Mr. Bowen, the Professor of Natural Theology and Moral Philosophy in Harvard University, treated this singular semi-philosophical, semi-poetical little book in a long article in the “Christian Examiner,” headed “Transcendentalism,” and published in the January number for 1837.  The acute and learned Professor meant to deal fairly with his subject.  But if one has ever seen a sagacious pointer making the acquaintance of a box-tortoise, he will have an idea of the relations between the reviewer and the reviewed as they appear in this article.  The professor turns the book over and over,—­inspects it from plastron to carapace, so to speak, and looks for openings everywhere, sometimes successfully, sometimes in vain.  He finds good writing and sound philosophy, passages of great force and beauty of expression, marred by obscurity, under assumptions and faults of style.  He was not, any more than the rest of us, acclimated to the Emersonian atmosphere, and after some not unjust or unkind comments with which many readers will heartily agree, confesses his bewilderment, saying:—­

“On reviewing what we have already said of this singular work, the criticism seems to be couched in contradictory terms; we can only allege in excuse the fact that the book is a contradiction in itself.”

Carlyle says in his letter of February 13, 1837:—­

“Your little azure-colored ‘Nature’ gave me true satisfaction.  I read it, and then lent it about to all my acquaintances that had a sense for such things; from whom a similar verdict always came back.  You say it is the first chapter of something greater.  I call it rather the Foundation and Ground-plan on which you may build whatsoever of great and true has been given you to build.  It is the true Apocalypse, this when the ‘Open Secret’ becomes revealed to a man.  I rejoice much in the glad serenity of soul with which you look out on this wondrous Dwelling-place of yours and mine,—­with an ear for the Ewigen Melodien, which pipe in the winds round us, and utter themselves forth in all sounds and sights and things; not to be written down by gamut-machinery; but which all right writing is a kind of attempt to write down.”

The first edition of “Nature” had prefixed to it the following words from Plotinus:  “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.”  This is omitted in after editions, and in its place we read:—­

  “A subtle chain of countless rings
  The next unto the farthest brings;
  The eye reads omens where it goes,
  And speaks all languages the rose;
  And striving to be man, the worm
  Mounts through all the spires of form.”