in this periodical, sometimes anonymously, and sometimes with his own signature.

In "The Dial," Thoreau was first introduced to the public. Almost every number contained some contribution from his pen. To Emerson he owed his introduction to literature. He wrote The Natural History of Massachusetts, A Winter Walk, translated Pindar, and the "Prometheus Bound" of Æschylus, besides contributing many poems. Elizabeth Peabody furnished papers on Christ's Idea of Society, and The West Roxbury Community, and Mrs. George Ripley, one on Woman; H. Tuckerman, a paper on Music, Mr. J. R. Lowell, three Sonnets, and Hedge, papers on The Art of Life-The Scholar's Calling. Ripley criticised Brownson's Writings, wrote a "Letter to a Theological Student," and contributed Records of the Month. Parker wrote

on German Literature, the Pharisees, Primitive Christianity, The Divine Presence in Nature and in the Soul, Truth against the World, Thoughts on Theology, A Lesson for the Day, and Thoughts on Labour. Dwight, the foremost musical critic of New England, gave accounts of concerts, and wrote on the Religion of Beauty and Ideals of Everyday Life. Alcott furnished some Orphic Sayings and Days from a Diary. C. Lane contributed papers on James Pierrepont Greaves,

A. B. Alcott's Works, Social Tendencies, A Day with the Shakers, Brook Farm, Life in the Woods, and Millennial Church. W. H. Channing wrote Ernest the Seeker and other papers, and W. E. Channing contributed many poetical pieces. Margaret Fuller contributed much from the stores of her immense reading, and the rich treasures of her noble thought. Besides numerous pieces of miscellaneous criticism, she wrote a Short Essay on Critics, Goethe, the Great Composers, Menzel's View of Goethe, Canova, Romaic and Rhine Ballads, The Modern Drama (including a long criticism of John Sterling's tragedy, "Strafford"), Bettine Brentano, Dialogue, Allston's Pictures, Klopstock and Meta, Festus, and other subjects. The article on Goethe was alone "enough to establish her fame as a discerner of spirits." In the last volume appeared a remarkable article by her, entitled "The Great Lawsuit; Man versus Men-Woman versus Women." It was afterwards enlarged and published as a volume, "Woman in the Nineteenth Century," one of the most admirable works ever written on the opportunities and duties of women.

The paper called "Notes from the Journal of a Scholar" was from the pen of Charles Chauncy Emerson, Ralph Waldo's youngest brother, who

died in 1836, and is full of subtle power. Edward B. Emerson's beautiful poem, "The Last Farewell," written while sailing out of Boston Harbour, for the West Indies-a voyage from which he never returned,-appeared in "The Dial," many years after his death. In his latest volume of poems, Ralph Waldo gives "The Last Farewell" a place, adding some memorial verses to this "brother of the brief but blazing star, born for the noblest life." This memorial poem is one of the best of its kind in the language. Under the heading "Ethnical Scriptures" were given from time to time selections from the oldest ethical and religious writings of men, exclusive of the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures, the object being "to bring together the grand expressions of the moral sentiment in different ages and races, the rules for the guidance of life, and the bursts of piety and of abandonment to the Invisible and Eternal." Seven of this series of selections appeared; from Veeshnoo Sarma, The Laws of Menu, Sayings of Confucius, The Desatir (from the Persian Prophets), The Chinese Four Books, Hermes Trismegistus, and The Chaldæan Oracles. The magazine existed for four years-1841-4. A complete set of the four volumes is now an almost unattainable rarity. Even odd numbers of it fetch a high price. In a recent

American literary periodical, it has been suggested that there should be a reprint of these volumes. An originally subscribed-for copy is in the possession of the writer of this memoir, which is rendered unique and very precious by having the authorship of each article indicated in Emerson's own handwriting.

"The Dial," says Mr. Cooke, "was a most notable effort toward a truer life, and a fresher expression of thought, and its influence has doubtless been very great. It is the memorial of an intellectual impulse which the national life of America has never lost. Emerson has written of it with sound sense, giving interesting hints of its purpose. He has always spoken of it in a modest manner, giving to others whatever honour 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. It was

the first American periodical to assume a character

Its influence was

and aim of its own. 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 honour quite its own, which are likely to increase in the future. Emerson thus wrote about it :—

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 dogma, 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 labour from those who served it, and from 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