it some of his best poems.

The "Essay on Persian Poetry" was

published in this paper in 1858.

"The Conduct of Life" appeared in 1860. It contains essays on "Fate," "Power," "Wealth," "Culture," "Manners," "Behavior," "Worship," "Beauty," "Illusions," "Considerations by the Way." When we consider that twenty-five hundred copies of this book were sold in a few days we perceive how much Emerson had grown in favor in the twenty years since the publication of his first volume.

About this time a new paper called "The Dial" was started in Cincinnati, for which Emerson wrote several articles. In 1862 he delivered an address at Boston on the Emancipation Proclamation. The Boston Hymn" was read by him in Music Hall,

Jan. 1, 1863.

66

"Voluntaries" was published in the "Atlantic Monthly" in 1863, and "Saadi" in 1864, "My Garden" in 1866, and "Terminus" in 1867. These poems and others were collected in 1867 in a volume entitled "May Day and Other Pieces."

In 1866 Emerson received the degree of LL.D. from Harvard University, and in 1867 he was elected to their board of overseers. In the same year he delivered an oration on the Progress of Culture before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Cambridge. This year practically marked the close of his literary career. Most of the works of note which appeared at a later date were published from manuscript written by him at an earlier period.

In 1868-70 he delivered a series of lectures at Harvard University on the "Natural History of the Intellect." "Society and Solitude," a new collection of essays, was published in 1870. The essays include: "Society and Solitude," "Civilization," "Art,"

"Eloquence," "Domestic Life," "Farming," "Weeks and Days," "Books," "Clubs," "Courage," "Success," "Old Age."

In 1871, accompanied by his daughter Edith, he made a trip to California. In July, 1872, his house caught fire. The shock he received on this occasion greatly hastened his mental decline. He was induced to go to Europe for his health, and on his return he found his house perfectly restored to its former condition by friends who had paid for it by voluntary subscriptions.

In December, 1874, he edited "Parnassus," a collection of poems by British and American authors. In the same year "Letters and Social Aims" appeared, containing the following essays: "Poetry and Imagination," "Social Aims," "Eloquence," ," "Resources," "The Comic," "Quotation and Originality," "Progress of Culture," "Persian Poetry," "Inspiration," "Greatness," "Immortality."

On March 30, 1878, he delivered a lecture in the Old South Church, Boston, on the "Fortune of the Republic." "The Sovereignty of Ethics" was published in the "North American Review" in 1878. In May, 1879, he read his address on "The Preacher" in Divinity College, Harvard. In 1881 he read a paper on Carlyle before the Massachusetts Historical Society. His essay on "Superlatives" appeared in the "Century" for February, 1882.

In April, 1882, Emerson caught a severe cold, which developed into pneumonia, of which he died on April 27. He was buried in Concord near the graves of Hawthorne and Thoreau.

In addition to many short poems hitherto unpublished, two volumes of essays, "Miscellanies" and "Biographical Sketches," have appeared since his death.

To understand Emerson's works, we must inquire into his religious belief, since it permeates and colors all his writings. He belongs to the school of transcendentalism, but this word admits of many interpretations. Emerson himself defines it as "modern idealism." "The materialist," he tells us, "insists on facts, on history, on the force of circumstances and the animal wants of man; the idealist, on the power of Thought and of Will, on inspiration, on miracle, on individual culture. The idealist takes his departure from his consciousness and reckons the world an appearance. - that is the universe."

His thought,

His precise attitude as to the conception of the Deity is difficult to define. He declares in one of his essays that "there is a sublime and friendly destiny by which the human race is guided

the race never dying, the individual never spared to results affecting masses and ages."

Perhaps the following passage from Oliver Wendell Holmes will give us as good a conception as any, of Emerson's religious attitude:

"His creed was a brief one, but he carried it everywhere with him. In all he did, in all he said, and, so far as all outward signs could show, in all his thoughts, the indwelling Spirit was his light and guide; through all nature he looked up to nature's God; and if he did not worship the 'man Christ Jesus' as the churches of Christendom have done, he followed his footsteps so nearly that our good Methodist, Father Taylor, spoke of him as more like Christ than any man he had known.”

But, whatever we may think of his theological views, we cannot fail to admire his ethics.

a reformer of reformers. a new code of morals.

He aimed to be a teacher of man, He preached by life as well as by pen He was an idealist, and he insisted on

the application of idealism to the everyday matters of life. His was a courageous and hopeful nature. He had unbounded confidence in the power for good in the human soul, and he preached untiringly the worth of the moral sentiment. He explored every province of human life and thought; he lent his voice in behalf of all great public measures; and he never lost an opportunity to prove himself a good citizen. His mission in life was to inspire others, to make life nobler, purer, loftier.

There is, perhaps, no writer regarding whom there is less consensus of opinion than of Emerson. The judgments formed of him are as various as the habits of thought in the critics. We may regard him in three phases: Emerson the essayist, Emerson the poet, and Emerson the philosopher and moral leader. In all these phases we find the most diverse opinions and criticisms regarding him.

Some say there never before was such a writer, poet, sage; others can find no sense in his writings and pronounce them mere empty words. One critic accords him a high place as a philosopher, but characterizes his poetry as inartistic and harsh; another ranks him among the greatest poets, and says of him, "The great poets addressed him as one of themselves; he was not of their audience, but of their choir;" while a third declares that his poetry is as devoid of life as his philosophy of wisdom. We give a few of these criticisms by men whose opinions are valued.

First let us hear what Oliver Wendell Holmes says:

"The poet in Emerson never accurately differentiated itself from the philosopher. . . . Emerson is so essentially a poet that whole pages of his are like so many litanies of alternating chants and recitations. His thoughts slip on and off their light rhythmic

robes just as the mood takes him. Many of the metrical preludes to his lectures are a versified and condensed abstract of the Emerson was not only a poet,

leading doctrine of the discourse.

but a very remarkable one. He was a man of intuition, of insight, a seer, a poet with a tendency to mysticism which renders him sometimes obscure and once in a while almost, if not quite, unintelligible. He made desperate work now and then with rhyme and rhythm, showing that though a born poet he was not a born singer. . . . After all our criticisms we have to recognize that there is a charm in his poems which cannot be defined any more than the fragrance of a rose or a hyacinth. . . No man would accuse Emerson of parsimony of ideas. He crams his pages with the very marrow of his thought. But in weighing out a lecture he was as punctilious as Portia about the pound of flesh. When the lecture had served its purpose it came before the public in the shape of an essay, but the essay never lost the character it borrowed from the conditions under which it was delivered; it was a lay sermon."

Now let us listen to Matthew Arnold:

"And, in truth, one of the legitimate poets, Emerson, in my opinion, is not. His poetry is interesting; it makes one think, but it is not the poetry of one of the born poets. I do not, then, place Emerson among the great poets. But I go farther and say that I do not place him among the great writers, the great men of letters. . . . Emerson has passages of noble and pathetic eloquence; he has passages of shrewd and felicitous wit; he has crisp epigram; he has passages of exquisitely touched observation of nature. Yet he is not a great writer; his style has not the requisite wholeness of good tissue. Emerson cannot, I think, be called with justice a great philosophical