most genial and engaging manners and agreeable
conversation as well as of great benevolence and
worth, was a member of the Berkshire bar, and
by him, a year or two afterwards, I was introduced
to the others, who, from the first, seemed to take
pleasure in being kind to me."

At the instance of this amiable and accomplished
family, Bryant was led seriously to consider the
expediency of directing his steps toward New
York rather than Boston, as his Land of Promise.
Mr. Henry Sedgwick, Miss Sedgwick's elder
brother, and one of the more prominent members
of the New York bar, had been so impressed by
what he had seen of Bryant's writings that he did
not hesitate to recommend him to try his fortune
as a man of letters in our commercial capital.
"The time," he wrote, "is peculiarly propitious;
the Athenæum, just instituted, is exciting a sort of
literary rage, and it is proposed to set up a journal
in connection with it. Besides, 'The Atlantic
Magazine,' which has pined till recently, is begin-
ning to revive in the hands of Henry J. Anderson,
who has a taste or whim for editorship, and he un-
questionably needs assistance. Bliss &White, his
publishers, are liberal gentlemen; they pay him
five hundred dollars a year, and authorize an ex-
penditure of five hundred dollars more." "Any
deficiencies of salary, moreover," Mr. Sedgwick
adds, "may be eked out by teaching foreigners, of
whom there are many in New York, eager to learn
our language and literature. In short, it would

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