Holmes

to a single region, for the verses struck a widely
popular note, spread through the press of the
country, and were even distributed on hand-bills,
like an Elizabethan ballad, in the streets of
Washington (Life and Letters,I, 80). The Con-
stitution was saved—not for the last time. The
son of the eminent author of Annals of America
had begun early to serve his country well. It is
perhaps worth noting that in "Old Ironsides,"
as it first appeared in the Advertiser, the famil-
iar first line read, "Ay, pull her tattered ensign
down," and that several other minor changes
were made in it before Holmes included it in his
first volume of Poems,

A year and two months later he made a sec-
ond memorable early appearance, as a writer of
prose. The November 1831 issue of the New
England Magazine, the fifth monthly number of
a new periodical, contained an article, nearly
four pages in length, signed "O.W.H."; and en-
titled "The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table."
A slightly longer paper under the same title ap-
peared in the same magazine for February 1832.
It is customary for writers about Holmes to refer
casually to these articles as distant precursors of
The Autocrat at the Breakfast Table, begun in
the Atlantic Monthly of November 1857, with
the whimsical remark, "I was just going to say,
when I was interrupted"—twenty-five years be-
fore. Holmes's wish that these articles should
not be reprinted appears to have been respected.
They will nevertheless reward the reading of a
student of Holmes by their clear foreshadow-
ings of his later work—even to a certain declen-
sion of merit from the first to the second article,
just as the second and third books of the Break-
fast Table series fell short of the first. In the
November 1831 article the mingling of charac-
teristic prose and verse is to be noticed, and the
very method of presenting a catalogue of "the
artificial distinctions of society," beginning with
"i. People of cultivation, who live in large
houses," and ending with "5. Scrubs." The en-
suing sentence reads, "An individual at the up-
per end of the table, turned pale and left the
room, as I finished with the monosyllable."
Other passages would illustrate as clearly the
close kinship between Holmes's youthful and
maturer writing.

The New England Magazine articles were
printed after Holmes had diverted his studies
from law to medicine. His sensitive spirit re-
coiled at first from some of the grimmer aspects
of a medical education, but after two years of
study in a private medical school in Boston, with
the addition of courses in the Harvard Medical
School, he sailed, in the spring of 1833, *or Eu-

Holmes

rope. For more than two years he pursued his
studies in the hospitals of Paris, seizing every
opportunity to profit from the instructions of
Louis, his chiefly admired master, of Larrey,
whose distinction as a favorite surgeon of Napo-
leon helps to place his American pupil in point
of time, and of other great teachers in what was
then regarded as the medical center of the world.
In his intervals of study he traveled in France,
Holland, Switzerland, Italy, and England, com-
mitting many characteristic observations to writ-
ing, among them this note prompted by a glimpse
of William IV: "The King blew his nose twice,
and wiped the royal perspiration repeatedly from
a face which is probably the largest uncivilized
spot in England" (Life and Letters, I, 135).
There are many such tokens that he was learn-
ing to express himself in terms other than those
merely of his chosen profession.

In December 1835 Holmes returned from
Paris to Boston, and in 1836, receiving the de-
gree of M.D. from Harvard, began the practice
of medicine in Boston. It was against him as a
serious beginner in his profession that he could
take it rather lightly—even to the extent of say-
ing, when added years might have fortified his
dignity, that "the slightest favors (or fevers)
were welcome." He seems to have exerted him-
self but little towards building up a practice,
which indeed never came to him on an exten-
sive scale. It was as a writer on medical sub-
jects, and still more as a teacher of anatomy,
that he made his mark in his profession. Turning
his back upon opportunities to contribute to mag-
azines of supposedly general appeal he found
the more time, in these earlier years, for writings
relating especially to medicine. Something was
needed to offset the publication in 1836, of his
first volume, Poems, with its evidences of those
qualities both of wit and of poetic fancy which
are more likely to be counted handicaps than
helps to the young practitioner of a sober pro-
fession. This makeweight was found in his win-
ning a Boylston Prize for a medical essay at
Harvard in 1836, and two more in 1837. In

1838 he received a gratifying "recognition" by
his appointment as professor of anatomy at Dart-
mouth College, to which his duties called him
only in the months of August, September, and
October. He held this post through the years

1839 and 1840, when his marriage, June 15,1840,
to Amelia Lee Jackson, a daughter of Charles
Jackson, justice of the Massachusetts supreme
court, rooted him even more firmly than before
in Boston soil. Of this marriage three children
were born: Oliver Wendell Holmes, justice of
the United States Supreme Court; a daughter,

171