d the letters which he wrote shortly after leaving college
show how intent he had been on making acquaintance with the best
things in literature. He began also to scribble verse, and he wrote
both poems and essays for college magazines. His class chose him
their poet for Class Day, and he wrote his poem; but he was careless
about conforming to college regulations respecting attendance at
morning prayers; and for this was suspended from college the last term
of his last year, and not allowed to come back to read his poem. "I
have heard in later years," says Dr. Hale, "what I did not know then,
that he rode down from Concord in a canvas-covered wagon, and peeped
out through the chinks of the wagon to see the dancing around the
tree. I fancy he received one or two visits from his friends in the
wagon; but in those times it would have been treason to speak of
this." He was sent to Concord for his rustication, and so passed a few
weeks of his youth amongst scenes dear to every lover of American
letters.

III.

FIRST VENTURE.

After his graduation he set about the study of law, and for a short
time even was a clerk in a counting-room; but his bent was strongly
toward literature. There was at that time no magazine of commanding
importance in America, and young men were given to starting magazines
with enthusiasm and very little other capital. Such a one was the
_Boston Miscellany_, launched by Nathan Hale, Lowell's college friend,
and for this Lowell wrote gaily. It lived a year, and shortly after
Lowell himself, with Robert Carter, essayed _The Pioneer_ in 1843. It
lived just three months; but in that time printed contributions by
Lowell, Hawthorne, Whittier, Story, Poe, and Dr. Parsons,--a group
which it would be hard to match in any of the little magazines that
hop across the world's path to-day. Lowell had already collected, in
1841, the poems which he had written and sometimes contributed to
periodicals into a volume entitled _A Year's Life_; but he retained
very little of the contents in later editions of his poems. The book
has a special interest, however, from its dedication in veiled phrase
to Maria White. He became engaged to this lady in the fall of 1840,
and the next twelve years of his life were profoundly affected by her
influence. Herself a poet of delicate power, she brought into his life
an intelligent sympathy with his work; it was, however, her strong
moral enthusiasm, her lofty conception of pur