Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, James Russell Lowell, Bayard Taylor Part 19

But the war put an end to his lectures, and cut off other sources of his income. In 1862 he was appointed secretary of legation at the court of St. Petersburg, and not long after was left there as _charge d'affaires_. The cause of the Union had received some heavy reverses, and France had invited England and Russia to join her in intervening between the combatants. But, perhaps owing to Bayard Taylor's diplomatic skill, Russia refused to take part in such an enterprise without the express desire of the United States.

About this time, also, Taylor began to write a series of novels, in the hope of bettering his fortunes thereby. The books brought him some reputation, but to-day "Hannah Thurston" and "John G.o.dfrey's Fortunes"

are seldom read.

A more important undertaking was his translation of "Faust," which was accepted abroad as a monument of his scholars.h.i.+p, and remains to-day one of the best translations into English of the great Goethe's most famous work.

Other books of travel were written and published, and various fresh volumes of poems. During this period of his life he produced most of his longer descriptive and philosophic poems, such as "The Picture of St. John," "Lars," and "Prince Deukalion"; but his songs and ballads have proved more popular than these, though he threw into them all his energy and ambition.

On July 4, 1876, he delivered his stately National Ode at the Philadelphia Centennial, and the same year he returned to his desk at the _Tribune_ office. But failing health compelled him to give up this drudgery, and in the following year he was nominated United States minister to Berlin. A grand banquet at which Bryant presided was given him in New York, on April 4, the eve of his departure; but before the year was finished he died in Berlin--December 19, 1878.