appearance he is said to have been "much more than ordinarily attractive. He had a melodious voice, his utterance was distinct, and his whole manner in the pulpit was agreeable." Dr. Lowell says he was "a handsome man, rather tall, with a fair complexion, his cheeks slightly tinted, his motions easy, graceful, and gentlemanlike, his manner bland and pleasant. He was always an acceptable preacher; and his delivery was distinct and correct, and was evidently the result of much care and discipline." In 1808 he was seized with a hemorrhage of the lungs, from which he never fully recovered. In 1810 another disease took hold of his already weakened body, from which he died May 12, 1811.

1

He was one of a company of remarkable preachers, who gave a new character to the religious life of Boston, who aroused a taste for classical learning, and who inaugurated the first literary period in New-England history. Most prominent of these men were Buckminster, Kirkland, Channing, Thacher, and Emerson. They were all liberal in their theology, discarding Calvinism by silently ignoring it. They appealed to the sentiments, sought to mold the moral and spiritual nature in accordance with the spirit of Christianity, and were literary in their tastes. That brilliant star of the American pulpit, who shone for so short a time, Buckminster, collected a large library in Europe, had a passionate love of classical learning, and quickened many minds with his own tastes and aspirations.

In the year 1803 a periodical was talked of at Harvard College, which should represent higher learning and cultivate a more literary taste. After much opposition from those who feared it might become too philosophical, or an aid in the formation of secret societies, much feared then, a quarterly was started, known as The Literary Miscellany. John Quincy Adams, Andrews Norton, and Buckminster were among its leading writers. After a time, the name was changed to The Monthly Anthol

1 Sprague's Annals.

ogy; and it was published in Boston. The first number there bore date of November, 1803; and David Phineas Adams was the editor. In May, 1804, William Emerson became its editor; and he continued in that office for about one year and a half. Oct. 3, 1805, a club was formed for the purpose of editing and publishing this magazine, and took the name of The Anthology Club. Its first members included the Rev. Dr. Gardiner, Emerson, Buckminster, Tuckerman, S. C. Thacher, and E. T. Dana. The Rev. J. S. J. Gardiner was made the first president, the Rev. William Emerson vicepresident, and S. C. Thacher editor. Thacher was afterwards librarian of Harvard College and pastor of the New South Church in Boston. The club met on Thursday evenings, and became one of the most notable gatherings of the city. It discussed literary themes, and edited the magazine. Much difficulty was found in securing suitable articles, its members doing much gratuitous work in its behalf. It contained, however, many valuable articles, and exercised a lasting influence on the culture of Boston. Buckminster wrote much and ably for it; and Channing, Kirkland, Richard H. Dana, Adams, and Norton were frequent contributors. In July, 1811, both Monthly and club expired together, but not until they had developed a new interest in literature, and largely aided in the promotion of the liberal theology. On the motion of Emerson, the club established a library of periodical literature, which grew into the Boston Athenæum.

Alike in the history of his family, and in the history of New-England thought, do we find the sources of Emerson's culture. The Emerson family were intellectual, eloquent, with a strong individuality of character, and robust and vigorous in their thinking. They were pious and devout, but also practical and philanthropic. More than fifty of the family have graduated at NewEngland colleges, and twenty have been ministers. His mother's family were noted for a remarkable spirituality of temperament, for great religious zeal, and were naturally mystics or pietists. The intellectuality and

moral vigor of the one family, and the devoutness and mysticism of the other, were both inherited by Emerson. He was nurtured in the most spiritual phases of the old faith. Its doctrines had passed away, and left only its spiritual life behind.

Such an ancestry, physical and spiritual, is a promise of the richest culture, as it is of the finest natural powers. Emerson has not only made good this promise, but added to it a remarkable genius and a unique spiritual insight. To his ancestry he owes much of the quality and direction of that genius, as well as the fine flavor and aroma of his character, and the rich spiritual grace of his thought. We may well propound his own question, "How shall a man escape from his ancestors?" For we find in his books a confirmation of his declaration, that "in different hours a man represents each of several of his ancestors, as if there were seven or eight of us rolled up in each other's skin, seven or eight ancestors at least, and they constitute the variety of notes for that new piece of music which his life is." So we find him summing up and repeating, with a master's stroke of genius, the life and the thought of all his Puritan ancestors; which has been, in substance, the life and the thought of New England.

II.

EARLY LIFE.

ALPH WALDO EMERSON was born in Boston, May 25, 1803. His father died before he was eight years old, leaving five sons,- William, Ralph Waldo, Edward Bliss, Peter Bulkeley, and Charles Chauncy. The mother was a woman of great sensibility, modest, serene, and very devout. She was possessed of a thoroughly sincere nature, devoid of all sentimentalism, and of a temper the most even and placid. One of her sons said, that, in his boyhood, when she came from her room in the morning, it seemed to him as if she always came from communion with God. She has been described as possessed of "great patience and fortitude, of the serenest trust in God, of a discerning spirit, and a most courteous bearing, one who knew how to guide the affairs of her own house, as long as she was responsible for that, with the sweetest authority, and knew how to give the least trouble and the greatest happiness after that authority was resigned. Both her mind and her character were of a superior order, and they set their stamp upon manners of peculiar softness and natural grace and quiet dignity. Her sensible and kindly speech was always as good as the best instruction; her smile, though it was ever ready. was a reward. Her dark, liquid eyes, from which old age could not take away the expression, will be among the remembrances of all on whom they ever rested."

During the boyhood of her sons, Mrs. Emerson found a faithful helper in her husband's sister, Miss Mary Moody Emerson. This aunt was also a woman of many

1 By the Rev. N. L. Frothingham, in The Christian Examiner for January, 1854.

1

remarkable qualities, high-toned in motive and conduct to the largest degree, very conscientious, and with an unconventional disregard of social forms. Waldo was greatly indebted to her. He once declared her influence upon his education to have been as great as that of Greece or Rome, and he described her as a great genius and a remarkable writer.) She was well read in theology, and was a scholar of no mean abilities. In her old age she was described by one of her intimate friends 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," this friend said, "in the most miscellaneous way; and her appetite for metaphysics is insatiable. Alas for the victim in whose intellect she sees any promise! Descartes and his vortices, Leibnitz and his monads, Spinoza and his unica substantia, will prove it to the very core. But, notwithstanding all this, her power over the minds of her young friends was almost despotic. She heard of me, when I was sixteen years old, as a person devoted to books and a sick mother, sought me out in my garret without any introduction, and, though received at first with sufficient coldness, she did not give me up till she had enchained me entirely in her magic circle."

In this pious and conscientious household, where the most careful economy had to be practised, Waldo Emerson grew up to the strictest regard for all that is good and true. The mother and the aunt exercised a rare influence over him and his brothers. 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. In after years Waldo was once asked if he had read a certain novel; and he replied that he had once, in his boyhood, taken it from a circulating library,

1 Mrs. Samuel Ripley: Worthy Women of our First Century, p. 174.