A hundred years have elapsed since his birth; three generations have known his works: what is Bryant to us, who are posterity to him? Is he, like Cimabue in painting, a mere name to date from,--a pioneer whom we respect,--and nothing more? Far from it. Bryant’s poetry is not only chronologically but absolutely interesting: it lives to-day, and the qualities which have vitalized it for three quarters of a century show no signs of decay. It would be incorrect, of course, to assert that Bryant holds relatively so high a place in our literature as he held fifty years ago; his estate then was the first poetic clearing in the wilderness; its boundaries are still the same; but subsequent poets have made other clearings all round his, and brought different prospects into view and different talents under cultivation. Let us look briefly at Bryant’s domain. Intimate and faithful portrayal of Nature is the product which first draws our attention; next we perceive that the observer who makes the picture is a sober moralist. He delights in Nature for her own sake, for her beauty and variety; and then she suggests to him some rule of conduct, some parallel between her laws and the laws of human life, by which he is comforted and uplifted. Bryant, I have said elsewhere, interprets Nature morally, Emerson spiritually, and Shelley emotionally. We need not stop to inquire which of these methods of interpretation is the highest. Suffice it for us to realize that all of them are valuable, and that the poet who succeeds in identifying himself in a marked degree with any one of them will not soon be forgotten. That Wordsworth preceded Bryant in the moral interpretation of Nature detracts nothing from Bryant’s merit. The latest prophet is no less original than the earliest; for originality lies in being a prophet at all. Young Bryant, wandering over the bleak Hampshire hills or in the woods or along the brawling streams, had original impressions, which he trustingly recorded; and to-day, if you go to Cummington, you will marvel at the fidelity of his record. But his poetry is true not only there; it is true in every region where Nature has similar aspects; symbolically, it is true everywhere.