Care. If no ear would hear my speaking
In the heart I'd still be groaning;
And with shape and figure changed
Angry force I exercise.

On the shore and on the billow
A companion ever anxious;
Ever found and never sought,
As much flattered as accursed.
Hast thou known care never yet?—

Faust. I have through this world only run;

I by the lock have seized each joy and pleasure,
What did not satisfy-I left it,

That which fled from me I let go.

I've only wished, only accomplished,

And then again I've wished, and thus with force
I have stormed through my life; first great and mighty;
But now it wisely goes, goes on considerate.
Sufficient now I know of this earth's globe.
Our prospect to the realms above is hindered;
Fool! whosoe' er directs his eyes there blinking,
Fables there are beyond the clouds his fellows!
Let him stand firm and let him look around;
This world's not dumb to him who active is.
Why need he to eternity to wander !

That which he knoweth should be tangible.
Thus should he wander through his earthly day;
If spirits haunt still let him go his way;
One will find onward striding woe and joy
The other at each moment discontent.

Care. Him of whom I take possession
All the world holds cannot profit,
Darkness sinketh down eternal,
And the sun nor sets nor rises,
Though his outward sense be perfect,
Yet within dwell obscurations.
He cannot of all his treasures

One alone hold in possession.

Joy and woe are hurried to ennui,

Mid satiety he hungers,

Be it pleasure, be it torment,
To the next day he defers it,

Future only he expecteth,

And is therefore never ready.

Faust. Cease thou! To me thou shalt not come !

I will not to such folly listen.

Away! thy evil litany

Might even make of men the wisest foolish,

Care. Shall he go? or shall he come on?
All decision's from him taken;

In the trodden pathway's middle
Groping each half-step he wavers.
Deeper still himself he loseth
Seeth all things more obliquely,
To others and himself a burden,
Taking breath, then suffocating;
Not quite dead, and yet not living,
Not despairing, not submitting,
Such a never-changing rolling,
Painful "let" and "should" disgusting,
Now delivering, now oppressing,
Half a sleep, and bad refreshing,
Naileth him unto his station,

And for hell doth well prepare him.

Faust. Unblessèd spectres! even thus ye treat
A thousand times the human generation;
Even in different days ye change about
In dire confusion of enwoven sorrows.

I know, of demons one can scarce get rid,
The powerful spirit-bond cannot be sundered;

And yet thy power, O Care, though strong it creep,-
For one I will not recognise it.

Care. Experience it, as swiftly now

I turn from thee with malediction!

Throughout their lives mankind are blind:
Be thou so, Faust, at the conclusion !-

Faust. (blind.)

(She breathes on him.)

The night seems pressing deep and deeper onward,
But yet within me shineth brilliant light;
What I have thought I hasten to accomplish;
The master's word alone can have a weight.
Up from your beds, ye vassals! man by man!
Let me see prospering what I boldly planned-
Take up your tools, your shovels, spades lay hold of!
Your work instanter must be finished.
To strict command quick industry,
Follows the fairest-best reward;
This mighty business to accomplish,
For thousand hands one mind sufficeth.

(To be continued.)

344

A RESPONSE FROM AMERICA.*

We have received from Boston the books quoted at the foot of this page, which, we perceive, are connected with a class of thinking that sufficiently interprets why they are sent to us. The spirit of Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Thomas Carlyle, has spread beyond the Atlantic, and we hear the echoes thereof from afar. Among these books are some by Mr. Alcott, sent unconsciously that we had already seen them, and had in consequence, in our Prize Essay contained in the EDUCATOR, lately published by the Central Society of Education, mentioned their author with emphatic honour. Time sufficient has not elapsed for the transmission of that volume across the Atlantic, and therefore we are not indebted to that for the works before us. No! we are indebted to the Oration on Coleridge and the Lecture on Poetic Genius for their transmission. No sooner has time sufficient passed for the circulation in America of the MONTHLY MAGAZINE, under better auspices, than we are thus welcomed, as fellow-workers for good, by the apostles of human developement in the New World.

We have long well known what influence by the elect of the school, in which we have matriculated, had been acquired over the growing intelligence of a rising country. We have rejoiced that the light of true philosophy had visited the unfettered intellect of a republican land; and while we rejoiced for their sakes, we regretted for our own, that similar principles received but slow acknowledgement under our own free institutions.

The leading article of the Fourth Number of the Boston Quarterly Review, would solve this enigma for us in its own way. It tells us, that the progress of civilisation and the association of men of letters is with the democracy. There is considerable brilliancy in this article. It tells us that the material world changes not-but that the intellectual world is subject to progress. Matter is passivemind is active. There is a spirit in man-not in the privileged few; not in those of us only, who by the favour of Providence have

* The "Doctrine and Discipline of Human Culture," by A. Bronson Alcott. Boston. James Monroe and Company. 1836.

"Nature." Boston. James Monroe and Co. 1836.

An Oration delivered before the Phi-Beta-Kappa Society, at Cambridge, Aug. 31, 1837. By Ralph Waldo Emerson. Second Edition. Boston. James Monroe 1838.

and Co.

The Boston Quarterly Review, No. IV., October 1838. Contents-Progress of Civilisation-Carlyle's French Revolution-Alcott on Human Culture-Specimens of Foreign Literature - Democracy of Christianity — Abolition proceedings-An Address delivered before the Senior Class in Divinity College, Cambridge, Sunday Evening, 15th July, 1838. By Ralph Waldo Emerson, &c. &c. Boston. Published by Benjamin H. Greene, 124, Washington Street. 1838.

been nursed in public schools, IT IS IN MAN; it is the attribute of

the race.

Reason," proceeds the writer," exists within every breast. I mean not that faculty which deduces inferences from the experience of the senses, but that higher faculty, which, from the infinite treasures of its own consciousness, originates truth, and assents to it by the force of intuitive evidence; that faculty which raises us beyond the control of time and space, and gives us faith in things eternal and invisible. There is not the difference between one mind and another, which the pride of philosophy might conceive. To Plato or Aristotle, to Liebnitz and Locke, there was no faculty given, no intellectual function conceded, which did not belong to the meanest of their countrymen. In them there could not spring up a truth, which did not equally have its source in the mind of every one. They had not the power of creation: they could but reveal what God has implanted in the breast of every one. On their minds not a truth could dawn, of which the seed did not equally live in every heart."

It is for the natural equality of the human powers, not of human attainments that the Boston critic contends. The latter are capable of improvement and progress. But, if it be granted, that the gifts of mind and heart are universally diffused, if the sentiments of truth, justice, love, and beauty exist in every one, then it follows, as a necessary consequence, that the common judgement in politics, morals, character and taste, is the highest authority on earth, and the nearest possible approach to an infallible decision.

Such is a regular republican conclusion from the premises, in favour of public opinion. It must be conceded to the writer, that "Absolute error can have no existence in the public mind. Whereever you see men clustering together to form a party, you may be sure that however much error may be there, truth is there also. Apply this principle boldly; it contains a lesson of candour, and a voice of encouragement. Yes, there never was a school of philosophy, nor a clan in the world of opinion, but carried along with it some important truth. To know the seminal principle of every prophet and leader of a sect, is to gather all the wisdom of the world."

We submit the above to our friend Alerist and his admirers. The following is a startling reflection.

"Who are the best judges in matters of taste? Do you think the cultivated individual? Undoubtedly not; but the collective mind. The public is wiser than the wisest critic. In Athens, where the arts were carried to perfection, it was done when the fierce democracie' was in the ascendant; the temple of Minerva and the works of Phidias were invented and perfected to please the common people. When Greece yielded to tyrants, her genius for excellence in arts expired;"or rather purity of taste disappeared; because the artist then endeavoured to please the individual, and therefore humoured his caprice; while before he had endeavoured to please the race."

After bringing down his instances to the present day, the reviewer concludes, that the fullest confidence may be put in the capacity of the human race for political advancement. The absence of the prejudices of the old world leaves to Americans the opportunity of consulting independent truth; and man is left to apply the instinct of freedom to every social relation and public interest.

They have approached so near to nature, that they can hear her gentlest whispers; they have made humanity their lawgiver and their oracle; and, therefore, principles, which in Europe the wisest receive with distrust, are the common property of their public mind. The spirit of the nation receives and vivifies every great doctrine, of which the application is required: no matter how abstract it may be in theory, or how remote in its influence, the intelligence of the multitude embraces, comprehends, and enforces it. Freedom of mind, freedom of the seas, freedom of industry, each great truth is firmly grasped; and wherever a great purpose has been held up, or a useful reform proposed, the national mind has calmly, steadily, and irresistibly pursued its aim.

To a certain extent, whatever the reason, the fact doubtless is so. We find in the Boston Quarterly Review, what in the London Quarterly Review we should look for in vain-a Review of Carlyle's French Revolution-a high-toned, wise and discriminating review; and we know that she possesses, as we have shown in our Educator Essay, an unrivalled schoolmaster in Mr. Alcott. This gentleman's opinions on human culture are also canvassed in the number before us-well and impartially, and recommended, not however without certain mischievous reservations. The reason of this, as we learn not only from certain hints in the body of the review, but from a private letter, is, that notwithstanding the extolled tendency of the democratic mind to truth, Mr. Alcott is now suffering for truth's sake. It seems that those very inquiries which are quoted in our Educator Essay have brought him into trouble and want. The point is thus touched on in the review before us.

All the functions of the body, as we call them, but which are really functions of the soul, are holy, and should be early surrounded with holy and purifying associations: hence the Conversations in the volumes before us with the children, on the mysterious phenomena attending the production and birth of a new member to the human family, or what Mr. Alcott calls the Incarnation of Spirit,-Conversations which have caused him much reproach, and done him, for the moment, we fear, no little injury. His motives were pure and praiseworthy, and his theory seemed to require him to take the course he did, and he should not be censured; but

And then the writer puts the American prejudice, so ludicrously exhibited by Mrs. Trollope, in its strangest form. But we forbear to quote, where we must either blame or laugh.

On Mr. Alcott's Conversations with Children, we shall have something to say when we come to consider the great subject of education and the educator, and perhaps shall even make it the theme of a separate article-such as it deserves; for the book is a miracle! In the meantime, we shall, in this paper, say something on a little volume, which, from the style, we doubt not to be his, but which we now see for the first time, and which is entitled simply and boldly

with this epigraph:

"NATUR E,"

Nature is but an image or imitation of wisdom, the last thing of the soul; nature being a thing which doth only do, but not know. PLOTINUS.