We shall do well to remember it, for it marks an era in navigation. It was a magnificent success-a triumph of modern skill and science and equipment over the hostile powers of nature. Some time was spent touching at various islands and points of the main-land south of the Strait; and after encountering a severe storm, in which the Vega's maintop was shivered by lightning, she anchored at Yokohama. A cordial reception by the Japanese Government awaited the daring leader and his worthy comrades. And here, upon reaching these tropical waters, we take leave of Professor Nordenskiöld as an Arctic explorer. Our hearti est thanks are due to Mr. Leslie for his full and valuable study of a most interesting life, one now intimately interwoven with the history of Arctic work for more than twenty years. Upon the abounding stores of information regarding the North Siberian waters and lands and peoples that have been but barely suggested by letters from the chief and his staff, and by conversations with them in the East, we may not here dwell. In due time they will be given to the world in their entirety. Nor of the commercial value of the expedition, whether to Russia, Siberia, or to the United States, is this the place to speak. But we may be allowed to reproduce a pen-portrait of the illustrious explorer as he appeared when in Japan: "Nordenskiöld is a man of medium height and robust frame, with hair of the true Viking color, a hale, fair complexion, and a clear, bright eye, whose powers of vision, however, are somewhat dimmed, if wearing spectacles is any criterion. His air and manner are candid and straightforward, and inspire those who meet him with a prompt feeling of admiration and confidence. It is not astonishing that his followers should have the affection for him and trust in his judgment which they openly express and practically evince." In reading his life and exploits, and those of his comrades, as, undaunted, they pushed forth again and again into the Icy Sea, and laughed at its dangers, the names, the scenes, the fearless spirit, the iron frames, all bring back irresistibly the days of the Sea Kings' rovers. But the thousand years that measure the interval, measure also the progress of the world meantime, intellectually and morally. Nordenskiöld, the shining "Northeru Shield," and his companions are more illustrious than the hardiest Norse crew that ever in days of yore sailed the North Sea: the Vega will be remembered when the Long Serpent is forgotten. With exactest appropriateness, therefore, there is sent over the waters a hearty Skoal! to the Northland, and Skoal! Skoal! to that now world-famous little band: "True modern Vikings they, Finding in bloodless fray Fighting a dauntless fight Braved the chill billows." ARTICLE III.-BRYANT. THE surprise which Mr. Dana and his associates of the North American Review felt in 1817, upon inspecting a frag. ment of Bryant's Thanatopsis, and which grew into amazement when they learned that it was the production of a youth of eighteen years, has been shared by many thoughtful readers of Mr. Bryant's poems. There have been many noteworthy examples of precocity in intellectual development; but that one should so early attain the highest success and place himself among the foremost masters of his art, reaching at a single bound apparently a point which many have toiled in vain to seize, and beyond which he was himself scarcely to advance in later years, is surely wonderful. There must have been a choice combination of favoring circumstances to bring his poetic genius so speedily to its blossoming, for these things do not happen by chance. We may trace some of the more obvi ous of these in his lineage-remotely in his descent from the Pilgrim stock and immediately in the traditions of his family and in the example set him and encouragement and aid afforded him by his father-and also in the physical and social surroundings of his childhood, the intimate companionship with nature and the comparative isolation from man and his works incidental to a new settlement among the wooded hills of Western Massachusetts. The strain of blood derived from the Aldens, the Keiths, the Howards and Washburns, the Packards and Snells of the Old Colony, was not lacking in iron nor yet in more gracious properties. The Pilgrims and their descendants were grave and stern men, self-contained and selfreliant, who faced the problems of life and duty with a serious, determined air. If, as has been alleged, their spirit degenerated at times into austerity and gloom, and pharisaic pride, it was more often yoked with gentle charity and kind endeavor for the good of all, and with unfeigned humility. Both sides of their character grew out of their loyalty to the invisible world, their abiding faith in God, and a solemn sense of the worth of man and of the greatness of the issues pending in the present life. More than ordinary mortals they sought to live an ideal life, a life of ideal purity and perfection in obedience to such knowledge of the heavenly truth as was vouchsafed to them. Thus they nursed, unconsciously, a truly poetic spirit. This spirit came to the surface in the person of Dr. Abiel Howard, a graduate of Harvard college in the class of 1729, who practiced medicine in West Bridgewater, had a large library and wrote verses of uncommon merit in his youth which were handed about in manuscript, some of which were in the possession of Mr. Bryant. It appeared again in his granddaughter, Miss Ruth Bryant, who, dying early of consumption, left several poems in manuscript, and in his grandson, Dr. Peter Bryant, the father of the poet, who wrote many songs in his youth, and political satires in middle life, who was a man of sense and taste, a skilled physician, and ardent politician of the Federal school. He taught his son, William Cullen, "the art of verse, and in the bud of life offered him to the Muses." The poet, inheriting the traditions of his family, and receiving the encouragement and assistance of his father, early began to lisp in numbers, publishing his first piece in the Hampshire Gazette, at the age of ten, outdoing in this his brother poets who had preceded him, with the exception of Tasso, and possibly of Cowley. At the age of thirteen his fame had traveled beyond his native county, and his poem, "The Embargo," appeared in Boston, and shortly passed to a second edition in which it was deemed necessary to vouch for the youthfulness of the author. In the succeeding years he published in the county paper several odes for the Fourth of July, with other pieces. These juvenile productions were largely inspired by the stirring events connected with the war of 1812, which then filled the minds and mouths of men. They bear witness in their form and coloring to the influence of Goldsmith, Cowper and Pope, but they are not without marks which betoken the coming of an independent poet. Meantime the excitement of the war was passing away and the young writer was left to follow the bent of his genius and "hold communion with the visible forms of nature." With her he testifies that he had early grown familiar. She had never a frown nor rebuke for him, and when his spirit was worn with toil or fretted by care he ever found repose and refreshment along the streams and in the woods. The poet's early intimacy with nature will not appear singular to one who stands at his birth-place upon the hillside, and looks out upon the wide and varied landscape which lies before him. Perhaps there is no spot in the central part of the highlands of Western Massachusetts where there is a wider or more pleasing scene. The larger part of five mountain towns is distinctly visible. It is a region of springs and running brooks, of wooded dells, deep glens and shallow vales formed by streamlets of varying size, of rounded, forest-clad hills, and broad, fertile slopes, of sunny meadows and wind-swept, upland pastures. It is the home of the spreading beech trees, hanging thick and low on the steep hillsides, and of the sugar maples which thrust their straight stems, crowned with leaves of glossy green, high above their sisters of the wood, save that here and there they are overtopped by the sharp-pointed spire of an aged hemlock. Over all breathes or blows the pure, sweet air of the mountains. In the center of the scene winds the long and deep valley formed by the head waters of the Agawam or Westfield river. But let us hear Mr. Bryant's description : "I stand upon my native hills again, Broad, round, and green, that in the summer sky, While deep the sunless glens are scooped between, Ay, flame thy fiercest, sun! thou canst not wake, From thy strong heats, a deeper, glossier green. The mountain wind! most spiritual thing of all He stoops him from his vast cerulean hall, As if from heaven's wide-open gates did flow |