Lowell enjoyed his singularly fortunate and happy boyhood as only one gifted with a poetic mind could. To him New England village life revealed a charm that enabled him in after-days to paint a picture of it as lovingly faithful as one of Shakespeare's scenes. In his charming reminiscence, _Cambridge Thirty Years Ago_, he has preserved one of the dearest memories of his boyhood. _Beaver Brook_ and _Indian Summer Reveries_ are also transcriptions of those idyllic days of his youth.
Lowell entered Harvard in his sixteenth year and was graduated in his twentieth, during which time he says he read everything except the books in the college course. It was during these years, however, that he studied the great poets of the world, while romances, travels, voyages, and history were added as a flavor to his self-chosen course of study.
Perhaps he showed the true bent of his mind in his boyhood poem, addressed to the old horse-chestnuts, whose arms twined themselves around his study-room at home. He was class poet for his year, but was not allowed to read his poem, as he was at the time temporarily suspended from the college. In this poem Lowell made good-natured fun of Carlyle, Emerson, and other philosophers, whose thought was just beginning to influence their generation, thus hinting the power which made him later the most successful humorist of America.
After leaving college Lowell studied law and was admitted to the bar, a profession which he almost immediately saw would make him only miserable, and which he soon left. In his twenty-second year he published his first book of verse under the title _A Year's Life_, a volume which was mainly inspired by his admiration for the woman who afterward became his wife, and which gives indication of the power which was developed later, though in the after-editions of his works the poet discarded most of the productions of that time. A little later Lowell conceived the idea of starting a magazine, which should rival in value and fame the celebrated Philadelphia magazines, which were believed to stand for the highest literary art in America. The magazine was named _The Pioneer_, and its editorship and ownership were shared with a friend. It appeared in January, 1843, and ran for three months, ending in dismal failure, though the contributors numbered such names as Poe, Elizabeth Barrett, Whittier, and the artist Story. It was not until twelve years later, when his own fame was well established, that Lowell undertook the editorship of another magazine, and put to practical use his reserve talent for adapting and selecting for popular favor the best literary work of the time.