'Tis refreshing to old-fashioned people like me To meet such a primitive Pagan as he, In whose mind all creation is duly respected As parts of himself, just a little projected; And who's willing to worship the stars and the sun, A convert to-nothing but Emerson. So perfect a balance there is in his head, That he talks of things sometimes as if they were dead; He looks at as merely ideas; in short, As if they were fossils stuck round in a cabinet, Of such vast extent that our earth's a mere dab in it; Composed just as he is inclined to conjecture her— Each figure, word, gesture just fits the occasion, With the quiet precision of science he'll sort 'em, But you can't help suspecting the whole a post mortem. There are persons, mole-blind to the soul's make and style, To compare him with Plato would be vastly fairer, He sees fewer objects, but clearlier, truelier If C.'s an original, E.'s more peculiar; That he's more of a man you might say of the one, Of the other he's more of an Emerson; C.'s the Titan, as shaggy of mind as of limb The one's two-thirds Norseman, the other half Greek, E.'s specialities gain if enlarged by the glass; C. gives nature and God his own fits of the blues, And rims common-sense things with mystical hues, — E. sits in a mystery calm and intense, And looks coolly around him with sharp common-sense; C. shews you how every-day matters unite With the dim transdiurnal recesses of night,- Makes mysteries matters of mere every day. E. is rather like Flaxman, lines straight and severe, The design of a white marble statue in words. C. labours to get at the centre, and then Take a reckoning from there of his actions and men ; E. calmly assumes the said centre as granted, And, given himself, has whatever is wanted. EMERSON'S SPEECH IN MANCHESTER. [This speech (referred to in “Memoir," p. 14) was delivered at a soirée, held under the auspices of the Manchester Athenæum, at the Free Trade Hall, in November, 1847, under the presidency of Sir A. Alison, the historian, and at which Richard Cobden and other political leaders were present. Of this meeting Mr. Emerson says in his "English Traits:" "A few days after my arrival in Manchester, in November, 1847, the Manchester Athenæum gave its annual banquet in the Free Trade Hall. With other guests, I was invited to be present, and to address the company. In looking over recently a newspaper report of my remarks, I inclined to reprint it as fully expressing the feeling with which I entered England, and which agrees well enough with the more deliberate results of better acquaintance recorded in the foregoing pages. Sir Archibald Alison, the historian, presided, and opened the meeting with a speech. He was followed by Mr. Cobden, Lord Brackley, and others, among whom was Mr. Cruikshank, one of the contributors to 'Punch.' Mr. Dickens's letter of apology for his absence was read. Mr. Jerrold, who had been announced, did not appear."] Mr. Chairman and gentlemen,-It is pleasant to me to meet this great and brilliant company, and doubly pleasant to see the faces of so many distinguished persons on this platform. But have known all these persons already. When I was at home they were as near to me as they are to you. The arguments of the League and its leader are known to all the friends of trade. The gaieties and genius, the political, the social, the parietal wit of "Punch" go duly every fortnight to every boy and girl in Boston and New York. Sir, when I came to sea I found the "History of Europe" on the ship's cabin table, the property of the captain; a sort of programme or playbill to tell the seafaring New Englander what he shall find on his landing here. And as for Dombey, sir, there is no land where paper exists to print on where it is not found; no man who can read that does not read it; and if he cannot he finds some charitable pair of eyes that can, and hears it. But these things are not for me to say; these compliments, though true, would better come from one who felt and understand these merits more. I am not here to exchange civilities with you, but rather to speak of that which I am sure interests these gentlemen more than their own praises; of that which is good in holidays and working days, the same in one century and in another century. That which lures a solitary American in the woods with a wish to see England is the moral peculiarity of the Saxon race, its commanding sense of right and wrong, the love and devotion to that-this is the imperial trait which arms them with the sceptre of the globe. It is this which lies at the foundation of that aristocratic character which certainly wanders into strange vagaries, so that its origin is often lost sight of, but which, if it should lose this, would find itself paralysed; and in trade, and in the mechanic's shop, gives that honesty in performance, that thoroughness and solidity of work, which is a national characteristic. This conscience is one element, and the other is that loyal adhesion, that habit of friendship, that homage of man to man, running through all classes-the electing of worthy persons to a certain fraternity, to acts of kindness and warm and staunch support, from year to year, from youth to age, which is alike lovely and honourable to those who render and those who receive it; which stands in strong contrast with the superficial attachments of other races, their excessive courtesy, and short-lived connection. You will think me very pedantic, gentlemen, but, holiday though it be, I have not the smallest interest in any holiday, except as it celebrates real and not pretended joys; and I think it just, in this time of gloom and commercial disaster, of affliction and beggary in these districts, that, on these very accounts I speak of, you should not fail to keep your literary anniversary. I seem to hear you say that, for all that is come and gone yet, we will not reduce by one chaplet or one oak leaf the braveries of our annual feast. For I must tell you, I was given to understand in my childhood, that the British island from which my forefathers came was no lotus garden, no paradise of serene sky and roses, and music and merriment all the year round; no, but a cold, foggy, mournful country, where nothing grew well in the open air, but robust men and virtuous women, and these of a wonderful fibre and endurance; that their best parts were slowly revealed; their virtues did not come out until they quarrelled-they did not strike twelve the first time; good lovers, good haters, and you could know little about them till you had seen them long, and little good of them till you had seen them in action; that in prosperity they were moody and dumpish, but in adversity they were grand. Is it not true, sir, that the wise ancients did not praise the ship parting with flying colours from the port, but only that brave sailer which came back with torn sheets and battered sides, stripped of her banners, but having ridden out the storm? And so, gentlemen, I feel in regard to this aged England, with her possessions, honours, and trophies, and also with the infirmities of a thousand years gathering around her, irretrievably committed as she now is to many old customs which cannot be suddenly changed; pressed upon by the transitions of trade, and new and all incalculable modes, fabrics, arts, machines, and competing populations—I see her not dispirited, not weak, but well remembering that she has seen dark days before; indeed, with a kind of instinct that she sees a little better in a cloudy day, and that in storm of battle and calamity she has a secret vigour and a pulse like a cannon. I see her in her old age, not decrepit, but young, and still daring to believe in her power of endurance and expansion. Seeing this, I say, All hail! mother of nations, mother of heroes, with strength still equal to the time; still wise to entertain and swift to execute the policy which the mind and heart of mankind requires in the present hour, and thus only hospitable to the foreigner, and truly a home to the thoughtful and generous who are born in the soil. So be it! so let it be. If it be not so, if the courage of England goes with the chances of a commercial crisis, I will go back to the capes of Massachusetts, and my own ARTICLES ON EMERSON AND HIS WRITINGS IN THE EMERSON, R. W. (R. Buchanan) Broadway, 2: 223.—(J. Burroughs) Galaxy, Address, July, 1838. Boston Quarterly, I: 500. Address on Forefather's Day. (I. N. Tarbox) New Englander, 30: 175. and History. Southern Literary Messenger, 18: 249. and Landor. Living Age, 52: 371. and the Pantheists. (H. Hemming) New Dominion Monthly, 8: 65. and Transcendentalism. American Whig Review, I: 233. and Spencer and Martineau. (W. R. Alger) Christian Examiner, 84: 257. Culture of. Fraser, 78: 1. Same art., Living Age, 98: 358. Essays. Democratic Review, 16: 589.-Eclectic Magazine, 18: 546.— Facts about. Chambers' Journal, 21: 382. Homes and Haunts of. (F. B. Sanborn) Scribner, 17: 496. New Lectures. New Englander, 8: 166.-Christian Review, 15: 249. - Prose Works. Catholic World, II: 202. Recent Lectures and Writings. Fraser, 75: 586.-Same art., Living Age, 93: 581. EMERSON, R. W. Representative Men. (C. A. Bartol) Christian Examiner, 48: 314.-Eclectic Review, 95: 568.-British Quarterly, II: 281. Society and Solitude. Fraser, 82: 1. Writings. (F. H. Hedge) Christian Examiner, 38: 87.—(J. W. Alexander) Princeton Review, 13: 539. FOREIGN TRANSLATIONS OF, AND ARTICLES ON, EMERSON. 66 Edgar Quinet, in a volume of Lectures on Christianity and the French Revolution," 1845, devotes one to "America and the Reformation," in which he thus expresses his opinion of Emerson :-"In this North America, which is pictured to us as so materialistic, I find the most ideal writer of our times. Contrast the formulas of German Philosophy with the inspiration, the initiative, the moral élan of Emerson. The author I have just named is proof enough that bold pioneers are at work in America pursuing the quest of truth in the moral world. What we announce in Europe from the summit of a revived past, he also announces from the germinating solitude of a world absolutely new. On the virgin soil of the new world behold the footsteps of a man, and a man who is moving toward the future by the same road that we are going." In the "Revue Independante," 1846, the Countess D'Agoult, under her pseudonym of "Daniel Stern," has an article on "The Literary Tendencies of America," in which Emerson is highly appreciated. Philarète Chasles also wrote about him. Emile Montégut, in the "Revue des Deux Mondes," has written on Emerson in an article entitled "An American Thinker and Poet," 1847. "Hero Worship : Emerson and Carlyle," 1850. "English Character judged by an American," 1856. Herman Grimm, in 1857, published a translation of Emerson's "Goethe" and "Shakespeare" in "Representative Men," with a criticism on his writings. Some sentences from this criticism, as well as from another work by the same author, "New Essays," will be found at page 36, "Memoir.' H. Wolff gives a life of Emerson in a Dutch work, published at Bois le Duc, 1871, entitled "Prophets of Modern Date." A. IRELAND AND CO., PRINTERS, PALL MALL, MANCHESTER. |