was, however, very strong, and there was no such thing as a Unitarian Church in the part of the country where Mr. Jefferson resided.

"Such, Sir, are the best answers I can make to the questions you have addressed to me. But after all, the true answer to the accusations of Mr. Jefferson's enemies, and perhaps the more dangerous assertions of his pretended friends, is to be found in the whole tenor of a life passed in the exercise of every Christian virtue, and devoted to the service of his fellow-men. A distinction which he liked to draw between the lessons of Heathen philosophy and the teachings of Jesus was, that, by the first, men were taught to take care of their own happiness; by the last, to think more of the happiness of others. And if all were not happy who came within the sphere of his influence, it was not for want of the most earnest desire and constant efforts on his part to make them so. In small things and in great the same wish to do good, and to give innocent pleasure formed the spring of his actions. His charities, beginning at home, extended themselves in circles to the utmost limit of his power. At home he had been the best husband, and was the best father and grandfather, the kindest master, the most faithful and active friend, the most useful neighbor! He was loved best where best known. Those who approached him nearest were the most devoted in their affection and veneration, and it was as men receded from him that they lost sight of the true proportions of his character, which became distorted to their eyes through the mists of prejudice and misconception. I repeat again my firm belief, that such a character as my dear grandfather's could have been formed under no influences but those of the Gospel; that there is in this world but one good tree capable of bearing such fruit.

"I make no apology for such praise given to so near a relative. Mr. Jefferson has ceased to belong exclusively to his family, he belongs to mankind, and we of his blood should consider ourselves as holding in trust for the use of others that knowledge of his true character which our near approach to him enabled us to become possessed of. His name is often heard, but how few there are who know how much of excellence that name implies. Whatever light, therefore, this letter can throw upon the truth, as it regards a great and good man, is yours, Sir, to make such use of as seems best to you.

"With sentiments of great respect, I remain, &c."

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ART. VII. Life and Complete Works of MARGARET FULLER. In 6 vols. Boston: Brown, Taggard, and Chase. 1860. Uniform Edition.

1. Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli. By R. W. EMERSON, W. H. CHANNING, and J. F. CLARKE. 2 vols.

2. Woman in the Nineteenth Century.

3. At Home and Abroad: or, Things and Thoughts in America and Europe.

4. Art, Literature, and the Drama.

5. Life without, and Life within.

THE horticulturist glows with delight when Nature offers him a new flower. The statelier its aspect, the more intense its tints, the more difficult its culture, the more cordial is his welcome. While its inspiriting fragrance floats through his conservatory, and lifts the very heads of all other plants, hope kindles in his bosom, and every energy is bent to the perfecting of that germ, which is the vehicle of its immortal type, and which shall transmit its grace, its color, and its God-given charm. He does not stay to ask why the stem is coarse and angular, the leaves heavy and viscous, the root moist with a poisonous juice, the calyx set round with thorns; or if he deals with these matters at all, it is to seek their relation to the continuous life of the plant, and not to find fault with the Creator. What precious fluids flow through that angular channel, what honeyed sweets are exhaled through those viscous organs of respiration, what precious medicament lies hidden in the poison, what possible injury to the young germ the thorny crown repels, these things, indeed, concern him. Would to Heaven that ordinary human creatures stood thus reverent before a new soul, fresh from that Hand which makes and permits no mistakes; that their eyes opened gladly to the unfading beauty of the immortal; and that the angularity, the bitterness, the individual peculiarity or weakness, with which God defends the youth of His best beloved, were heeded only as they reveal the secret of development, or explain the facts of position! Then had we long since ceased to hear of Margaret Fuller's arrogance, conceit, and irreligion,

and recognized her as a noble gift to our time. Now that we have for the first time before us a complete memorial of her, it will be well to review briefly the works which she has left to us, especially that best of all her works, her life, and to endeavor, through the pages of this Review, to correct some misapprehensions concerning her which still float on the popular breeze. To those who "wander to and fro on the earth," fulfilling the varied engagements of the Lyceum, these misapprehensions are familiar as household words. Rumor finished her clumsy work long ago, and it is still too early for the historic sponge to clear the board. "Show us anything that Margaret has left, as fine as many of the things that have been said of her, and we will put faith in your vindication," said once an intelligent clergyman who should have known better. Is it nothing, then, to prompt to the saying of fine things? "This is the method of genius," Margaret writes, "to ripen fruit for the crowd, by those rays of whose heat they complain."

The two volumes of Memoirs, now republished, contain, beside the original matter, a touching life of Margaret's mother, from the pen of her son Richard, and a genealogical record of the Fuller family, which doubtless indicates the force and quality of that blood. It seems to us that the editor is unnecessarily anxious to efface the impression that his father's discipline was so severe as to overtax even Margaret's precocity. In her Autobiography, a species of writing for which she was admirably qualified by nature, she left on record, in regard to this matter, precisely the statement which she desired should survive. Does the editor call the Autobiography a romance? Very well. In its pages the writer sought to convert her own personal experience to universal use. "A more than ordinarily high standard was presented me," she wrote. "My father's influence upon me was great, but opposed to the natural unfolding of my character, which was fervent, of strong grasp, and disposed to infatuation and self-forgetfulness." To foster these peculiarities would have been a worse service than the overstraining, whose results, it seems to us, Margaret naturally enough misjudged, while, by the thorough discipline he maintained, Mr. Fuller

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brought an influence to bear on her "infatuation," the benefits of which she never ceased to feel, and came ultimately to understand. With her nightmares and somnambulisms, also, this severe régime and excessive study had little to do. They belong to such natures as hers. They are a part of the dreamy self-forgetfulness"; and if an occasional indiscretion added to their horrors, they could not have been wholly escaped, under the most tender indulgence, by one of her class. If not overworked by requirements from without, a mind like hers must have overwrought itself. Madame de Staël wrote standing, that she might not seem to be disturbed when her autocratic father entered her apartment. A gifted woman of the present century spent three years of her youth in copying mercantile letters, the only curb her merchant-father could find for an ideality which he did not comprehend. For all such natures, God provides such discipline. It may look harsh. We can trust Him, that it shall prove wise.

None but poets remember their youth, and we prize this autobiographical fragment more than most else of what Margaret has left us. Very beautiful is the conception of the Memoir, a threefold, yet concurrent testimony, which serves to show her many-sided nature. Very grateful ought our public to be to Mr. Clarke, for the crystalline clearness with which he sets before them the story of his intercourse with his friend. He feels his obligations, and with graceful, manly self-reliance acknowledges them. To her other biographers she ministered delight, to him growth. They stood admiring; he felt the woman in the genius. "This record," he says, "may encourage some youthful souls, as earnest and eager as ours, to trust themselves to their heart's impulse, and enjoy some such blessing as came to us." He will never know how many. Nowhere does the remarkable simplicity of her relations with men and women appear to such advantage as in his pages. Not a shadow of coquetry nor mist of passion hovers over the record. Impetuosity, ardor, and high resolve gleam through the rifts of the correspondence, and grant us clear guesses at what we do not see.

The most common charge brought against Margaret is that of arrogance, a charge which had some show of truth in it, both

as concerns her own peculiarities, and in regard to the temperament which she inherited; but who are. we that bring this charge, and what true significance has it? May we not be talebearers, censorious, meddlers in other men's matters? and if so, what is the significance of that fact? For us and her abides the old eternal law. She was human, unlikely therefore to show us perfection, either inherited or attained in the life that now is. The only profitable question is, Did she accept, foster, hug to her bosom her own frailties, or did she in the main, at all events ultimately, see their true nature, and put them under subjection? To this question there can be but one answer. From a manuscript for some time in our possession, we copy the following statement. a very fair one it seems to us the impression she sometimes made upon truly noble souls.

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"My nature would always have resented the assumption of superiority; but gladly would I have knelt before the humblest human creature in whom I perceived it. Many a pure-hearted child has bent the knee which only stiffened before Margaret, and this, not because I was not willing to acknowledge her fine ability, her great superiority, but because I knew the highest crown we could either of us inherit, it depended upon our own wills to wear,-because I felt myself as much the child of my Heavenly Father as she. To become truly regal, in my eyes, she must have relinquished the love of power for its own sake, must stretch out generous, sustaining tendrils towards feebler souls. In fine, must break up 'her court,' and enter society.' If there was anything in my own temper which bore a likeness to her faults, I only felt, on that account, how necessary it was that she should hold them, as I was trying to hold mine, 'under her heel.' Margaret was, even then, at times, beautifully tender and considerate, but it was from the height of her queenliness that she was so. Her possibilities enthralled me, but never her actual self."

This statement, nowhere so distinctly made in the Memoirs, but involved in facts to which they bear witness, may for the sake of truth be made once, but for the sake of all honor and nobleness it should be for ever after set aside. We balance it, first, by her own words concerning Carlyle, showing how much more just she could be to others than we are to her, and then by the prayer which Mr. Channing quotes from her Diary, under date of the very hour which rang with complaints of her conceit and coldness.