BRYANT 



966 



BRYCE 



and was much discussed, some European critics 

 going so far as to assert they did not believe 

 anyone in the United States could have written 

 it. Possibly the most frequently quoted words 

 of the poem are these: 



So live, that when thy summons comes to join 

 The Innumerable caravan, which moves 

 To that mysterious realm, where each shall take 

 His chamber in the silent halls of .death, 

 Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night, 

 Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and 



soothed 



By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave, 

 Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch 

 About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams. 



The same periodical afterward published 

 others of his writings, and he was well known 

 as a poet and literary critic before he removed 

 in 1825 to New York. There he became asso- 

 ciate editor of the New York Evening Post, 

 of which three years later he became editor-in- 

 chief. For over a half century he held this 

 position, for his mind was vigorous and active 

 to the time of his death. He became a note- 

 worthy figure in the life of New York, and 

 through all his years of prominence there was 

 no breath of criticism against his character. 



Place as a Poet. As has been emphasized 

 above, Bryant's place in American literature 

 is unique. There had been one great American 

 prose writer before him Washington Irving; 

 but America had as yet produced no poet, and 

 Bryant's verse was the model until the appear- 

 ance of Longfellow. Frequently those whose 

 genius flowers as early as did Bryant's show a 

 decided decline in the work of their later lives, 

 but Bryant remained productive and pro- 

 gressive to the last. Before all, he was the 

 poet of nature, which he described with won- 

 derful sympathy, but he never failed to see in 

 the beautiful scenes he pictured some sugges- 

 tion which had its effect on his life. Thus his 

 poems usually close with a moral, but that is 

 always so truly an outgrowth of what has 

 preceded that it does not affect the artistic 

 tone of the poem. If Bryant is cold and re- 

 moved from human sympathy, as Lowell 

 charged in his Fable for Critics, it is due 

 merely to his dignity and serenity, and not to 

 any lack of ability to feel. 



Besides the short poems mentioned above, 

 for which he is chiefly famous, Bryant pub- 

 lished translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey, 

 Letters of a Traveler, Letters from the East 

 and Orations and Addresses. 



Place as an Editor. As an editor of one of 

 the great papers of the largest city in the 



country, Bryant attained distinction. His edi- 

 torials were plain, straightforward and con- 

 vincing, and if they had no permanent place 

 in literature they exercised a strong influence 

 in their day. Many of the reforms which 

 he had advocated Bryant lived to see firmly 

 established, and he rejoiced particularly in the 

 downfall of slavery, against which he had 

 been very active. A.MC c. 



BRYCE, GEORGE (1844- ), a Canadian 

 Presbyterian clergyman, educator and author, 

 an authority on the Canadian Northwest and 

 its history. Although a native of Brantford, 

 Ont., Dr. Bryce's name will always be asso- 

 ciated with the development of Manitoba, par- 

 ticularly in education. In 1871, a few months 

 after the organization of the province, the 

 General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church 

 of Canada decided to organize a college and 

 church at Winnipeg. Bryce, although young 

 and only recently graduated from the Uni- 

 versity of Toronto, was sent to Winnipeg, 

 where he organized Manitoba College in 1871, 

 and Knox Church in the next year. A few 

 years later he took a leading part in organizing 

 the University of Manitoba (which see), of 

 which he was a councillor and examiner and 

 for fourteen years head of the faculty of 

 science. From its organization in 1871 until 

 1909 Dr. Bryce was also professor of English 

 literature in Manitoba College. 



In addition to his activities as a teacher, Dr. 

 Bryce has taken an active interest in other 

 fields. He was president of the Royal Society 

 of Canada in 1909, was moderator-general of 

 the Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in 

 1902-1903, and is a member of the Dominion 

 conservation commission. He is a voluminous 

 and popular writer of biography and history, 

 and many of his books are unexcelled in their 

 field. The most important among them are 

 Manitoba: Infancy, Progress and Present Con- 

 dition; Short History of the Canadian People; 

 Remarkable History of the Hudson's Bay Com- 

 pany, and biographies of the Earl of Selkirk, 

 Sir Alexander Mackenzie and Sir George 

 Simpson. 



BRYCE, JAMES, Viscount (1838- ), a 

 British historian, publicist and statesman, 

 author of The American Commonwealth, gen- 

 erally accepted as the best existing interpreta- 

 tion of political institutions in the United States. 

 Not without justice Bryce has been called the 

 "unofficial interpreter of the United States to 

 Great Britain." For five years, from 1907 to 

 1912, as British ambassador at Washington, 



