The serious attention paid to Emerson by English as well as American critics was a remarkable feature of his early critical reception. In fact, British commentators were at first more generally positive than American reviewers in their assessments. A piece by British poet and literary and political writer Richard Monckton Milnes in the London and Westminster Review (March 1840) was particularly influential. Although Milnes pointed out Emerson's debt to European philosophy and his similarity to Carlyle, he also focused on the value of his work in fostering intellectual sympathy between England and America. His reactions were mixed, but the fact that so prominent a critic had taken the time to prepare a lengthy review had an effect on the overall British response to Emerson. Emerson's subsequent work was eagerly read and reviewed in Britain.
"The Divinity School Address" (1838) was regarded by some as a pronounced threat to established religion. It drew a more polarized response than did Emerson's other offerings. Andrews Norton, a biblical scholar and professor at the Harvard Divinity School, was reactionary and vitriolic in his evaluation of it. Norton wrote a review for the Boston Daily Advertiser (August 27, 1838). In "The New School in Literature and Religion," he attacked Emerson's insult to religion, his inability to reason logically, his poor taste (evidenced by his oracular tone and lack of humility), his vagueness of expression and distortion of ideas, his relation to "German barbarians" and to Carlyle. Norton's hostile criticism set off a volley of responses (James Freeman Clarke noted in a review in The Western Messenger, "We perceive that our friends in Boston, and its vicinity, have been a good deal roused and excited by an address. . . ."), and effected Emerson's long banishment from Harvard. Theophilus Parsons (writing under the pseudonym "S.X.") took Norton to task for his harshness and incivility. Finding considerable fault with Emerson's theology, Parsons explained that he responded to Norton "not because I am unwilling to have the faults of this 'New School' exposed and dealt with, but because I would have them dealt with as to do good, not harm." George Ripley — minister, editor, and (later) founder of Brook Farm — took on Norton in print in part because of the latter's response to "The Divinity School Address." Positive commentators praised Emerson's noble vision of humanity and of human possibility. Clarke's defense in The Western Messenger evoked the image of Emerson as an upright man. Clarke wrote of Emerson as "a man of pure and noble mind, of original genius and independent thought," and referred to Emerson as the center of a coterie: "[H]e has been surrounded by a band of enthusiastic admirers, whom the genius, life, and manliness of his thoughts attracted, and his beautiful delivery as a public speaker charmed."
