intensely
interested in the old English dramatists, an interest that resulted in
his first series of literary articles, _The Old English Dramatists_,
published in the _Boston Miscellany_. The favor with which these
articles were received increased, he writes, the "hope of being able
one day to support myself by my pen, and to leave a calling which I
hate, and for which I am not _well_ fitted, to say the least."

During this struggle between law and literature an influence came into
Lowell's life that settled his purposes, directed his aspirations and
essentially determined his career. In 1839 he writes to a friend about
a "very pleasant young lady," who "knows more poetry than any one I am
acquainted with." This pleasant young lady was Maria White, who became
his wife in 1844. The loves of this young couple constitute one of the
most pleasing episodes in the history of our literature, idyllic in
its simple beauty and inspiring in its spiritual perfectness. "Miss
White was a woman of unusual loveliness," says Mr. Norton, "and of
gifts of mind and heart still more unusual, which enabled her to enter
with complete sympathy into her lover's intellectual life and to
direct his genius to its highest aims." She was herself a poet, and a
little volume of her poems published privately after her death is an
evidence of her refined intellectual gifts and lofty spirit.

In 1841 Lowell published his first collection of poems, entitled _A
Year's Life_. The volume was dedicated to "Una," a veiled admission of
indebtedness for its inspiration to Miss White. Two poems
particularly, _Irene_ and _My Love_, and the best in the volume, are
rapturous expressions of his new inspiration. In later years he
referred to the collection as "poor windfalls of unripe experience."
Only nine of the sixty-eight poems were preserved in subsequent
collections. In 1843, with a young friend, Robert Carter, Lowell
launched a new magazine, _The Pioneer_, with the high purpose, as the
prospectus stated, of giving the public "a rational substitute" for
the "namby-pamby love tales and sketches monthly poured out to them by
many of our popular magazines." These young reformers did not know how
strongly the great reading public is attached to its literary
flesh-pots, and so the _Pioneer_ proved itself too good to live in
just three months. The result of the venture to Lowell was an
interesting lesson in editorial work and a debt of eighteen hundred
dollars. His