orthy were Henry Thoreau, and his friend and
biographer, William Ellery Channing, Jr., a nephew of the great
Channing. Channing was a contributor to the _Dial_, and he published a
volume of poems which elicited a fiercely contemptous review from Edgar
Poe. Though disfigured by affectation and obscurity, many of
Channing's verses were distinguished by true poetic feeling, and the
last line of his little piece, _A Poet's Hope_,

"If my bark sink 'tis to another sea,"

has taken a permanent place in the literature of transcendentalism.

The private organ of the transcendentalists was the _Dial_, a quarterly
magazine, published from 1840 to 1844, and edited by Emerson and
Margaret Fuller. Among its contributors, besides those already
mentioned, were Ripley, Thoreau, Parker, James Freeman Clarke, Charles
A. Dana, John S. Dwight, C. P. Cranch, Charles Emerson, and William H.
Channing, another nephew of Dr. Channing. It contained, along with a
good deal of rubbish, some of the best poetry and prose that has been
published in America. The most lasting part of its contents were the
contributions of Emerson and Thoreau. But even as a whole it was a
unique way-mark in the history of our literature.

From time to time Emerson collected and published his lectures under
various titles. A first series of _Essays_ came out in 1841, and a
second in 1844; the _Conduct of Life_ in 1860, _Society and Solitude_
in 1870, _Letters and Social Aims_ in 1876, and the _Fortune of the
Republic_ in 1878. In 1847 he issued a volume of _Poems_, and 1865
_Mayday and Other Poems_. These writings, as a whole, were variations
on a single theme, expansions and illustrations of the philosophy set
forth in _Nature_, and his early addresses. They were strikingly
original, rich in thought, filled with wisdom, with lofty morality and
spiritual religion. Emerson, said Lowell, first "cut the cable that
bound us to English thought and gave us a chance at the dangers and
glories of blue water." Nevertheless, as it used to be the fashion to
find an English analogue for every American writer, so that Cooper was
called the American Scott, and Mrs. Sigourney was described as the
Hemans of America, a well-worn critical tradition has coupled Emerson
with Carlyle. That his mind received a nudge from Carlyle's early
essays and from _Sartor Resartus_ is beyond a doubt. They were
life-long friends and correspondents, and Emerson's _Representative
Men_ is