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so little known, so barefacedly robbed, and so carped at by the Pharisees of the day, without any one stepping forth to take up his cause, and show that he is not the person they represent him.

We were going to say, to any unprejudiced mind Emerson's writings must commend themselves; we were going to say this, when the difficulty struck us of finding any unprejudiced mind. We are all prejudiced, either by birth, or habit, or education, and therefore we can only hope for two classes who will appreciate Emerson--the highly cultured and the ignorant; these last, however, must be those that think for themselves. It is the middle class, the men who have a smattering of all things and know nothing entirely, to whom Emerson appears as an Atheist, a Pantheist, and an Infidel. To the first he approves himself a man—a great and worthy teacher; and to the last he is new life, new light—a spiritual sun which shines as freely, as warmly on their hearts as the sun of nature does upon their bodies. We have felt the truth of what we say, and therefore do not feel any diffidence in telling our experience. We belong to the lowest class; we have believed with our fathers and elders, we have doubted and thought, thought earnestly and long, and found comfort, and joy, and pleasure in the instruction Emerson has afforded us. His views have been to us a new existence, or rather have shown us the true value of the existence God has already given to us. His views have set us on our feet again, and gave us hope, and heart, and courage, when all else has proved vain, authoritative, and arbitrary. Our study of Emerson has not been exclusive; we have had time to taste of most of the poetry and philosophy writ

ten in the English language from Chaucer downwards; and we
again declare that we know of no author that is so full of sug-
gestion, speaks so directly to the heart, and is so free from the
prejudices of the time, and the fashions in which we live.
Bacon, the great Lord Bacon, sinks to a mere politician along-
side Emerson. But we do not, nevertheless, undervalue Bacon;
he was a great man in his time, and exercised a wide influence
upon
ing nor so true-spoken as Emerson; for proof take any Essay
these two have written on the same subject—' Love,' for instance
-and compare them, and see how much one excels the other.
Bacon's spirit, great as it was (and it was marvellous for his
age), never mounted so high, never extended so wide, never
descended so low as Emerson's. There is one reason, however,
that is obvious why our author should greatly eclipse these
luminaries, and that is, he has had all their light, all their
genius to assist his own.
We can trace in his writings many
thoughts he has got from Chaucer, Sidney, Herbert, Shakspeare,
Bacon, the Elder Dramatists, from the Greeks, from the Romans,
from the Hindoos, from the Scandinavians, from the Germans,
and lastly from his own experience, on which last he himself
sets most value, and justly, seeing that all his teachers'
worth was thus obtained. Truth being universal, and not any-
thing exclusive, to those who will receive it is as common as
the air we breathe, and, like the best of all things, should be
most acceptable. Emerson and his philosophy are as remarka-
ble things in this age as are the locomotive, the electric tele-
graph, and the daguerreotype. They are, too, exercising as
deep an influence, slowly but surely winning men to look

his age and ages after. But he was neither so deep-see

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rightly at things, and with their own eyes. He is a pioneer as brave, and as indomitable in clearing away obstructions to the growth of mind, as are those of the West in clearing the soil. Many a great work and many a noble deed will yet take its date from his words, and if they have the power to produce such fruit, and we affirm that they have to a high degree, who shall say this man is an opponent to Christianity? Who, indeed, but those who make that doctrine a business, and not a rule of life! We have one other phase in which we wish to present our author, and that is, as a poet. The selections we have made from his prose have already given evidence of his poetic faculty, not as a poet of passion, but of reason.

Mr. Emerson possesses so many characteristics of genius that his want of universality is the more to be regretted; the leading feature of his mind is intensity; he is deficient in heart sympathy. Full to overflowing with intellectual appreciation, he is incapable of that embracing reception of impulses which gives to Byron so large a measure of influence and fame. Emerson is elevated, but not expansive; his flight is high, but not extensive. He has a magnificent vein of the purest gold, but it is not a mine. To vary our illustration somewhat, he is not a world, but a district; a lofty and commanding eminence we admit, but only a very small portion of the true Poet's universe. What, however, he has done is permanent, and America will always in after times be proud of Ralph Waldo Emerson, and consider him one of her noblest sons.

NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS.

THERE is a want of naturalness in Mr. Willis's writings which will inevitably affect their continuance, and we have doubts whether any of his numerous prose works will remain permanent portions of Literature.

There are two descriptions of popularity which are essentially different; the first is founded on the human heart, the other is merely supported by the conventionalities of the present time. Popularity is, therefore, not a sure test; we should then first inquire what kind of popularity an author possesses before we decide upon his relative chance of immortality. How many great celebrities have passed away? Who was so popular as Churchill in his own day? Yet he is now seldom read or quoted. His popularity was built on a figment of Human Nature, and not based on the breath of the Heart of Man. He was a satirist, and not a poet; the personal dies with the man and his victim, but the universal will live for ever. In like manner, to descend to the present day, we can come pretty near a prophetic glance into the future, by carefully selecting the characteristics of any author, and judging him by that unerring standard. We may give as an instance Mr. Thackeray, whose productions are now so generally read and lauded; the

slightest glance at him will convince the critic that when the peculiar phase of society he treats on shall pass away, he will likewise go with it. It is also worthy of observation that the very fact which might in some cases preserve it becomes its destroyer. It might naturally be supposed that it would be prized as a record of the past; but it seems as though the interest died away with the thing described.

On this ground we fear that Mr. Willis will not be an enduring writer. The persiflage and piquancy of his style, which are now so enticing, will in a few years become the obscurers of his fame, just as the pertness and vivacity of the blooming girl become intolerable in the matron. Posterity demands something substantial, condensed, and truthful. It is a very close-judging critic, and all personal considerations are lost upon it. Appeals to feeling are unknown; it is the Rhadamanthus of authors. The present race, on the other hand, are too apt to overlook the solid merits of a work, and be taken by the tinsel of the outside garb; they choose beauty, grace, or accomplishment, before virtue or truth. Many honorable, noble natures sit in the judgment-seat and discourse most excellent music, but their audiences grow weary and thin away, till they themselves depart unheeded; while the dancing girl, organgrinder, tumbler, or Punch and Judy, have a ready and numerous crowd of listeners.

However much this may be deplored, it cannot be helped. The present race is not instructed by its contemporaries, but by its ancestors. The writers of the day only amuse; the living man is listened to only as long as he is entertaining or exciting; but the grave sanctifies the voice of the dead, and arrests the

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