ten
at a period when he had long ceased almost entirely from his literary
labors.

Emerson's collected "Poems" constitute the ninth volume of the recent
collected edition of his works. They will be considered in a following
chapter.

CHAPTER XIII.

1878-1882. AET. 75-79.

Last Literary Labors.--Addresses and Essays.--"Lectures and Biographical
Sketches."--"Miscellanies."

The decline of Emerson's working faculties went on gently and gradually,
but he was not condemned to entire inactivity. His faithful daughter,
Ellen, followed him with assiduous, quiet, ever watchful care, aiding
his failing memory, bringing order into the chaos of his manuscript, an
echo before the voice whose words it was to shape for him when his mind
faltered and needed a momentary impulse.

With her helpful presence and support he ventured from time to time
to read a paper before a select audience. Thus, March 30, 1878, he
delivered a Lecture in the Old South Church,--"Fortune of the Republic."
On the 5th of May, 1879, he read a Lecture in the Chapel of Divinity
College, Harvard University,--"The Preacher." In 1881 he read a paper on
Carlyle before the Massachusetts Historical Society.--He also published
a paper in the "North American Review," in 1878,--"The Sovereignty of
Ethics," and one on "Superlatives," in "The Century" for February, 1882.

But in these years he was writing little or nothing. All these papers
were taken from among his manuscripts of different dates. The same
thing is true of the volumes published since his death; they were
only compilations from his stores of unpublished matter, and their
arrangement was the work of Mr. Emerson's friend and literary executor,
Mr. Cabot. These volumes cannot be considered as belonging to any single
period of his literary life.

Mr. Cabot prefixes to the tenth volume of Emerson's collected works,
which bears the title, "Lectures and Biographical Sketches," the
following:--

"NOTE.

"Of the pieces included in this volume the following, namely, those from
'The Dial,' 'Character,' 'Plutarch,' and the biographical sketches of
Dr. Ripley, of Mr. Hoar, and of Henry Thoreau, were printed by Mr.
Emerson before I took any part in the arrangement of his papers. The
rest, except the sketch of Miss Mary Emerson, I got ready for his use
in readings to his friends, or to a limited public. He had given up
the regular practice of lecturing, but would sometimes, upon special
request, read