William James Linton:

34) England To America 1876 A New -Years Greeting.

Cambridge, MA 1876

Linton’s festive poem is decorated with two engravings of his Claribel stock. It is dedicated to the influential poet and editor William Cullen Bryant and the “Members of ‘The Century,’ in acknowledgement of hospitality and many courtesies received by an English Member.” The Century Club was founded by Bryant in New York in 1826. He provided Linton with a substantial network of useful relationships without whose support his social advancement in America would have been unconceivable. On the occasion of the centennial of the Declaration of Independence of the former English colonies Linton meditates on the relationships between the two nations, calling them brother lands, united in their shared Protestant heritage of the likes of Wycliff and Milton. Linton here also mentions his early influence by Bryant.