In the years between 1840 and 1850 Mr. Emerson's growing desire to express himself in poetry began to be fulfilled. He gave a lecture in London in 1848 before the Portman Square Literary and Scientific Institution, in the exordium of which he said, "I have ventured to name my topic 'Poetry and Eloquence,' though what I have to say is chiefly on the last. There is much that is common to the two." The best prose should be poetic, but the highest eloquence should be a poem.
The present lecture naturally follows that on Art, Eloquence, including Poetry, being the art that the author most loved.
The subject was not easily exhausted, and Mr. Emerson wrote another lecture, which was read in Chicago in 1867. This last is included in the volume Letters and Social Aims.
Page 62, note 1. Plato, Republic, Book 1. At town-meetings and other public gatherings Mr. Emerson seldom spoke unless the call was urgent. He felt his unfitness for debate or extempore speech; but he listened and watched the disputants with great interest and often admiration.
Page 63, note 1. Among Mr. Emerson's notes on Eloquence he wrote as a sort of motto some lines from the ancient version of "Thomas the Rhymer," called "Thomas of Ersseldoune," a legend that was a favorite with him.
The Queen of Elfland says to Thomas at parting,—
"'Fare wele, Thomas, I wend my waye,I may no lengere stande with the:''Gyff me a tokynynge, lady gaye,That I may saye I spake with the.'
