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The Letters of William Cullen Bryant - Vol. 1

By: William Cullen Bryant II; Thomas G. Voss et al. | Book details

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Page 136
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87. To Charles Sedgwick and Others

Lenox Jan 29th. 1823.

I, William C. Bryant of Great Barrington in the County of Berkshire & Commth of Massachusetts for a valuable consideration do hereby transfer and convey to Charles Sedgwick, Robert F. Barnard, Thomas Twining Benjamin Sheldon & Henry W. Dwight Esquires the Copy Right of the annexed production, written by me entitled--The Heroes--a Farce, in three Acts. 1

WILLIAM C. BRYANT

MANUSCRIPT: HEHL.

1.
On February 2, 1823, Peter Rush Bryant, then in Great Barrington being tutored by his brother for entrance to college, wrote his mother, "Cullen has written a farce upon the late duel and sent it somewhere by the mail. He is very secret when writing anything." Weston Family Papers. This jeu d'esprit was evidently the product of a dare by Bryant's fellow-lawyers during a county court term. An agreement signed at Lenox on October 31, 1822, by those named in his conveyance states, "We the subscribers hereby engage & promise to pay to Wm. C. Bryant Esqr. the sum of Two hundred [fifty] Dollars within three months from date, provided the Sd W. C. Bryant shall within that time write a farce founded on the story of Col. Cumming & George McDuffie [see 88.3] & transfer the copy right thereof to the subscribers." NYPL-BG. Barnard was the father of Frederick A. P. Barnard, president of Columbia University from 1864 to 1889. Twining and Sheldon are otherwise unidentified. In the margin of the above-mentioned agreement Bryant wrote, "This paper was retd to me in Apl 1823 cancelled without a farthing being paid upon it."

88. To Charles Sedgwick

Great Barrington Feb. 12, 1823.

Dear Sir.--

The line you sent me last week I did not receive till Wednesday afternoon, when it was handed me by Mr. Griswold; 1 and since that time I have found no opportunity to get a letter to Lenox.

You request me to give you my opinion on the best method of disposing of the farce. I may come too late with what I have to say on that subject--if so let this be a letter of apology.

In the first place then I say-- That the decision of this question must depend very much on the merits of the production. If it is not likely to succeed on the stage my advice is to do nothing with it. I am really so doubtful of my abilities in the department I have attempted, that were you to be of opinion that it would not take with the public, I should be neither disappointed nor mortified in the least, and should cancel a certain paper that I have, 2 as readily as I would blot a bad line out of a poem. Therefore I entreat you to lay aside all respect for the vanity of authorship, in making your decision--and all apprehensions of offending a sensitiveness in regard to their own works which afflicts most writers, and

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