eloquence that even Mr. George Combe describes it as wonderful." The spiritualist sent some penetrating light into the skull of the materialist; and the undulation of pure and subtle thought was between the two extreme poles. The mystic laid his spell upon a self-avowed clod. Mr. Emerson's oratory, so far as thought and language are concerned, we can easily believe to be most potent on kindred minds: and not also without some very attractive properties to minds of a coarser, plainer, and lower cast. Orpheus drew the music-loving trees after him, and the dull stones likewise. We should imagine, however, that since his transcendentalism has made him indifferent to sensuous and pictorial views of men and things, he is disqualified for treating historical subjects with due effect. The success of Carlyle's Lectures on" Heroes and Hero-worship," upon his London audience, was mainly owing to the vividness and fulness of his personal sketches. Mahomet's "sun eyes" flashed a mightier spell upon the ladies, than could any opening or luminous expounding of the Koran; and the portraits of Knox, Luther, Cromwell, &c., &c., gained a favour for which no critical discussion of principles and merits could have hoped. Carlyle made more of young Samuel Johnson's "old shoes," than Emerson could of all the articles of human apparel, from "the fig-leaves," down to the clothes of the present day. What power (which Emerson utterly wants) lay in Carlyle's naming of dates! It was like the striking of a clock, or the ringing of bells before some grand event or spectacle. Emerson, in the excess of transcendentalism, may have felt as if all men, the most renowned heroes, were in himself, the quiet lecturer, and that he was the poetical chorus to appear on the stage, and transact and answer for all the persons of the drama, who did not therefore need to be present. "The landscape," he says, "the figures, Boston, London, are facts as fugitive as any institution past, or any whiff of mist or smoke, and so is society, and so is the world. The soul looketh steadily forward, creating a world alway before her, and leaving worlds always behind her. She has no dates, no rites, nor persons, nor specialities, nor men. The soul knows only the soul. All else is idle weeds for her wearing." We must here also quote a passage of transcendent beauty :

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When a noble act is done-perchance in a scene of great natural beauty; when Leonidas and his three hundred martyrs consume one day in dying, and the sun and moon come each and look at them once in the steep defile of Thermopyla; when Arnold Winkelried, in the high Alps, under the shadow of the avalanche, gathers in his side a sheaf of Austrian spears to break the line for his comrades; are not these heroes entitled to add the beauty of the scene to the beauty of the deed? When the bark of Columbus nears the shore of America; before it, the beach lined with savages, fleeing out of all their huts of cane; the sea behind; and the purple mountains of the Indian Archipelago around, can we separate the man from the living picture? does not the new world clothe his form with her palm-groves and savannahs as fit drapery? Even so does natural beauty steal in like air, and envelope great actions."

An attentive reader will perceive that these inimitable sentences

form a poem rather than a picture; the words "steal in like air” for music, rather than appear like colours and lines for painting. And it is the heroic sOUL which fascinates the gaze of sun and moon, draws down the majestic homage of the Alps, and makes itself a wonder to the new world. Soldiers and sailors, who would have been introduced by other writers to supply the picturesque, are here altogether absent. For the exposition of principles, Emerson is unequalled. He can put truth, and truth of the most profound character, into beautiful allegory, or precise definition; though he cannot dramatize men and events. He can develope tendencies, either by the finest poetry or the most practical sagacity, though he cannot recite or describe actions. He disembodies men and makes their spirits naked; but he gives to the most subtle and abstract ideas a rich incarnation.

This hermit is, at present, on a long pilgrimage from his solitude. He has reached England, and is coming shortly to Scotland. We cannot call him a stranger, for with his writings intellectual men have, for years, been familiar; and these writings are not of the hand, but of the heart and brain, so that his character is fully known to select readers. Periodicals of all kinds and sizes, have already hailed him most cordially. A far more genial welcome from the choicest spirits of the age is given to him, than to any other visitor. Dickens drew forth the huzzahs of a dense crowd; but Emerson will find noble heads uncovered reverently at his approach. The first, with all his fame, is but a small man beside the last; and, indeed, a comparison of the two would be preposterous. The novelist's late speech at the Glasgow festival, contained no memorable ideas: its neatness suggested barrenness, the few flowers growing up in which he had leisure enough to exhibit; and it read like graceful chit-chat for ladies, rather than a lofty and earnest discourse to men. The Essayist will doubtless appear in a very different character before the same audience.

We know, however, that Emerson is regarded by many among us, with aversion and scorn. He has been described as one "whose writings contain, in nearly equal proportions, only silly common-places and unintelligible jargon, mixed with a good deal of profanity withal." Such criticism is hopelessly wrong, and can only tell injuriously against the judgment-seat whence it proceeded. Let Emerson be treated as a heretic, we ourselves honestly mean to consider and exhibit him as such, and shall make no mild or forbearing reference to the mock substitute for Christianity, which he has formed out of all religions, and the nakedness of which he has decked with the profuse beauty of the external world; but to deny him the possession of genius, and to talk of the intellectual quality of his works in the above strain, would be the most outrageous injustice. At least, ere we could act thus, we must have reversed our deliberate convictions, obliterated our deepest impressions, and been most ungrateful for the exalted pleasure which we have received from the essays of Emerson. To call such a brother -fool, is no slight offence, and must sink the literary character of the critic. Some of Emerson's poetical utterances are "dark sayings" to a certain order of minds; and when transcendental mists meet the fogs of Boeotia, there can be no mutual understanding. But even intelligent

readers-justly disliking Emerson's religious creed, unjustly detract from the original character of his genius. Let them dissent entirely from his theology, which we hold to be very dangerous, and which wer wish we had ministers in the different churches in Britain, qualified to refute rather than to vilify: but why should they make small account of his faculties? It will not do to deny genius to a sceptic even. From our own intercourse, we can attest that sceptics, when talking of the mental qualities of particular Christians, are frequently more candid than Christians when making a similar estimate of sceptics. Among enthusiastic men, who unfortunately had contracted loose notions of religion, we have heard the most ardent admiration expressed for the genius of Chalmers; whilst, in a discussion upon the genius of Emerson by a circle of religious men, we have seen him contemptuously treated. Are we to prove the superiority of our creed, by showing the inferiority and deficiency of our candour? Nay, shall we not thus bring our appreciation of the divine sublimities and beauties of the Bible, into suspicion, by deriding the human sublimities and beauties to be found in the productions of men of genius?

We rejoice that Emerson is coming to Edinburgh to deliver a few lectures. Common-sense Scotland needs a short lesson of transcendentalism. Her bare and rugged mountains would be nothing the worse of a few innocent poetic mists to hover over them; and her sharp-featured and business-eyed population would appear to more advantage under the shadow of a mystic dream-enwrapping them now and then. Scotchmen, however, don't like any cloud to be around their head save a "red Kilmarnock." Our national style of thought, whether written or unwritten, is rather bald and prosaic, and might be much improved by the teaching of Emerson. His words will not be in vain, for next to Carlyle, he possesses the power of making disciples of those who are brought into intercourse with him. Speaking with fewer airs of prophetic authority than Carlyle, he subdues and persuades by the softer spell of a poetic influence. The one uses the rod of an enchanter; the other that of a schoolmaster.

We certainly should not like to see the character of Scotland transformed entirely by transcendentalism. Emerson carries bis to excess; and is literally, and upon the most important concerns, often "out of his senses." Coleridge, whose power of idealism was still more subtle, universal, and dreamy, and who was capable of using it far more destructively upon existing systems of philosophy and theology, had it, for many years before he died, almost entirely under command. But there is one man of genius still alive, who pre-eminently exemplifies the highest idealizing powers, harmoniously working along with a settled and definite Christian faith. De Quincey, far more than Emerson, is distinguished for bold philosophizing, and yet he never seenis to feel, that Christianity, in all its hard dogmatism, stands in his way; and, most certainly, in his freest mood he has never insulted it. To all who complain of narrow creeds, and fettered intellects, we point out Coleridge and De Quincey, as men whose writings illustrate the infinity of scope for all the human faculties, which Bible Christianity, as laid down by simple fishermen, affords.

We have strong apprehensions, lest the visit of our gifted Author do mischief, or give offence to the religious spirit of our country. Being thoroughly honest and sincere, he is ready to declare on the "house-top,' his innermost sentiments-he every where publishes his views; and his views upon all subjects, civil, political, and literary, are so comprehensive as to touch Christianity at many a sacred point, and to touch it with an irreverence which is, doubtless, unintentional, but still exceedingly offensive. He dissolves all the distinctive doctrines of our holy faith into those vague elements of a natural religion, which have pervaded the world since the beginning. Bethlehem again becomes "little among the nations ;" and Calvary is but one out of many mountains, on each of which has been kindled a beacon of religious truth to stream down into earth's darkness. He makes the soul of man its own only oracle; and his attention is absorbed in the utterance of his own voice from within, like the ear of the sea-shell, filled with the music of its own inner song. Talk to him of the heavens opening, like the lips of God, with a divine message, and he will reply, No, it is but the soul of humanity opening to speak its own hidden truth. Every teacher, even the Divine Jesus, does not, according to Emerson, descend; but his doctrine has no higher origin, no more celestial fount than the soul of man. Nay, man (so Emerson believes) has all his relations of right and wrong within his own nature, and, hence, sin is but a defect, and compensation is its only punishment. Thus, the excess of Emerson's transcendentalism takes all the inherent virtue and strength out of religion. The Holy Bible is tossed along with all other books into his mind-what is divine and what is human are mixed together, -and out of this strange and unnatural compound arises the most fantastic and worthless creed. Yet to expose it, would require a spirit of kindred power. A whole host of common theologians would find their best weapons weak against the enchanter. They might slay Mr. George Combe, and all his army of cold-hearted materialists, they might pierce through and through the sentimentalism of Dr. Channing, and all his soft-hearted band of Socinians, but they would not so much as wound Emerson. We have read the "Address" lately published by the Rev. A. Munro of Manchester, and which was meant to be a reply to Emerson's heresies; and, in our opinion, it is no reply at all. The transcendentalist would meet with a signal defeat from the revived genius of Coleridge, and not from the revived intellect of Paley. Mr. Gilfillan, in a very able article on Emerson, in Tait's Magazine, declines to speak at length of the Essayist's creed. We are grieved that the critic neglected the opportunity of saying to this Athenian mind-" I perceive, that in all things ye are too superstitious," and of presenting the grand, divine, and one faith, face to face, with the cherished sentiments. Yet he suggests here and there, in a few passing words, ideas which, if they were completed, arranged, and pointed, would go crashing into the very heart of Emerson's system of fallacies; and it is this fact which leads us to regret his mercifulness. In physical conflict, Goliath will overawe a whole army of champions, and the opposing ranks do not possess a man of courage enough to accept the challenge; but in mental confict, every man thinks, that he himself is fit to lay the giant low.

We believe that the most important and precious service which Christian polemics have ever performed will be, when a competent man comes forth and refutes the dangerous pantheism of Emerson and Carlyle; but every one who can argue victoriously against Paine, Owen, and even against Hume and Voltaire, may not be competent for this far more difficult struggle. We trust, that whilst, in Scotland, Emerson will meet with thousands of admirers, he will convert none to his religious views. We confess, however, that we are led to muse upon his own words; " Beware when God lets loose a thinker on this planet. Then all things are at risk. It is as when a conflagration has broken out in a city, and no man knows what is safe, or where it will end. There is not a piece of science, but its flank may be turned to-morrow; there is not any literary reputation-not the so-called eternal names of fame, that may not be revised and condemned. The very hopes of man, the thoughts of his heart, the religion of nations, the manners and morals of mankind, are all at the mercy of a new generalization."

Perhaps Mr. Emerson overrates the consequences which would take place, if a great thinker were let loose upon this planet. It is a very steady planet this of ours, more susceptible of injury from the tail of a comet than from the mind of a thinker. Earth is not so easily thrown into confusion, as the Essayist might have learned from his own progress in America. Even great thinkers, if they be sound ones also, and seek to turn the flank of false sciences, must calculate upon long and weary toil before they shall succeed. A new generalization, even if it be the arrayed and allied forces of all truth, instead of needing to display "mercy" towards the vanquished, will require to fight hard, and see many of its advocates martyrs, ere it can find the most distant hope of victory. And as for great thinkers, and new generalizations of error, Bible Christianity will meet them, come they from the Old, the New, or the Nether world. Emerson and Pantheism may be let loose upon Scotland, but we can assure them, that they will not "fright the isle from its propriety."

Indeed, (though this, perhaps, is but our own individual experience,) there are some authors, men of lofty genius, whose writings, abounding though they do, in theological errors, are yet comparatively harmless; and we can study and admire them with almost as much safety as we should look upon the noble statues-captives in our country-which were made and held to be gods, long ago in other lands. We believe that religious heresy, allied with the best works of literature, is not so noxious as moral impurity of thought or language; and some obscene jest in the great poems of Burns or Byron, has a more mischievous tendency than the free-thinking which pervades the pages of Emerson and Carlyle. To corrupt the heart is both more easy and fatal than to bewilder and mislead the mind.

But taking Mr. Emerson's heresies even in their least serious aspect, we can assure him, that they mar the mere literature of his works. Beauty, separated from truth, has foregone many of its own attractions. If his occasional references to the sciences of chemistry, geology, or astronomy, were as erroneous as his more frequent allusions to the science of Christianity; would this circumstance not detract considerably even