[178] of the Transcendental School whom we must not pass by. One of these was Theodore Parker, that eminent heretic, who has had the curious experience of being at last held up to admiration by the very churches which once cast him out. In a literary way, he was the most profitable contributor of the Dial, his manner being much more popular than the rest, so that Mr. Emerson used to say that the only numbers which sold well were those which had Theodore Parker's articles in them. He was a systematic student on a large scale, which Emerson was not, and he was also a man of action, wearing himself out by such a variety of labors that his lifetime was short. There is no one whom Lowell hits off better in the Fable for critics:--
Here comes Parker, the Orson of parsons, a man
Whom the Church undertook to put under her ban.
...
But the ban was too small or the man was too big,
For he recks not their bells, books, and candles a fig.
...
Every word that he speaks has been fierily furnaced
In the blast of a life that has struggled in earnest:
There he stands, looking more like a ploughman than priest,
If not dreadfully awkward, not graceful at least,
