His fame at this time was widely established, yet a curious indication of the fact that he did not at once take even Cambridge by storm, as a poet, is in a letter from Professor Andrews Norton, father of the present Professor Charles E. Norton, to the Rev. W. H. Furness of Philadelphia. The latter had apparently applied to Mr. Norton for advice as to a desirable list of American authors from whom to make some literary selections, perhaps in connection with an annual then edited by him and called "The Diadem." Professor Norton, as one of the most cultivated Americans, might naturally be asked for some such counsel. In replying he sent Mr. Furness, under date of January 7, 1845, a list of fifty-four eligible authors, among whom Emerson stood last but one, while Longfellow was not included at all. He then appended a supplementary list of twenty-four minor authors, headed by Longfellow.{77} We have already seen Lowell, from a younger point of view, describing Longfellow, at about this time, as the head of a "clique," and we now find Andrews Norton, from an older point of view, assigning him only the first place among authors of the second grade. It is curious to notice, in addition, that Hawthorne stood next to Longfellow in this subordinate roll. Longfellow published two volumes of poetic selections, "The Waif" (1845) and "The Estray" (1846), the latter title being originally planned as "Estrays in the Forest," and he records a visit to the college library, in apparent search for the origin of the phrase. His next volume of original poems, however, was "The Belfry of Bruges and Other Poems," published December 23, 1845, the contents having already been partly printed in "Graham's Magazine," and most of them in the illustrated edition of his poems published in Philadelphia. The theme of the volume appears to have been partly suggested by some words in a letter to Freiligrath which seem to make the leading poem, together with that called "Nuremberg," a portion of that projected series of travel-sketches which had haunted Longfellow ever since "Outre-Mer." "The Norman Baron" was the result of a passage from Thierry, sent him by an unknown correspondent. One poem was suggested by a passage in Andersen's "Story of my Life," and one was written at Boppard on the Rhine. All the rest were distinctly American in character or origin. Another poem, "To the Driving Cloud," the chief of the Omaha Indians, was his first effort at hexameters and prepared the way for "Evangeline." His translation of the "Children of the Lord's Supper" had also served by way of preparation; and he had happened upon a specimen in "Blackwood's Magazine" of the hexameter translation of the "Iliad" which had impressed him very much. He even tried a passage of "Evangeline" rendered into English pentameter verse, and thus satisfied himself that it was far less effective for his purpose than the measure finally adopted.