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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
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