The title of the poem 'Hamatreya' seemed at first to baffle a perfect and indubitable explanation. The word can be found in no English or foreign dictionary that the largest libraries afford. We are indebted, however, to Col. T. W. Higginson (_The Critic_, Feb. 18, 1888) for not only giving us a clew to the title, but for pointing out the portion of the Vishnu Purana (Wilson's translation, 1840) on which Emerson based his 'Earth Song' in 'Hamatreya,' and, in fact, got the hint for the whole poem; namely, at the close of Book IV. Maitreya is a disciple of Parasara, who relates to Maitreya the Vishnu Purana. Among other things he tells Maitreya of a chant of the Earth, who said, "When I hear a king sending word to another by his ambassador, 'This earth is mine: immediately resign your pretensions to it,' I am moved to violent laughter at first; but it soon subsides in pity for the infatuated fool." Again, the Purana says, "Earth laughs, as if smiling with autumnal flowers, to behold her kings unable to effect the subjugation of themselves"; which is Emerson's "Earth laughs in flowers, to see her boastful boys Earth-proud, proud of the earth which is not theirs." And again: "These were the verses, Maitreya, which Earth recited, and by listening to which ambition fades away, like snow before the sun." Here are Emerson's lines:-- "When I heard the Earth-song, I was no longer brave; My avarice cooled Like lust in the chill of the grave." Colonel Higginson suggests that Emerson may also have had in mind, in writing 'Hamatreya,' Psalm, xlix. 11. As he rightly says, the title evidently is meant to give a hint of the Hindoo source of the argument of the poem. It is in line with the uniform custom of Emerson in giving historical catch-words, especially proper names, as his titles. After an exhaustive search through all the Hindoo scriptures, I have reached a conviction which approaches absolute certainty that Hamatreya is Emerson's imperfect recollection of Maitreya or that he purposely coined the word. Emerson, it is nearly certain, read the Vishnu Purana, translated by H. H. Wilson (a large and costly work), by the copy then in the Harvard Library or the Boston Athenaeum, perhaps taking brief notes, but omitting to write down "Maitreya." In his exhaustive index of proper names, appended to the Vishnu Purana, Wilson has no such word as Hamatreya, nor does it occur anywhere in the book. To clinch the argument, Prof. Charles R. Lanman, the well-known Sanskrit scholar of Harvard University, writes me that "Hamatreya is not a Sanskrit word." "The Atreyas," he says, "were the descendants of Atri." "It is an easy mistake to make _Hamatreya_ out of _Maitreya_. I really think you will have to assume a simple slip here."