native of the Highlands of Scotland, who came to America when she was quite a child. Mr. Slidell was a man of great intelligence and of a high moral and religious character. He was fond of books, and passed his evenings in reading aloud to , his family, a trait which his son continued. There are no anecdotes of the early years of the latter preserved; but he has been heard to say that as a child he was no student and not at all precocious. He was at boarding-school until his early entrance into the Navy, January 1, 1815, at an age which precluded many opportunities of education; but the deficiency of which his indomitable habits of application in the study of literature and the sciences connected with his profession, and his strong natural powers of observation, fully supplied. His letters written at sixteen and seventeen, when he was on board of the Macedonian in the Pacific, exhibit thus early his settled habits of study, and his earnest sense of what was going on around him. At nineteen he took command of a merchant vessel to improve himself in his profession. In 1824 he was on duty in the brig Terrier on the West India station, seeking for pirates, when a second attack of yellow fever led to his return home; and in the autumn of 1825, the year of his appointment to a lieutenancy, he visited Europe, on leave of absence, for the benefit of his health. He spent a year in France, mostly in study, and then commenced the tour in Spain, the incidents of which he subsequently gave to the world in his publication, the Year in Spain, which first appeared in Boston in 1829 and about the same time in London. Washington Irving was in Spain at the time of Slidell's visit, engaged in writing his life of Columbus, and the two friends passed their time in intimacy. It is to Slidell that Irving alludes in a note to his work on Columbus where he says, "the author of this work is indebted for the able examination of the route of Columbus to an officer of the Navy of the United States, whose name he regrets not being at liberty to mention. He has been greatly benefited in various parts of this history by nautical information from the same intelligent source." The Year in Spain was received with great favor, and took its rank in England and America among the first productions of its class. It was reviewed in the Quarterly, the Monthly Review, and other influential publications in London, with many commendations on its spirit and interest, and the fund of information which the author had collected in familiar intercourse with the people; so that Washington Irving then in England, writing home, remarked, "It is quite the fashionable book of the day, and spoken of in the highest terms in the highest circles. If the Lieutenant were in London at present he would be quite a lion." It had the honor of a translation into the Swedish language.

In the years 1830-31-32, Mr. Slidell was on duty in the Mediterranean, in the Brandywine, Commodore Biddle. Upon his return home in 1833 he published a voluine of Popular Essays on Naval Subjects, and projected a two years' course of travelling in Great Britain. He passed some time in England, made a short visit to Spain, and returned to finish his tour in England and Ireland, but was induced by the threatened conflict between the United States and France to return to

America to resume, if necessary, the active duties of his profession. There being no probability of war he prepared at home his book, The American in England, and shortly after the two volumes of Spain Revisited. At this time, in 1836, he published a revised and enlarged edition of the Year in Spain, in New York. In 1837 he was ordered to the Independence as First Lieutenant, and filled the duties of executive officer to Commodore Nicholson. It was in the winter of this year that, in accordance with the request of a maternal uncle, he added, by an Act of the New York Legislature, his mother's name to his own. The Independence conveyed Mr. Dallas, the Minister to Russia, to St. Petersburg, which gave Lieutenant Slidell an opportunity to write home a description of the visit of the Emperor to the ship at Cronstadt. From Cronstadt the Independence proceeded to Brazil, where Lieutenant Slidell was placed in command of the Dolphin. His cruise in this vessel was of much interest. He was at Bahia during the siege of that place, and at its surrender, and was an eyewitness of many of the political events of the Rio de la Plata at that period, an account of some of which he published in a pamphlet at the time. General Rosas was his warin friend, and continued in correspondence with him for many years after. The American merchants of Rio Janeiro expressed their approval of his course. the Brazil station in 1839.

He returned from

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Whilst in Boston, previously to the sailing of the Independence, he was requested by Mr. Sparks to contribute a life of Paul Jones to the series of American Biography. He anticipated writing this at sea, but his duties prevented. He commenced it on his return, and it was published in Boston in 1841.

He had a love of country life, not unusual with men who pass much of their lives upon the sea, and now established his home (he had married, in 1835, a daughter of the late Morris Robinson of New York) at a farm on the Hudson, midway between Sing Sing and Tarrytown. Here he afterwards passed his time when not occupied in his profession, to which, notwithstanding his success in literature, he always continued

warmly attached as his first duty. In the summer of 1840, at the request of Dr. Grant Perry, he wrote the life of his father Commodore Oliver Perry. In 1841 he received his rank of Commander, and took charge of the Missouri Steamer till his command of the Brig Somers in May, 1842, then used as a school-ship and manned by apprentices. In this he was able to further his favorite plan of the improvement of the character of the service in the education of the sailor. He took with him on his first cruise to Porto Rico a young student of divinity to hold the services of the Episcopal church, a practice which he always observed in every vessel which he commanded. He sailed again with despatches for the squadron on the African coast in September of the same year. On the return voyage Midshipman Spencer was arrested, with a number of the crew, on a charge of mutiny. A council of officers decided that the execution of the three chief persons accused was a necessary measure, and the decision was carried into effect at the yard-arm. The Somers came into New York in December, when a Court of Enquiry of the three senior officers of the Navy, Commodores Stewart, Jacob Jones, and Dallas, justified the act. To remove any further grounds of complaint, at Commander Mackenzie's own request, a court-martial was held at New York in February, of which Commodore Downes was President, and eleven of his brother officers, his seniors or equals in rank, members. He was again acquitted, and the congratulations of large and influential bodies of his fellow citizens in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, tendered to him. The citizens of Boston requested his bust, which was executed by Dexter and has been placed in the Athenæum. He remained at home till 1846, occupying himself in writing the Life of Commodore Decatur, which was published in the summer of that year. In May, 1846, he was sent by the President on a private mission to Cuba and thence sailed to Mexico. He was ordnance officer with Commodore Perry in the Mississippi at Vera Cruz, whence he returned in 1847. The next year he had command of the Mississippi. His health was now much impaired. He died at home September 13, 1848.

His literary characteristics are readily noted. Whatever he took in hand, whether the narrative of his own adventures, or the story of the lives of others, was pursued with diligence, a skill which he seems to have owed as much to nature as to art, and in a full equable style. His American lives of Paul Jones, Perry, and Decatur, are happy instances of biographical talent, and are productions which, no less by their treatment than their subject matter, will continue to be received with favor. His descriptions of travel are remarkable for their truthfulness and happy fidelity to nature, and the unaffected interest which they exhibit in whatever is going on about him. There is also a fertile vein of good humor which illustrates the old remark, that a book which it is a pleasure to read it has been also a pleasure to write. Greatly as Americans have excelled in this species of writing, the country has never probably had a better representative abroad describing the scenes which he visits. Spain, always a theme fruitful in the picturesque, loses nothing of its peculiar attractiveness in his hands. He travels as Irving, In

glis, Ford, and many others have done, with a con. stant eye to Gil Blas and Don Quixote. It is ma similar vein that he visits England, and doubtless his still unpublished Tour in Ireland presents the same attractive qualities. He appears always to have had this descriptive talent. A series of letters from his early years, written from different parts of the world, which we have seen, are graphic, minute, and faithful. He was always a conscientious student of life and nature as of books, and his pen was the ready chronicler of his observations. The style in this, as in most cases, marks the man. Though reserved in his manners, and somewhat silent, there was great gentleness and refinement in his disposition. His exactness in discipline and inflexible performance of duty as an officer, and his strict sense of religious no less than of patriotic obligations, while they gained him the respect, were not at the loss of the affection of his companions. The unforced humor and ease of his writings are easily read indications of his amiable character. In person Commander Mackenzie was well formed, graceful, with a fine observant eye, and animated expression of countenance.

ZARAGOZA FROM SPAIN REVISITED.

On entering the gate of the Ebro I found myself within the famous old city of Zaragoza; renowned, in chronicles and ballads, for the achievements of its sons: the capital, moreover, of that glorious kingdom of Aragon, so illustrious for its ancient laws and liberties, for its conquests and extirpation of the Moors, and for the wisdom and prowess of its kings; but, above all, glorious now and for ever, for her resistance to a treacherous and powerful foe; a resistance undertaken in a frantic spirit of patriotism, pausing for no reflection and admitting of ro reasoning, and which was continued in defiance ca all the havoc occasioned in a place wholly inde fensible, according to the arts of war, until, wasted by assaults, by conflagrations, by famine, by pestilence, and every horror, Zaragoza at length yielded only in ceasing to exist.

A few steps from the gate brought me to the great square. It was crowded with a vast concourse of people, consisting at once of the busy and the idle of a population of near sixty thousand souls: the busy brought there for the transaction of their affairs, and the idle in search of occupation, or for the retail and exchange of gossip. The arcades and the interior of the square were everywhere filled with such as sold bread, meat, vegetables, and all the necessaries of life, together with such rude fabrics as come within the compass of Spanish ingenuity. Beggars proclaimed their poverty and misfortune, and the compensation which Jesus and Mary would give, in another world, to such charitable souls as bestowed alms on the wretched in this; and blind men chanted a rude ballad which recounted the sad fate of a young woman forced to marry a man whom she did not love, or offered for sale verses, such as were suited for a gallant to sing beneath the balcony of his mistress. Trains of heavily-laden mules entered and disappeared again; and carts and wagons slowly lumbered through, creaking and groaning at every step. Here was every variety of dress peculiar to the different provinces of Spain. A few had wandered to this distant mart from the suuny land of Andalusia; but there were more from Catalonia, Valencia, and Biscay, Zaragoza being the great connecting thoroughfare between those industrious and commercial provinces. The scene was noisy, tumultuous, and

full of vivacity and animation; and I felt that pleasure in contemplating it, which an arrival in a eity of some importance never fails to afford, after the quiet and monotony of small villages.

Catching a distant view of the renowned Church of the Pillar on the left, and of the Aragonese Giralda, the new tower, on the opposite hand, I came into a street which seemed to be consecrated to learning. On either hand were bookshops, filled with antique tomes, bound in parchment, with clasps of copper, and having a monkish and conventual smell; while, seated upon the pavement at the sunny side, were scores of cloaked students, conning ragged volumes, and passing an apparent interval in the academie hours in preparation for rehearsal, and in storing up a stock of heat to carry them safely through the frigid atmosphere of some Gothic hall, in which the light of science was wooed with a pious exclusion of the assistance of the sun. Other students were more agreeably employed in gambling in the dirt for a few cuartos. One of them, who had been looking over the game, and had probably lost, followed me, holding out the greasy tatters of a broken cocked hat, and supplicating a little alms to pursue his studies. He had on a cloak which hung in tatters, a pair of black worsted stockings, foxy and faded, and possibly a pair of trousers, while a stock, streaked with violet, showed that he was a candidate for the church: a mass of uncombed and matted hair hung about his forehead; his teeth were stained, like his fingers, with the oil from the paper cigars; and his complexion and whole appearance indicated a person nourished from day to day on unwholesome food, irregularly and precariously procured. He followed me for some distance, whining forth his petition. At length I said to him, somewhat briefly-" Perdon usted amigo! no hay nada !"—and he happening to catch sight, at the same moment, of a half-smoked fragment of a cigar, stopped short, picked it up, and proceeded to prepare it for further fumigation.

Tracing our way through narrow, winding, and ill-paved alleys, we at length approached the southern portion of the city, and entered the spacious street called the Coso, which lies in the modern part of Zaragoza. It was on this side that the chief attack of the French was directed. They approached by a level plain, demolishing convents, churches, and dwellings; battering with their cannon, discharging bombs, and springing mines, until this whole district was reduced to a wide-extended heap of ruins. A few walls of convents, half demolished, arches yawning, and threatening to crush at each instant whoever may venture below, and a superb façade, standing in lonely grandeur, to attest the magnificence of the temple of which it originally formed part, still remain to testify to the heroic obstinacy with which Zaragoza resisted. Some modern houses have arisen in this neighborhood. They are of neat and tasteful construction, and form a singular' contrast with the antiquated and crowded district through which I had just passed, not less than with the monastic ruins which frown upon and threaten to crush them, for their sacrilegious intrusion upon consecrated ground.

From the Coso a wide avenue extends to the gate of Madrid, and owes its opening and enlargement to the batteries of the French. Its origin is connected with a dreadful catastrophe, but its present uses are of the most peaceful kind. It is now a publie walk, planted with trees, and enlivened by fountains; and the Zaragozana of our day now coquets and flourishes her fan, and plays off the whole battery of her charms, on the very spot where her father or her grandfather, or haply an ancestor of her own

sex, poured forth their life's blood in defence of their country.

LODGINGS IN MADRID AND A LANDLADY-FROM THE SAME.

I was far too uncomfortable in my wretched inn to think of remaining there during the whole time I proposed to stay in Madrid. Florencia, who promised to find me a place, if possible, in her own neighborhood, said that there was no want of hired apartments about the Gate of the Sun; but there was some difficulty in finding such as were in all respects unexceptionable, since many establishments of this sort were kept by persons of somewhat equivocal character, who enticed young men into their houses with a view of fascinating and leading them astray. Nevertheless, at the end of a day or two, passed in diligent search, she sent me word to take possession of an apartment which she had retained for me in the street of Carmel, and which, though the entrance was in a different street, had its front just where I wanted it, on the street of Montera, and the balcony next to her own.

Immediately within the doorway, giving admission to a passage in itself sufficiently narrow, was a modest little moveable shop, which came and went, I knew not whither, morning and night, and which disappeared altogether on feast and bullfight days. It was kept by a thin, monastic-looking individual, who sold waxen tapers, arms, legs, eyes, ears, and babies, all religious objects connected with funeral ceremonies, or charms to offer at the shrine of some celebrated saint, for a happy delivery, or for the recovery of an afflicted member of the easily disordered tenement, in which our nobler part is shut up.

Having traversed this first passage opening on the street, I found myself on a crooked serpentine stairway, which turned to the right and to the left without reason or ceremony, and in almost utter darkness. Doors were scattered about on either hand, and I rang at half a dozen, saluted by the barking of dogs, the growling of Spaniards interrupted in the enjoyment of the siesta and torpid state which follow the repletion of a greasy dinner, or by the sharp and angry tones of scolding femalos, ere I at length found myself at the right one. Nor did I ever get used to the eccentricities of this most involved entrance. Coming home, night after night, at the dead hour of two or three, having patrolled the streets with a drawn dagger under my cloak, to defend myself against the robberies that were of constant occurrence, I used to get into the outer door by the aid of the double key which I carried, and reaching the end of the passage, I would commence ascending without any geometrical principle to guide me. When I should have turned to the left I would turn to the right, dislocating my foot against a wall, or else keep straight on until violently arrested, and in serious danger of damaging or distorting my nose. Sometimes I stepped up when I should have stepped down, and shook my whole frame to its centre. And thus I have more than once passed half an hour, moving about, like a troubled spirit, from the ground floor to the garret, fitting my key into strange doors, to the terror of the inmates, who, dreaming of robbery and murder, would begin to rattle sabres or bawl for assist

with more than usual neatness. The alcove, concealed by nice white curtains, contained a bed of inviting cleanliness, and the brasier and other articles of furniture, susceptible of receiving a polish, shone with the lustre of consummate house-wifery.

When I got before the broad light of the balcony, which enjoyed the sunny exposure so essential, where artificial heat of a wholesome kind is not to be procured, I had an opportunity of examining the person of my patrona; and I saw at a glance that Florencia had taken effectual means to protect me against every temptation of the devil. Doña Lucretia, whose present, rather than whose past history, doubtless rendered her name an appropriate one, was a hale, happy old lady, of five-and-fifty or more, still struggling to keep young. She was plump and well conditioned, with, however, a neat little foot, which she had somehow managed to keep within the dimensions of a small shoe, though her good keeping hastened to show itself above, in a fat and unconstrained ankle. Her eye, too, had some remains of lustre, and the long habit of leering and casting love-glances had left about it a certain lurking expression of roguery.

She was a native of Zamora, and had never married; not, by her account, for want of offers, for she had received many; but having seen that her father and mother had lived unhappily together, and her earliest recollections being of domestic disturbances, when the time arrived to think of this matter, and occasion called upon her to determine, for she told me, and I believed her, that she had been very handsome, she asked herself the question, "Shall I make the misery of my parents my own? or shall I not rather live singly blessed!" Having well weighed all these considerations, she, after mature deliberation, determined on philosophic principles for a life of liberty, since, though she admitted that men were a very good and useful race of animals, she said she never yet had seen one whom she was willing to erect into a permanent lord and mas

ter.

Her present pastimes were suited to her age; a little gossip each morning with a toothless old dame, who came to tell the parish news, of births, deaths, marriages, and murders, occupied the hour succeeding the domestic duties of the day, and went on without interruption, as the pipkin simmered with the daily puchero; on a feast-day, fan in hand, and mantilla duly adjusted, she would go in state to mass, taking the key of the door, and followed by the stout maid of all work, in the character of a dueña: at the bullfight she never fails to attend, for she was a zealous aficionada; and almost nightly she went off to a teatro casero, a reunion for private theatricals, held in the inelegant barrier of the Lavapies. The man who brushed my clothes and cleaned my boots, and between whom and the old lady there was a friendship of many years' standing, was one of the principal actors. I went for curiosity to see one performance, and was astonished, not only at the very tolerable style of the acting, but also at the singularity of the whole circumstance, of people in an humble sphere of life, instead of spending the little superfluity of their earnings in getting drunk, or congregating together in places from which the other sex was excluded, thus combining to fit up, and paint with the greatest taste, a little theatre, where they not only played farces and danced the bolero, but even commenced regularly, as at the great theatres, by going through a solemn didactic piece. On this occasion they played the Telos be Meneses, an old Spanish tragedy of the cloak and sword, filled with the most exaggerated and nobly extravagant sentiments.

A LONDON COFFEE-ROOM AT DINNER TIME-FROM THE AMERICAN IN ENGLAND.

The coffee-room, into which I now entered, was a spacious apartment of oblong form, having two chimneys with coal fires. The walls were of a dusky orange; the windows at either extremity were hung with red curtains, and the whole sufficiently well illuminated by means of several gas chandeliers. I hastened to appropriate to myself a vacant table by the side of the chimney, in order that I might have some company besides my own musing, and be able, for want of better, to commune with the fire. The waiter brought me the carte, the list of which did not present any very attractive variety. It struck me as very insulting to the pride of the Frenchman, whom I had caught a glimpse of on entering, not to say extremely cruel, to tear him from the joys and pastimes of his belle France, and conduct him to this land of fogs, of rain, and gloomy Sundays, only to roast sirloins and boil legs of mutton.

The waiter, who stood beside me in attendance, very respectfully suggested that the gravy-soup was exceedingly good; that there was some fresh sole, and a particularly nice piece of roast-beef. Being very indifferent as to what I ate, or whether I ate anything, and moreover quite willing to be relieved from the embarrassment of selecting from such an unattractive bill of fare, I laid aside the carte, not however before I had read, with some curiosity, the following singular though very sensible admonition, "Gentlemen are particularly requested not to miscarve the joints."

I amused myself with the soup, sipped a little wine, and trifled with the fish. At length I found myself face to face with the enormous sirloin. There was something at least in the rencounter which conveyed the idea of society; and society of any sort is better than absolute solitude.

I was not long in discovering that the different personages scattered about the room in such an unsocial and misanthropic manner, instead of being collected about the same board, as in France or my own country, and, in the spirit of good fellowship and of boon companions, relieving each other of their mutual ennuis, though they did not speak a word to each other, by which they might hereafter be compromised and socially ruined, by discovering that they had made the acquaintance of an individual several grades below them in the scale of rank, or haply as disagreeably undeceived by the abstraction of a pocket-book, still kept up a certain interchange of sentiment, by occasional glances and mutual observation. Man, after all, is by nature gregarious and social; and though the extreme limit to which civilization has attained in this highly artificial country may have instructed people how to meet together in public places of this description without intermixture of classes or mutual contamination, yet they cannot, for the life of them, be wholly indifferent to each other. Though there was no interchange of sentiments by words then, yet there was 10 want of mutual observation, sedulously concealed indeed, but still revealing itself in a range of the eye, as if to ask a question of the clock, and in furtive glances over a book or a newspaper.

In the new predicament in which I was now placed, the sirloin was then exceedingly useful. It formed a most excellent line of defence, an unassailable breast work, behind which I lay most completely entrenched, and defended at all points from the sharp-shooting of the surrounding observers. The moment I found myself thus intrenched, I began to recover my equanimity, and presently took courage-bearing in mind always the injunction of the bill of fare, not to miscarve the joints-to open an

embrasure through the tender-loin. Through this I sent my eyes sharp-shooting towards the guests at the other end of the room, and will, if the reader pleases, now furnish him with the result of my observations.

In the remote corner of the coffee-room sat a party of three. They had finished their dinner, and were sipping their wine. Their conversation was carried on in a loud toue, and ran upon lords and ladies, suits in chancery, crim. con. cases, and marriage settlements I did not hear the word dollar once; but the grander and nobler expression of thousand pounds occurred perpetually. Moreover, they interlarded their discourse abundantly with foreign reminiscences and French words, coarsely pronounced, and awfully anglicised. I drew the conclusion from this, as well as from certain cant phrases and vulgarisms of expression in the use of their own tongue, such as regularly done"-" completely floored"- 'split the difference," that they were not the distinguished people of which they labored to convey the impression.

more;

In the corner opposite this party of three, who were at the cost of all the conversation of the coffeeroom, sat a long-faced, straight-featured individual, with thin hair and whiskers, and a bald head. There was a bluish tinge about his cheek-bones and nose, and he had, on the whole, a somewhat used look. He appeared to be reading a book which he held before him, and which he occasionally put aside to glance at a newspaper that lay on his lap, casting, from time to time, furtive glances over book or newspaper at the colloquial party before him, whose conversation, though he endeavored to conceal it, evidently occupied him more than his book. Halfway down the room, on the same side, sat a very tall, rosy young man, of six-and-twenty or he was sleek, fair-faced, with auburn hair, and, on the whole, decidedly handsome, though his appearance could not be qualified as distinguished. He sat quietly and contentedly, with an air of the most thoroughly vacant bonhommie, never moving limb or muscle, except when, from time to time, he lifted to his mouth a fragment of thin biscuit, or replenished his glass from the decanter of black-looking wine beside him. I fancied, from his air of excellent health, that he must be a country gentleman, whose luxuriant growth had been nurtured at a distance from the gloom and condensation of cities. I could not determine whether his perfect air of quiescence and repose were the effect of consummate breeding, or simply a negative quality, and that he was not fidgety only because troubled by no thoughts, no ideis, and no sensations.

There was only one table between his and mine. It was occupied by a tall, thin, dignified-looking man, with a very grave and noble cast of countenance. I was more pleased with him than with any other in the room, from the quiet, musing, selfforgetfulness of his air, and the mild and civil mauner in which he addressed the servants. These were only two in number, though a dozen or more tables were spread around, each capable of seating four persons. They were well-dressed, decent-looking men, who came and went quickly, yet quietly, and without confusion, at each call for George or Thomas. The patience of the guests seemed unbounded, and the object of each to destroy as much time as possible. The scene, dull as it was, furnished a most favourable contrast to that which is exhibited at the ordinaries of our great inns, or in the saloons of our magnificent steamers.

Having completed my observations under cover of the sirloin, I deposed my knife and fork, and the watchful waiter hastened to bear away the formi

dable bulwark by whose aid I had been enabled to reconnoitre the inmates of the coffee-room. A tart and some cheese followed, and then some dried fruits aud thin wine biscuits completed my repast. Having endeavored ineffectually to rouse myself from the stupefaction into which I was falling, by a cup of indifferent coffee, I wheeled my capacious armchair round, and took refuge from surrounding objects by gazing in the fire.

The loquacious party had disappeared on their way to Drury Lane, having decided, after some discussion, that the hour for half price had arrived. The saving of money is an excellent thing; without economy, indeed, there can scarcely be any honesty. But, as a question of good taste, discussions about money matters should be carried on in a quiet and under tone in the presence of strangers. When they had departed, a deathlike stillness pervaded the scene. Occasionally, the newspaper of the thin gentleman might be heard to rumple as he laid it aside or resumed it; or the rosy gentleman from the country awoke the awful stillness by snapping a fragment of biscuit, or depositing his wine-glass upon the table. Then all was again silent, save when the crust of the seacoal fire fell in as it consumed, and the sleepy, simmering note in which the teakettle, placed by the grate in readiness either for tea or toddy, sang on perpetually.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

WAS born in Boston some time about the year 1803. His father was a Unitarian clergyman, and the son was educated for the pulpit of the sect. After taking his degree at Harvard, in 1821 he studied divinity, and took charge of a congregation in Boston, as the colleague of Henry Ware, jun.; but soon becoming independent of the control of set regulations of religious worship, retired to Concord, where, in 1835, he purchased the house in which he has since resided. It has become identified as the seat of his solitary musings, with some of the most subtle, airy, eloquent, spiritual productions of American literature. Mr. Emerson first attracted public attention as a speaker, by his college orations. In 1837 he delivered a Phi-Beta-Kappa oration, Man Thinking; in 1838, his address to the senior class of the Divinity College, Cambridge, and Literary Ethics, an Oration. His volume, Nature, the key-note of his subsequent productions, appeared in 1839. It treated of freedom, beauty, culture in the life of the individual, to which outward natural objects were made subservient. Dial: a Magazine for Literature, Philosophy, and Religion, of which Mr. Emerson was one of the original editors and chief supporters, was commenced in July, 1840. It was given to what was called transcendental literature, and many of its papers affecting a purely philosophical expression had the obscurity, if not the profundity, of abstract metaphysics. The orphic sayings of Mr. A. Bronson Alcott helped materially to support this character, and others wrote hardly less intelligibly, but it contained many acute and original papers of a critical character. In its religious views it had little respect for commonly received creeds.

The

The conduct of the work passed into the hands of Margaret Fuller, while Mr. Emerson remained a contributor through its four annual volumes. His chief articles were publications of the Lec