This was, however, only a volume of extracts, but it is the bound volumes of the "Gazette" itself--beginning with April 1, 1824--which most impress the student of early American literature. There will always be a charm in turning over the pages where one sees, again and again, the youthful poems of Bryant and of Longfellow placed side by side and often put together on the same page, the young undergraduate's effusions being always designated by his initials and Bryant's with a perhaps more dignified "B.," denoting one whose reputation was to a certain extent already established, so that a hint was sufficient. Bryant's poems, it must be owned, are in this case very much better or at least maturer than those of his youthful rival, and are preserved in his published works, while Longfellow's are mainly those which he himself dropped, though they are reprinted in the appendix to Mr. Scudder's "Cambridge" edition of his poems. We find thus in the "Literary Gazette," linked together on the same page, Longfellow's "Autumnal Nightfall" and Bryant's "Song of the Grecian Amazon;" Longfellow's "Italian Scenery" and Bryant's "To a Cloud;" Longfellow's "Lunatic Girl" and Bryant's "The Murdered Traveller."{4} How the older poet was impressed by the work of the younger we cannot tell, but it is noticeable that in editing a volume of selected American poetry not long after, he assigns to Longfellow, as will presently be seen, a very small space. It is to be remembered that Bryant had previously published in book form, in 1821, his earliest poems, and the "Literary Gazette" itself, in its very first number, had pronounced him the first "original poet formed on this side of the Atlantic." "Our pleasure was equalled by our surprise," it says, "when we took up Bryant's poems, listened to the uncommon melody of the versification, wondered at the writer's perfect command of language, and found that they were American poems." "Though the English critics say of him," it continues, "that their poets must look to their laurels now that such a competitor has entered the ring, yet, let him remember that a few jousts in the ring never established the reputation of a knight."{5} It is a curious fact that the difference in actual quantity of poetic production between the older and younger poets should thus have been unconsciously suggested by the editor when Longfellow was but seventeen.