Excerpt from William Cullen Bryant MY principal authority for the facts of Bryant's life as I have here presented them is the official biog raphy by his son-in-law, the late Parke Godwin. On the exhaustive material brought together in the two massive volumes of that work I have drawn freely for my own picture of the poet and editor as he appears to us now that nearly a generation has elapsed since his death. Other authorities have also been consulted, such as Mr. John Bigelow's William Cullen Bryant in the American Men of Letters series, and General James Grant Wilson's Bryant and His Friends. Mr. Henry C. Sturges's elaborate Chronology, based upon Mr. Godwin's Life, in the recent Roslyn edition of Bryant's poetical works, has been useful for pur poses of reference, as have also his extended Bibliog raphias in the same volume. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.