Emerson's quotations are like the miraculous draught of fishes. I hardly know his rivals except Burton and Cotton Mather. But no one would accuse him of pedantry. Burton quotes to amuse himself and his reader; Mather quotes to show his learning, of which he had a vast conceit; Emerson quotes to illustrate some original thought of his own, or because another writer's way of thinking falls in with his own,--never with a trivial purpose. Reading as he did, he must have unconsciously appropriated a great number of thoughts from others. But he was profuse in his references to those from whom he borrowed,--more profuse than many of his readers would believe without taking the pains to count his authorities. This I thought it worth while to have done, once for all, and I will briefly present the results of the examination. The named references, chiefly to authors, as given in the table before me, are three thousand three hundred and ninety-three, relating to eight hundred and sixty-eight different individuals. Of these, four hundred and eleven are mentioned more than once; one hundred and fifty-five, five times or more; sixty-nine, ten times or more; thirty-eight, fifteen times or more; and twenty-seven, twenty times or more. These twenty-seven names alone, the list of which is here given, furnish no less than one thousand and sixty-five references. Authorities. Number of times mentioned. Shakespeare.....112 Napoleon.........84 Plato............81 Plutarch.........70 Goethe...........62 Swift............49 Bacon............47 Milton...........46 Newton...........43 Homer............42 Socrates.........42 Swedenborg.......40 Montaigne........30 Saadi............30 Luther...........30 Webster..........27 Aristotle........25 Hafiz............25 Wordsworth.......25 Burke............24 Saint Paul.......24 Dante............22 Shattuck (Hist. of Concord).......21 Chaucer..........20 Coleridge........20 Michael Angelo...20 The name of Jesus occurs fifty-four times. It is interesting to observe that Montaigne, Franklin, and Emerson all show the same fondness for Plutarch. Montaigne says, "I never settled myself to the reading of any book of solid learning but Plutarch and Seneca." Franklin says, speaking of the books in his father's library, "There was among them Plutarch's Lives, which I read abundantly, and I still think that time spent to great advantage." Emerson says, "I must think we are more deeply indebted to him than to all the ancient writers." Studies of life and character were the delight of all these four moralists. As a judge of character, Dr. Hedge, who knew Emerson well, has spoken to me of his extraordinary gift, and no reader of "English Traits" can have failed to mark the formidable penetration of the intellect which looked through those calm cerulean eyes.