the expression, were among the remembrances of all on whom they ever rested."

The subject of this memoir was the second of five brothers. William, the eldest, graduated at Harvard in 1820. Although wanting the genius of the others, he was said to have been "a man whom it was a privilege to know." Edward, the third brother, who gave early promise of the rarest and most brilliant qualities, was of a robust moral nature, and high-toned in his ideas of duty, and "incapable," as his brother Waldo said, "of selfindulgence." He died in 1834. Peter Bulkeley, the fourth brother, died in early life. Charles Chauncy, the youngest of the family, graduated at Harvard in 1828. He died of consumption in 1836. Both these young men possessed unusual gifts of intellect, and the little they did of literary work was of the very best. That exquisite poem, "The Dirge," by Ralph Waldo, expresses, with unsurpassed tenderness, his sense of their loss. Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes speaks of Edward and Charles as young men of exceptional and superior natural endowments. Edward was of the highest promise. Of Charles I knew something in my college days. A beautiful, high-souled, pure, exquisitely delicate nature in a slight but finely-wrought mortal frame, he was for me the very ideal of an embodied celestial intelligence.

I felt as many have felt after being with his brother, Ralph Waldo, that I had entertained an angel visitant. The Fawn of Marvell's imagination survives in my memory as the fitting image to recall this beautiful youth, a soul glowing like the rose of morning with enthusiasm, a character white as the lilies in its purity."

Mary Emerson, Waldo's aunt, assisted his mother in bringing up the boys. She was “a woman of many remarkable qualities, high-toned in motive and conduct to the greatest degree, very conscientious, and with an unconventional regard of social forms." Waldo was greatly indebted to her. He once said that her influence upon his education had been as great as that of Greece or Rome. She was well read in theology, and a scholar of no mean abilities. In her old age she was described as "still retaining all the oddities and enthusiasms of her youth-a person at war with society as to all its decorums, who enters into conversation with everybody, and talks on every subject; is sharp as a razor in her satire, and sees you through and through in a moment. She has read all her life in the most miscellaneous way; and her appetite for metaphysics is insatiable. Her power over her young friends was almost despotic." There was another remarkable woman who exercised much influence

on his early life-Sarah Bradford, afterwards the wife of Samuel Ripley. She, like his aunt, was a great lover of books, and "both of them were unusually well-informed for the time; under their lead he early came to love Plato." One of the earliest of the serious books he read was a translation of the "Pensées" of Pascal, which he used to carry to church with him, and to peruse diligently.

"In this pious and conscientious household," says Mr. Cooke,* *"the mother and aunt exercised a rare influence over him and his brothers. The most careful economy had to be practised, and they grew up with the strictest regard for all that is good and true. They were carefully and conscientiously trained at home, especially in regard to every moral virtue. Honesty, probity, unselfishness-these virtues they had deeply instilled into them." At eight years of age he entered the public grammar-school, and soon after, the Latin School, in which he made good progress. This is apparent from a letter written to him, when he was eleven, by Miss Bradford, urging him to send her a translation from Virgil, and to

*“Ralph Waldo Emerson; his Life, Writings, and Philosophy,” by George Willis Cooke. To this volume, which contains the fullest and most accurate record of Emerson's Life and Works yet published, the author of this Memoir has been much indebted during its compilation.

write her a letter in Latin or in Greek, or tell her what most interests him in Rollin. In response, he returned her a poetic version of part of the fifth bucolic. He was fond of writing verses as school exercises, and was an eager reader of books of history. In one of his essays he takes us into his confidence with regard to his habits of reading in those early days, where he says, "The regular course of studies, the years of academical and professional education, have not yielded me better facts than some idle books under the bench at the Latin School. What we do not call education is more precious than that which we do call so."

Rufus Dawes, who knew Emerson as a boy, gives us in his "Boyhood Memoirs Boyhood Memoirs " (1843) a sight of the boy when he was about ten years old" It is eight o'clock a.m.; and the thin gentleman in black, with a small jointed cane under his arm, his eyes deeply sunken in his head, has asked that spiritual-looking boy in blue nankeen, who seems to be about ten years old, to touch the bell; it was a privilege to do this; and there he stands, that boy, whose image, more than any others, is still deeply stamped upon my mind, as I then saw him and loved him, I knew not why, and thought him so angelic and remarkable-feeling towards him more than a

boy's emotion-as if a new spring of brotherly affection had suddenly broken loose in my heart. There is no indication of turbulence and disquiet about him; but with a happy combination of energy and gentleness, how truly is he the father of the man! He has touched the bell, and while he takes his seat among his fellows, he little dreams that in after times he will strike a different note."*

Young Emerson entered Harvard University in his fourteenth year, viz., in 1817. Edward Everett was then Professor of Greek Literature. His lecturing and Sunday preaching had a powerful influence upon the boy student. Ticknor was also a professor at

*Since the First Edition of this Memoir was published, the author of it has received from the venerable Dr. Furness, of PhiladelphiaEmerson's schoolfellow and senior by about a year-a letter, from which he ventures to give the following extract, partly relating to the school-day period of their lives :-"The language of eulogy is apt to run wild, but I have no words to tell my sense of the greatness and worth of R. W. E. I cannot remember when I did not know and admire him. We learned our A B C together. We sate together at our writing school when he, ten years of age, and I eleven, wrote verses on our naval battles in the war of 1812. The only time I can remember when he played was (when we were some six or seven years old) on the floor of my mother's chamber. He lived always from the earliest in a serene world of letters. Never since Shakespeare has our English tongue been used with such beauty as by our great friend. I have never presumed to analyse him. I have not needed to do so. 'The affections are their own justification.' The reverence, the love he inspired, bear witness to his rare worth.--Yours faithfully, W. H. FURNESS."