Yet Bryant’s position was a precarious and anxious one. He wrote his friend Dana that, relieved as he was to get out of his “shabby” profession as a lawyer, in which he had been shocked by a bad miscarriage of justice and by the petty wrangles in which he was involved, he was not sure that he had found a better. Reviewing books was not the most congenial of employments. His salary was at first $1,000 a year; but the _Review_ drooped, and after an effort had been made to bolster it up by amalgamation with two other periodicals, Bryant found himself in the early summer of 1826 co-editor of the _United States Review and Literary Gazette_, with a quarter ownership and a salary of only $500. His confidence in his ability to live by his pen was so shaken that he obtained a permit to practice law in the city courts, and was actually associated with Henry Sedgwick in a case. At this juncture, in the middle of June, William Coleman was thrown from his gig by a runaway horse. It was for a time doubted whether he would recover, and as he was confined to his room for ten weeks, it was necessary to find some one to assist his son on the _Evening Post_. A temporary position was offered Bryant, and Verplanck and others earnestly counselled him to take it. “The establishment is an extremely lucrative one,” wrote Bryant. “It is owned by two individuals--Mr. Coleman and Mr. Burnham. The profits are estimated at about thirty thousand dollars a year--fifteen to each proprietor. This is better than poetry and magazines.” Throughout July Bryant was busy upon the _Evening Post_; on Aug. 2 he wrote an account of the Columbia Commencement for it, criticizing the young speakers for confusing “will” and “shall”; and on Aug. 12 he furnished it two brief poetic translations, from Clement Marot and Dante, neither of which is included in his collected works. Immediately thereafter he set out on a trip to Boston, to bear to Richard H. Dana also an offer from the _Evening Post_ of a permanent place on its staff, which Dana, after some hesitation, refused. This trip was made possible by Coleman’s renewed attention to the journal. The poet’s absence gave the _Evening Post_ an opportunity to speak highly of Bryant, whom it now considered a full staff-member. On Aug. 21–22 it republished his poem “The Two Graves” from the _United States Review_, writing of the accomplished author as one to whom, “by the general assent of the enlightened portion of his countrymen ‘The lyre and laurels both are given With all the trophies of triumphant day.’”