came from his Concord solitude to rejoice with his fellow-citizens and set their bounding pulses to music! Near that fine Music Hall he was born. Along meadows now covered with mansions he had driven his mother's cow to pasture, pausing on the way to read a little in his Greek or Latin book. As one of his friends lately wrote - Frank Sanborn, a college comrade of my own of that boyhood in Boston: "He breathed in its atmosphere and its traditions as a boy while he drove his mother's cow to pasture along what are now the finest streets. He learned his first lessons of life in its schools and churches; listened to Webster and Story in its courts, to Josiah Quincy and Harrison Gray Otis in its town-meetings at Faneuil Hall; heard sermons in the Old South Meeting-house." Some years ago, in a speech made at a little gathering of greyhaired gentlemen who had been his companions at the Latin School, Emerson referred to the time when the city was in alarm at the rumoured approach of the British in the war of 1812. The master invited the boys to go out to a neighbouring island and help in throwing up earthern defences against the enemy. remembered a pleasant holiday on Noddle Island, but not any work done by the boys. Whether Great Britain altered her plans on discovering this movement in the Latin School he could not say. Amid such events the Boston Hymn was in process of composition, line by line. The scion of English noblemen was learning his lesson in nobility.

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The Rev. Mr. Cooke, in his book on Emerson, tells a pretty story of these early years. He once brought home the first volume of a novel from the circulating

library, having paid six cents for it. His aunt Mary reproved him for spending his money in that way, when it was so hard for his mother to obtain it. He was so affected by this appeal that he returned the volume and did not take out the other; nor was the end of the romance ever read.

The two leaders of Boston, in those early years, were Webster and Channing. The traditions of the great struggle for American independence were still fesh in many memories, and Daniel Webster gathered up these in his powerful intelligence, and was their organ on every national occasion. His oratory was of the New England type, not passionate after the style of Southerners, but grave and impressive, and sometimes rising to a poetic strain. There was a grandeur in his personal appearance, such as is ascribed to Goethe, and the tones of his voice were as majestic. When I heard him in the United States Senate, it was after he had begun to surrender the high principles of New England, and there was an undertone of insincerity which excited distrust; but in the Supreme Court, where I have also heard him speak, he was still the true orator. Emerson has often told me of the effect of Webster upon his mind in boyhood, when he filled up his ideal of the Olympian Jove.

Channing had not as yet become the leader of the theological revolution afterwards associated with him, but he was the most eloquent preacher in Boston. He was ordained minister of a congregation there in 1803, the year of Emerson's birth, at the age of twenty-three, and during Emerson's boyhood was chiefly remarkable for his eloquent discourses against war, intemperance,

and other evils. The Emerson family attended Channing's church, and Ralph might have heard, in 1814, that brilliant thanksgiving for the overthrow of Napoleon. Channing was intimate in the Emerson home, and the youths always thought of him as a dear relative. The younger brothers of Channing also Edward, a fine scholar and writer, and Walter, an eminent physician, both professors at Harvardwere of the circle of friends and instructors surrounding Emerson's early life. It was indeed a time favourable for the touching of fine spirits. The controversial era had not fully arrived. The enthusiasm of Channing was for Wordsworth, whose "Excursion" was to him a revelaThe talk was of poetry, heroism, humanity, the love of nature; and one of the earliest ideals that rose before the mind of Emerson was Wordsworth, with his plain living and high thinking, his recognition of all grandeurs, whether of nature or human character, in the scenery and the lowly people around his own home. He always spoke of Wordsworth as "the great modern poet," and once told me that he still found himself unable to compare any early intellectual experience with. the effect produced on his mind by the poet's description of the influence of nature upon the mind of a boy.

tion.

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V.

STUDENT AND TEACHER.

MERSON was by no means the pedagogue's model

boy. He valued studies from books held beneath the bench in the Latin School as much as those exacted. His schoolmates retained affectionate memories of him as a genial and spirited companion. The widow Emerson went to reside at Cambridge when her elder sons were prepared to enter Harvard University. Emerson became the President's freshman there at the age of fourteen. The office, long since abolished, was of some importance: the holder of it was in the President's confidence, and conveyed his will or admonitions to other students. The position was not favourable to an intimate relation with other students. His brother William was a senior at the time, and possibly Ralph Waldo preferred the company of the older youths. The proximity of his room to that of the President prevented its being much affected by other students, and he had more time for quiet reading. He had at this time come under the fascination of Montaigne and Shakespeare, and was never able to devote himself to the college curriculum. But he gained much from the eminent men who taught in the university at that time. Dr. Kirkland had become (1810) President of the uni

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versity, which entered upon a new era - less religious and more scholarly under his administration. greatly enlarged its course of studies, increased the number of professorships, and improved the library. Some have dated the New England "Renaissance' from his presidency. He was a philosophical thinker, a man of fine personality, who preferred moulding minds to writing books. As a writer he possessed a remarkable power of generalisation. Among the professors was George Ticknor, historian of Spanish Literature. The most important men to Emerson were Edward Everett, professor of Greek; Levi Frisbie, professor of moral philosophy, the great representative of the intuitive system of ethics; and Edward Channing, professor of rhetoric and oratory. Edward Everett was the most graceful speaker in America at that time, and taught by example what Professor Channing taught by precept. In both of these studies, Greek and oratory, Emerson gained prizes. Among the students to whom he was attached were Josiah Quincy, afterwards an eminent personage in Boston; Charles W. Upham, the historian of Salem Witchcraft; George Ripley, the founder of Brook Farm Community; and W. H. Furness, the eminent philanthropist and author who conducted Emerson's funeral. Mr. Bancroft Hill has

recorded the following:

"While he was pursuing his college course, his mother moved to Cambridge, and some of the students boarded at her table. So he was boarding at home in his sophomore year when his class had a fight with the freshman at supper in Commons Hall a fight described in the mock-heroic poem 'The Rebelliad.'