet he determined to do so
when one of these new magazines offered
him $1,000 a year as editor. He thought
he was in clover. THAT is twice as much
as I got by my law practice in the coun-
try!" he cried joyfully. But he exulted too
soon. He found he couldn't make the
magazine go or the one after it either
and he saw that the only way he could
live by his pen was to accept a position
upon newspaper. Better politics and a
full stomach he said then, not so gayly,
than poetry and starvation" He had
already been long enough at the latter.
with all his reputation. to know what he
was talking about. He had been five years
selling the slender book which contained
several new poems along with the two
great ones he had published in the Boston
magazine. and his total profit had been
less than SIS. No wonder, then, that when
flushed with the great reputation he had
brought with him to town as the author
of "Thanatopss'' and "The Waterfowl" he
himself and named 50 apiece as a very
satisfactory remuneration for some poems
which We now think almost as good
The newspaper Bryant went upon is still
running. 1t was as distinguished in that
day as in this for its literary tone. When
he Joined it it was making profit of
$4,000 a year-in this town which couldn't
support magazine Nothing in its
career had given it more literary dis
tnction ard financial success than a
series of bright satirical articles about
New York business and society a few
years before Bryant Joined it, But so
little was it considered that a writer of
mere literature had a right to expect
money for his work that the paper had
two young men who helped Bryant and
Irving and Cooper to turn the reputation
of New York as Boeotia into that of
Athens. Perhaps if Bryant had been the
editor when Joseph Rodman Drake and
Fitz-Greene Halleck were contributing for
nothing so much distinction and popu-
larity to the paper he would have felt
hpinq \; flo.
of letters lad as much right to payment
for his work as a reporter of news. But
though he lived to see many changes in
literature as a paid profession he did not
live long enough, patriarch. with a sweep
ing silver beard. as he became, to see il
become a reliable one And many years
after he had been making a comfortable
living as editor of the New York Erenfno
Post he wrote: "An experience of twenty
hVe years has convinced me that poetry
is an Improbable trade-nobody cares a
fig for it,"
The gay papers of these two young men
did not prove to be lasting literature. Some
of their poetry did. Drake died at the age
of 20. and his friend Halleck wrote a poem
about him which still remains the sweetest
and manifest tribute that one man has
paid TO another i'm our literature In
brakes early death We seem to have sus-
tanned a considerable loss For young as
he was. he had done two very important
things. One was our best patriotic poem
up to that date. Il is greatly superior 10
I all our national anthems but as We have
no music 10 IT, II did not like them. stick
in the popular mind. For our taste. II is
disfigured by the noisy ranting which