smile, "you have been imposed upon. No one on
this side of the Atlantic is capable of writing such
verse." Mr. Dana's view seemed to have so many
presumptions in its favor that he set out at once to
Boston to investigate the subject, with the aid of
such clues as the package itself afforded. The
final result of his inquiries was that Phillips,
though under an erroneous impression as to the
author, had not been imposed upon as to its Amer-
ican genesis.

The verses which had produced such a fluttering
among the presiding justices of our highest literary
tribunal in those days were not an imported article,
still less the work of any American literary nota-
bility of the period, but of a country lad of only
seventeen years, residing at Cummington, in the
western part of Massachusetts, who had never
been out of his native county in his life. One of
the poems was entitled "Thanatopsis." It appeared
in the September number of the "North American
Review" for 1817, and proved to be not only the
finest poem which had yet been produced on this
continent, but one of the most remarkable poems
ever produced at such an early age, and a poem
which would have added to the fame of almost any
poet of any age, while it would have detracted
from the fame of none.

From the day this poem appeared, the name of
its author, which till then had scarcely been heard
farther from home than the range of the human
voice, was classed among the most cherished liter-

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