that you were within the grip of no ordinary man, but of one "sprung of earth's first blood," with "titles manifold;" and as he went on with serene self-possession and an air of conscious power, reading sentence after sentence, charged with wellweighed meaning, and set in words of faultless aptitude, you could no longer withstand his "so potent spell," but were forthwith compelled to surrender yourself to the fascination of his eloquence. He used little or no action, save occasionally a slight vibration of the body, as though rocking beneath the hand of some unseen power. The precious words dropped from his mouth in quick succession, and noiselessly sank into the hearts of his hearers, there to abide for ever, and, like the famed carbuncle in Eastern cave, shed a mild radiance on all things therein. Perhaps no orator ever succeeded with so little exertion in entrancing his audience, stealing away each faculty, and leading the listeners captive at his will. He abjured all force and excitement-dispensing his regal sentences in all mildness, goodness, and truth; but stealthily and surely he grew upon you, from diminutive proportions, as it were; steadily increasing, until he became a Titan, a commanding power To whom, as to the mountains and the stars, The moment he finished, he took up his MS. and quietly glided away,-disappearing before his audience could give vent to their applause. The French Revolution of 1848 happening while he was in this country, he went over to Paris in the spring of that year, and was present at several meetings of the political clubs, which were then in a state of fullest activity. He was accompanied by Mr. W. E. Forster (the late Chief Secretary for Ireland). In Paris he made the acquaintance of the late James Oswald Murray, with whom he often went about the city. Mr. Murray, then an artist, made a crayon sketch of Emerson, which is in the possession of an English B friend. His observations made during that visit were embodied in a brilliant lecture on the French, which he delivered at Concord, but which has not been published. Before sailing for America, in the Summer of 1848, he spent a night in Manchester, and had much to say of all he had seen and met. He overflowed with pleasant recollections of his visit, and spoke in the warmest terms of the kindness and consideration which he had everywhere experienced. He said he had not been aware there was so much kindness in the world. Would that some unseen but swift pen could have recorded all he said in these last rapidly-flying hours! Speaking of Carlyle, he repeated the words used in a letter written some months before: "The guiding genius of the man, and what constitutes his superiority over almost every other man of letters, is his commanding sense of justice, and incessant demand for sincerity." He spoke of De Quincey and Leigh Hunt as having the finest manners of any literary men he had ever met. On the Sunday before he sailed for America, a large number of his friends and admirers from all parts of the country were invited to meet him at the hospitable mansion of Mr. and Mrs. Paulet (both since dead), near Liverpool, whose guest he was. Among other notable persons gathered together on that occasion to spend a few hours in his company, and to listen to his rich experiences and recollections, was Arthur Hugh Clough, for whom Emerson had a most tender regard. In the following year the former met Margaret Fuller in Rome. He had become known to a select circle of scholars by his poem, "The Bothie of Toper-Na-Fuosich," which Kingsley eulogised, and Oxford pronounced "indecent, immoral, profane, and communistic." Mr. Emerson esteemed the poem highly, and was the means of procuring its republication in America. In a private letter, dated December 8th, 1862, he says: "I grieve that the good Clough, the generous and susceptible scholar, should die. I have read In over his 'Bothie' again, so full of the wine of youth." the autumn of 1852 Clough went to America, by Emerson's invitation, voyaging thither in company with Thackeray and Lowell. He settled at Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he was welcomed with remarkable cordiality, and formed many friendships which lasted to the end of his life. While in America he contributed several articles to the reviews and magazines, and undertook a revision of the translation, known as Dryden's, of Plutarch's "Lives" for an American publisher, which appeared in five volumes. In the following year he returned to England. He died at Florence in 1861, in his 43rd year. In 1846 Emerson published his first volume of Poems; in 1850 the "Essay on War" in Miss Peabody's "Aesthetic Papers;" and "Representative Men;" and in 1852, in conjunction with W. H. Channing, the "Memoirs of Margaret Fuller." His contribution to the work were the chapters in the first volume on Concord and Boston. Four years later (1856), he published "English Traits." Under the title of "Echoes of Harper's Ferry" he published, in 1860, three speeches concerning John Brown, which he had delivered at Boston in 1859, at Concord later in the same year, and at Salem in 1860. This was followed by "The Conduct of Life" (1860), containing nine essays-Fate, Power, Wealth, Culture, Behaviour, Worship, Considerations by the Way, Beauty, Illusions. In 1864 appeared an "Introductory Essay on Persian Poetry," prefixed to the "Gulistan" of Saadi; Biographical Sketch prefixed to H. D. Thoreau's "Excursions" (1863), "Oration on the Death of President Lincoln" (1865), "May-day and other Poems" (1867), "Address at a Meeting to organize the Free Religious Association" (1867); "The Rule of Life," a Lecture delivered to the "Parker Fraternity" (1867); "Society and Solitude" (1870), containing twelve essays-Society and Solitude, Civilization, Art, Eloquence, Domestic Life, Farming, Work and Days, Books, Clubs, Courage, Success, Old Age. In 1871 he wrote an introduction to Goodwin's translation of Plutarch's "Morals." In the same year appeared "Parnassus, a Selection of English and American Poetry, with prefatory remarks," of which it may be truly said that it is the best collection of English Poetry ever made. The only thing marring the completeness of the volume is the much-to-be-regretted absence of a few specimens of his own poems. Any other selector but Emerson would-had he been a poet-have given some specimens of his own verses. In a recent volume of "Selections of English Poetry," published in London, the editor obligingly presents the reader with eleven passages from Shakespeare, seven from Milton, and thirteen from his own works! Some of the selections in "Parnassus" have been inserted for their "historical importance; some for their weight of sense; some for single couplets or lines, perhaps even for a word; some for magic of style; and others which-although in their structure betraying a defect of poetic ear-have nevertheless a wealth of truth which ought to have created melody." The arrangement is not chronological, but based upon the character of the subject, under the following heads: Nature; Human Life; Intellectual-; Contemplative, Moral and Religious; Heroic; Portraits; Narrative Poems and Ballads; Songs; Dirges and Pathetic Poems; Comic and Humorous; Poetry of Terror, and Oracles and Counsels. An index of authors, prefixed, with dates of birth and death, is a useful guide in many instances, especially as regards the period of the writings. It does not appear that the merits of the author's acknowledged-or perhaps we should say recognisedposition had had much to do with the copiousness of the extracts. The next products of his pen were an Address on "The Dedication of the Concord Free Library" (1873); and in 1876 "Letters and Social Aims," containing eleven essays-Poetry and Imagination, Social Aims, Eloquence, Resources, The Comic, Quotation and Originality, Progress of Culture, Persian Poetry, Inspiration, Greatness, Immortality; "Fortune of the Republic," an address delivered in Boston in February, 1878; and "The Preacher," printed in the "Unitarian Review" (1880). In the "North American Review" will be found the following essays:-Michael Angelo, Milton, Character, Demonology, Perpetual Forces, The Sovereignty of Ethics. To the "Atlantic Monthly" he contributed, between 1858 and 1876, the following articles and poems:-The Rommany Girl, The Chartist's Complaint,. Days, Brahma, Illusions, Solitude and Society, Two Rivers, Books, Persian Poetry, Eloquence, Waldeinsamkeit, Song of Nature, Culture, The Test, Old Age, The Titmouse, American Civilization, Compensation, Thoreau, The President's Proclamation, Boston Hymn, Voluntaries, Saadi, My Garden, Boston, Terminus, Aspects of Culture (Phi-Beta-Kappa Address, Harv. Univ., 1867). In a later page the reader will find a list of the articles on Emerson and his writings in the magazines and reviews of Great Britain and the United States, as well as indications of what has been written about him in France, Germany, and Holland. In 1872 he again visited Europe, accompanied by his daughter, arriving in November. After a short stay in London, they proceeded to Egypt, spending some time there, returning in the Spring of 1873 to England, via Italy and France. During this visit he did not deliver any lectures. He resided for some weeks in London, and visited Professor Max Müller at Oxford. He spent a single day (8th May) in Edinburgh, his main object being to see Dr. J. Hutchison Stirling, author of "The Secret of Hegel." His two last days were spent under the roof of a friend in Cheshire, and many of his old acquaintances and hearers of 1847-8 had thus an opportunity of meeting him. The friendship which existed between Emerson and that remarkable woman, Margaret Fuller-was altogether of anoble and beautiful character, and was only terminated by her |