s he, and being, as a Cambridge boy,
generally familiar with the names of the more noted young men in College
from the year when George Bancroft, Caleb Cushing, and Francis William
Winthrop graduated until after I myself left College, I might have
expected to hear something of a young man who afterwards became one of
the great writers of his time. I do not recollect hearing of him except
as keeping school for a short time in Cambridge, before he settled as a
minister. His classmate, Mr. Josiah Quincy, writes thus of his college
days:--

"Two only of my classmates can be fairly said to have got into
history, although one of them, Charles W. Upham [the connection of
mine referred to above] has written history very acceptably. Ralph
Waldo Emerson and Robert W. Barnwell, for widely different reasons,
have caused their names to be known to well-informed Americans. Of
Emerson, I regret to say, there are few notices in my journals. Here
is the sort of way in which I speak of the man who was to make so
profound an impression upon the thought of his time. 'I went to the
chapel to hear Emerson's dissertation: a very good one, but rather
too long to give much pleasure to the hearers.' The fault, I
suspect, was in the hearers; and another fact which I have mentioned
goes to confirm this belief. It seems that Emerson accepted the duty
of delivering the Poem on Class Day, after seven others had been
asked who positively, refused. So it appears that, in the opinion of
this critical class, the author of the 'Woodnotes' and the 'Humble
Bee' ranked about eighth in poetical ability. It can only be because
the works of the other five [seven] have been 'heroically unwritten'
that a different impression has come to prevail in the outside
world. But if, according to the measurement of undergraduates,
Emerson's ability as a poet was not conspicuous, it must also be
admitted that, in the judgment of persons old enough to know better,
he was not credited with that mastery of weighty prose which the
world has since accorded him. In our senior year the higher classes
competed for the Boylston prizes for English composition. Emerson
and I sent in our essays with the rest and were fortunate enough to
take the two prizes; but--Alas for the infallibility of academic
decisions! Emerson received the second prize. I was of course much
pleased w