porarily, because the place had been already offered to his
friend Dana, who had not yet answered. Mr. Bryant, indeed,
was deputed to consult him about it, and went to Boston for
that purpose, but found him reluctant to leave his home at
Cambridge, to say nothing of an offer made him by the Boston
" Centinel," which, being only a weekly, would exact less labor.
Writing to Verplanck from Cummington, August 26th, as to
the results of his mission, he said : " Dana seems desirous to
have the place in the office of the ' Evening Post ' kept in re-
serve until he has heard what could be done nearer home."
Nothing came of it ; but it is curious to think what that jour-
nal would have become in the hands of so decided a monarch-
ist in politics and so high a churchman in religion. As late as
October 2d, when Mr. Bryant wrote to his wife in the coun-
try, the matter was not yet determined. He says:

" I shall send you a number of the ' Evening Post,' either by Mr.
Van Deusen or by the mail, containing an account of the ' Commence-
ment of Columbia College,' and will also mark with a pencil such para-
graphs as are written by me. I have got to be quite famous as the
editor of a newspaper since you were here, and a few of my friends
—Mr. Verplanck in particular—are anxious that I should continue
in it. Some compliments have been made to me about its improve-
ment in character. The establishment is an extremely lucrative one.
It is owned by two individuals—Mr. Coleman and Mr. Burnham.
The profits are estimated at about thirty thousand dollars a year—fif-
teen to each proprietor. This is better than poetry and magazines."

It certainly opened a prospect much more seductive than
that which lay immediately before him.

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