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In the fourth volume he wrote of Carlyle's Past and Present, and says it is a political tract with which we have nothing to compare since Milton and Burke. "Obviously, he says, it is the book of a powerful and accomplished thinker;" and "it is such an appeal to the conscience and honor of England as can not be forgotten, or be feigned to be forgotten."

"When the political aspects are so calamitous that the sympathies of the man overpower the habits of the poet, a higher than literary inspiration may succor him. It is a costly proof of character, that the most renowned scholar of England should take his reputation in his hand, and should descend into the ring; and he has added to his love whatever honor his opinions may forfeit. To atone for this departure from the vows of the scholar and his eternal duties, to this secular charity, we have at least this gain, that here is a message which those to whom it was addressed can not choose but hear."

He says that "Carlyle is the first domestication of the modern system with its infinity of details into style." All the vast and multifarious movements of our present civilization are best represented in Carlyle; for London and Europe tunneled, graded, corn-lawed, with trade-nobility, and East and West Indies for dependencies; and America, with the Rocky Hills in the horizon, have never before been conquered in literature." Of the faults in the book he writes these words:

"We may easily fail in expressing the general objection which we feel. It appears to us as a certain disproportion in the picture, caused by the obtrusion of the whims of the painter. In this work, as in his former labors, Mr. Carlyle reminds us of a sick giant. His humors are expressed with so much force of constitution that his fancies are more attractive and more credible than the sanity of duller men. But the habitual exaggeration of the tone wearies

whilst it stimulates. It is felt to be so much deduction from the universality of the picture. It is not serene sunshine, but every thing is seen in lurid stormlights. Every object attitudinizes, to the very mountains, and stars almost, under the refractions of this wonderful humorist; and instead of the common earth and sky, we have a Martin's Creation or Judgment Day."

Emerson was also a frequent contributor of poetry to The Dial. Many of his very best pieces first appeared

in its pages. He there printed The Problem, Woodnotes, The Sphinx, Saadi, To Rhea, Ode to Beauty, and The Visit. His other poetical contributions were Painting and Sculpture, Fate, Fact, Holidays, Eros, The Times, Forbearance, The Amulet, To Eva, Suum Cuique, and The Park.

The Dial put forth a good deal of vaporing and sentimentalism. Much that was crude went into its pages; and some of its writers lacked solid regard for facts and realities. Yet it was a most notable effort toward a truer life and a fresher expression of thought. Its pages betray a purpose and a hope no other American review has yet shown, and its influence has doubtless been very great. Emerson has written of it with sound sense, giving interesting hints of its purpose. He says that "when it began, it concentrated a good deal of hope and affection."

"It had its origin in a club of speculative students, who found the air in America getting a little too close and stagnant; and the agitation had, perhaps, the fault of being too secondary and bookish in its origin, or caught, not from primary instincts, but from English, and still more from German, books. The journal was commenced with much hope, and liberal promises of many co-operators. But the workmen of sufficient culture for a poetical and philosophical magazine were too few; and as the pages were filled by unpaid contributors, each of whom had, according to the usage and necessity of this country, some paying employment, the journal did not get his best work, but his second best. Its scattered writers had not digested their theories into a distinct dogina, still less into a practical measure which the public could grasp; and the magazine was so eclectic and miscellaneous that each of its readers and writers valued only a small portion of it. For these reasons it never had a large circulation, and it was discontinued after four years. But The Dial betrayed, through all its juvenility, timidity, and conventional rubbish, some sparks of the true love and hope, and of the piety to spiritual law, which had moved its friends and founders; and it was received by its early subscribers with almost a religious welcome. Many years after it was brought to a close, Margaret was surprised in England by very warm testimony to its merits; and in 1848 the writer of these pages found it holding the same affectionate place in many a private book-shelf in England and Scotland which it had secured at home. Good or bad, it cost a good deal of precious labor from those who served it, and from

1 Memoirs of Margaret Fuller.

Margaret most of all. As editor, she received a compensation for the first years, which was intended to be two hundred dollars per annum, but which, I fear, never reached that amount.

"But it made no difference to her exertion. She put so much heart into it that she bravely undertook to open, in The Dial, the subjects which most attracted her; and she treated, in turn, Goethe and Beethoven, the Rhine and the Romaic Ballads, the Poems of John Sterling, and several pieces of sentiment, with a spirit which spared no labor; and when the hard conditions of journalism held her to an inevitable day, she submitted to jeopardizing a longcherished subject by treating it in the crude and forced article for the month. I remember, after she had been compelled by ill-health to relinquish the journal into my hands, my grateful wonder at the facility with which she assumed the preparation of laborious articles that might have daunted the most practiced scribe."

He has always spoken of it in the same modest manner, giving to others whatever honor and fame the quarterly has produced. In fact, he was its chief contributor, its trusted adviser, from the first; and he did far more than any other to give it whatever of value and influence it had. With all its vaporing, it was fresh, earnest, and original in purpose. It was the first American periodical to assume a character and aim of its own. However many its deficiencies, spite of all the sport it gave the critics, its influence was wholesome and vigorous. It quickened thought, gave its writers freedom of expression, and greatly stimulated originality. The school of writers which it formed and brought before the public has been the most productive and helpful we have yet seen in this country. Such has been the value of this short-lived quarterly, it already has a fame and honor quite its own, which are likely to increase in the future.

E

VIII.

BROOK FARM AND OTHER REFORMS.

MERSON was greatly interested by the reformatory movements of this period. It was a time of many projects for the reformation of the world. Beside the agitation caused by the transcendental movement, there was a wide ferment of thought concerning the social and educational reformation of mankind. Horace Mann was putting the common-school system into active operation, and normal schools were being established for the first time. The temperance reform was attracting attention, and Pierpont went out of the pulpit because the people were not ready to become total abstainers. Abner Kneeland was preaching materialism, while Ripley and Parker were teaching naturalism in religion. Conventions of all kinds were being held, newspapers advocating all sorts of reforms and new ideas appeared. Among these was the Non-Resistant, begun in Boston in 1839, and edited by Garrison, Edmund Quincy, and Mrs. Chapman. In 1838 George Combe came to this country, and unbounded expectations were entertained in regard to phrenology. At about the same time spiritualism began to claim attention; and the keenest interest was taken in mesmerism, clairvoyance, and all kindred subjects. Homœopathy, hydropathy, the Graham diet, and the Thompsonian cure, all came up for their share in the regeneration of the race. The first national temperance convention was held in 1833, and in 1838 a prohibitory law was passed in Massachusetts. In 1840 the American Antislavery Society split in two, because women demanded an opportunity to speak on its platform. Soon after, a woman's convention was called. The New-York Trib

une became the open door for the entrance of all these new ideas to the public. In the midst of these reformations and dreams appeared, in 1839, a prophet to declare the end of all things, in the person of William Miller.

Nearly every one of Emerson's intimate friends was connected with these reforms. Parker was just beginning to agitate the theological waters. Thoreau protested against taxes, and was lodged in jail. A little later he went to live by the side of Walden Pond. Margaret Fuller began her wonderful conversations in Boston; Francis, Hedge, Clarke, were reading German theology, and giving expression to a more living religious faith. Alcott had left his Temple School, gone to Concord at Emerson's request, and was living by manual labor. Such was Emerson's interest in the work of reform, that, almost immediately after the death of his oldest son, he filled a lecture engagement in New York, that he might aid Alcott in going to England, there to assist in establishing a school which should fulfil the idea begun in Boston. Alcott returned with Charles Lane, went to Harvard, established "Fruitlands," and added one more to the attempts to redeem life from its evils. To all these movements Emerson gave his sympathy, in so far as they expressed a genuine purpose, and showed a candid desire to make life richer with truth.

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One of the movements of this time, that favoring the revitalizing of the old church forms and doctrines, was well represented by the Chardon-street conventions in Boston, called by "The Friends of Universal Progress, early in 1840. Emerson attended these meetings, was appointed on the committees, but did not speak. They were called to discuss the institutions of the sabbath, church, and ministry. Edmund Quincy was the moderator, and the first meeting continued for three days. Another was held in March, and a third in the following November, a whole session being given up to each of the topics. Alcott found himself at home there, and Brownson was one of the chief speakers. Emerson

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