"Yes, wife," responded Dr. Bryant, "it is to be regretted. But people with small means cannot always educate their children as they wish. A lawyer is a better breadwinner than most poets are, and I am satisfied that our boy will be a successful lawyer."
"Of course he will," said Mrs. Bryant; "he will succeed at anything he may undertake. But that poem—why, Wordsworth never wrote anything half so grand or beautiful. What is the title?"
"Thanatopsis."
"Thanatopsis? I wonder what it means."
"It is from two Greek words, and means 'A View of Death.' I have half a notion to take the poem to Boston with me next winter. I want to show it to my friend Mr. Philips."
"Oh, do; and take some of Cullen's other poems with it. Perhaps he might think some of them good enough to publish."
Dr. Peter Bryant was at that time a member of the senate in the Massachusetts general assembly. When the time came for the meeting of the assembly he went up to Boston, and he did not forget to take several of his son's poems with him. The North American Review was a great magazine in those days, and Dr. Bryant was well acquainted with Mr. Philips, one of its editors. He called at the office of the Review, and not finding Mr. Philips, he left the package of manuscript with his name written upon it.
When Mr. Philips returned he found the package, and after reading the poems concluded that Dr. Bryant had written "Thanatopsis," and that the others were probably by his son Cullen.
"It is a remarkable poem—a remarkable poem," he said, as he showed it to his two fellow-editors. "We have never published anything better in the Review," he said, and he began to read it to them.
When he had finished, one of them, Richard Henry Dana, who was himself a poet, said doubtingly: