"There were many aspects in which Mr. Bryant presented himself as a subject for biography. He was a chief in the department of American journalism. He was a controlling power in American politics. He was also a man of letters in the pure and simple sense of the term. One might have known him well in either of these relations and yet had no thought of the others. Mr. Bigelow has, it seems to us, done justice to all."- The Churchman (1890) "If there is any excuse for this publication, it must be found in the fact that I was associated with Mr. Bryant for many years in the management of 'The Evening Post' newspaper, my connection with it commencing at about the same period of life as his; in the fact that we there contracted personal relations which he was pleased late in life to crown by naming me as one of the executors of his will; and finally in the hope I entertain that a compendious and comparatively inexpensive sketch of his instructive career may reach a class, not inconsiderable in numbers, who have neither the leisure nor opportunities for perusing the elaborate and scholarly biography by Mr. Godwin." - John Bigelow "Like the mythic Hermes, who before the sun had reached its zenith on the day of his birth and stolen and slaughtered the cattle of Apollo, young William Cullen Bryant, with scarcely less startling precocity, before he was out of his teens had possessed himself of Apollo's lyre, and established himself as the undisputed laureate of America." - John Bigelow