nt with him
to the banks of the Showshine and Merrimac; to the old meeting-house,
the door of which was bullet-riddled by the Indians; to the
school-rooms where he had recited Euclid and Virgil; to the base-ball
field, and to the great bowlder upon which the boys cracked nuts,
proving such a faithful guide that when the day was over Holmes almost
committed the folly of asking at the railroad office for two tickets
back to Boston. Perhaps of all the celebrated men who have been pupils
at the famous school no one held it more lovingly in his heart than
he who turned back after so many years of success to pay this loving
tribute to its memory.

The stay at Andover lasted but a year, during which time Holmes
discovered that he could write verse, and gained a little reputation
thereby, which led to his being made class-poet when he left school to
enter Harvard, in his sixteenth year. Throughout his college life he
kept his reputation as a maker of humorous verse, and was perhaps
the most popular member of the various societies and clubs for which
Harvard was noted. He was graduated in his twentieth year, and within
a year of this time had decided to study medicine, and after a two
years' course in Boston went abroad to attend lectures in Paris and
Edinburgh.

But the practice of medicine included but a few years of Holmes's
life, as in 1847 he accepted the chair of anatomy and physiology at
Harvard, holding the position for thirty-five years.

During his years of study and practice, Holmes had gained gradually
the reputation of a clever literary man whose name was familiar to the
readers of the best periodicals of the day. This reputation began with
the publication of a poem, _Old Ironsides_, which was inspired by
the proposition to destroy, as of no further use, the old frigate
Constitution, which had done such glorious service during the war of
1812. These verses, which begin the literary life of Holmes, ring with
a noble patriotism which flashed its fire into the hearts of thousands
of his countrymen and made the author's name almost a household word.
They were published originally in the Boston _Advertiser_, but so
furious was the storm aroused that within a short time they had been
copied in newspapers all over the land, printed on handbills that
placarded the walls, and circulated in the streets from hand to hand.
It was a satisfaction to the young patriot to know that his appeal
had not been made in vain, and that