When Bryant wrote his wife in 1826 that the _Evening Post’s_ profits were $30,000 a year, he overestimated them; its gross receipts were only that much. But Bryant’s share in the newspaper, which was at first one-eighth, which in 1830 became one-fourth, in 1832 was one-third of seven-eighths, and in 1833 was a full third, sufficed to free him from all money cares at once, and within a short time to make him prosperous. The journal’s books were balanced each year on Nov. 16, the anniversary of its founding. On that date in 1829, it was found that the net profits were $10,544, of which Bryant’s one-eighth made $1,318.04. The next year the net profits had risen to $13,466, and Bryant’s quarter share was $3,366.51. In 1831 there was a further increase to $14,429, making Bryant’s income $3,507.24. A heavy slump occurred the following twelvemonth, cutting the net profits to $10,220, and the poet’s share to $2,980.99, but this was only temporary. For the half-year alone ending May 16, 1833--the figures for the full year are lost--the profits were $6,000.35, making Bryant’s income for six months exactly $2,000; and for the full year which closed Nov. 16, 1834, his one-third share yielded no less than $4,646.20. In those days an income of $4,000 or above was handsome, and Bryant was able to sail in the summer of 1834 with a full purse. The literary world, however, looked with cold disapproval upon Bryant’s entrance into the newspaper field, which it believed was occupied by cheap political controversialists, and thought offered an atmosphere hostile to poetry. It found confirmation for this attitude in the marked slackening of Bryant’s productiveness as a poet. Of the whole quantity of verse which he wrote during his long lifetime, about 13,000 lines, approximately one-third had been composed before 1829. During 1830 he wrote but thirty lines, during 1831 but sixty, in 1832 only two hundred and twenty-two, and in 1833 apparently none at all; nor was his verse of this period in his best vein. He was too completely occupied in mastering his new calling to cultivate the muse.