ever I can, and telling what I see; and, I suppose, with the same fortune that has hitherto attended me, the joy of finding that my abler and better brothers, who work with the sympathy of society, loving and beloved, do now and then unexpectedly confirm my perceptions, and find my nonsense is only their own thought in motley, and so I am your affectionate servant," &c.

Mr. M. D. Conway, writing about the address in question, which Theodore Parker pronounced to be "the noblest, the most inspiring strain I ever listened to," says,-" Little wonder that the New England shepherds, watching their flocks by night, should have been sore afraid when this light shone round about them. But their terror could not quench the star that had risen. 'It is no use,' said an eminent divine, when he had heard that the Faculty had passed a censure on the discourse, 'henceforth the young men will have a fifth gospel in their Testaments.' Among the young men who listened was one who went back to his little suburban parsonage, and entered that night in his private journal these words:-'In this Emerson surpassed himself as much as he surpasses others in a general way. I shall give no abstract, so beautiful, so just, and terribly sublime was his picture of the Church in its present condition. My soul is roused,

and this week I shall write the long-meditated sermons on the state of the Church and the duties of these times.' So under the electric touch of Emerson, rose the American John Knox-Theodore Parker."

The "address" became the subject of many sermons, pamphlets, and newspaper articles, while controversies and debates about it rose to a great height. The effect of all this was, in the words of Mr. Cooke, "to finally separate Emerson from the Unitarians, and to cause him to abandon the pulpit. He saw how strongly the Unitarians were wedded to the old forms, and he found himself more and more alienated from them. He could not continue to preach amidst controversy and objection, so he quietly withdrew to his work in a manner of his own." Henceforth he may be considered as having emancipated himself finally and for ever from the trammels of creed. Shaking off all traditions of creed and authority, "I stepped," to use his own words, "into the free and open world to utter my private thought to all who were willing to hear it." Thenceforth he became "the chartered libertine" of thought, as he sometimes humorously called himself. From this time the lecture platform was his pulpit. How admirably he filled it during a period of more than forty years;-how ennobling

were his teachings, and how beneficent and farreaching was their influence-the record of his life. and work amply testifies.

About the end of 1836 there originated at Boston, in the house of the Rev. George Ripley, one of the most prominent of the Unitarian ministers in that town, a gathering of thoughtful persons for discussion and mutual inquiry. In this way gradually came together a number of friends "who entertained the same ideas, and had common hopes of a new era of truth and religion"-A. B. Alcott, Margaret Fuller, R. W. Emerson, George Ripley, F. H. Hedge, Dr. Channing, Convers Francis, James Freeman Clarke, J. S. Dwight, Elizabeth Peabody, W. H. Channing, Dr. C. Follen, C. A. Bartol, N. L. Frothingham, O. A. Brownson, Theodore Parker, Jones Very, Caleb Stetson, Charles S. Wheeler, R. Bartlett, S. J. May, George Bancroft, and others. Meetings were held four or five times a year, with very little form, from house to house, every one contributing something to the conversation. These meetings took place at various places—Boston, Chelsea, Concord, Milton, Newton, Watertown. Emerson was almost always present during the three or four years that the club met. The idea of publishing a quarterly journal was first discussed at one of the meetings in 1839. The

title, "The Dial," was suggested by Alcott.

No one was willing to assume the editorship of the projected periodical. After much solicitation, Margaret Fuller consented to undertake what Emerson called this "private and friendly service." "Perhaps no enterprise was undertaken more diffidently by those interested in it. When it began it concentrated a good deal of hope and affection." She was assisted in the editorship by Mr. George Ripley. The first number of "The Dial " had a very characteristic address to its readers from Emerson's pen. The purpose of the magazine was the most various expression of the best, the most cultivated, and the freest thought of the time,—and was addressed to those only who were able to find "entertainment' in such literature. "There were no facts for popularity. Each number was a symposium of the most accomplished minds in the country; it originated in the hopes of the young." Alcott was only 40, Ripley 38, Emerson 37, Margaret Fuller, Theodore Parker, W. H. Channing, and J. Freeman Clarke 30, Bartol, Cranch, and Dwight 27, Thoreau 23, and W. E. Channing 22. Through this organ Emerson, Ripley, Theodore Parker, Henry D.Thoreau (unique among American literary personalities), J. S. Dwight, W. H. Channing, Margaret Fuller, C. P. Cranch, J. F. Clarke, F.

H. Hedge, J. R. Lowell, Elizabeth Peabody, A. B. Alcott, W. Ellery Channing, Thomas T. Stone, C. Lane, C. A. Dana, J. C. Cabot, and others,—all of them persons of high and varied culture,-gave utterance to their thoughts. Owing to the state of her health, Miss Fuller withdrew from the editorship, at the end of the second year, and Emerson became sole editor. Under his superintendence, "The Dial" became less literary and more reformatory.

In "The Dial" Emerson published "Man the Reformer," "English Reformers," "The Young American," "Lectures on the Times" (including "The Conservative," and "The Transcendentalist"), "The Senses and The Soul," "Thoughts on Modern Literature," " Prayers," "Tantalus," "Carlyle's Past and Present,'" "Thoughts on Art," "Walter Savage Landor," "Europe and European Books" (including remarks on Wordsworth and Tennyson, Novels by Bulwer, &c.), "The Tragic," "The Comic," "Letter to the Readers of 'The Dial"" (on Railroads and Air-Roads, Communities, Culture, The Position of Young Men, Bettina von Arnim, and Theodore Mandt's Account of Holderlin's "Hyperion"). Some of these articles have not been reproduced in any of his collected essays. Many of his finest poems made their first appearance

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