The little book was received with an attention which seems to suggest the paucity of hopeful literature at the time and the Marchioness spirit of the critics. Lowell’s eager friends came forward with their notices, but there were then fewer journals even than now that could be looked to for careful judgment. In _Graham’s Magazine_ there was a long account of the book headed “A New School of Poetry at hand,” and the writer, who hides behind the letter C., after crediting Lowell with ideality, enthusiasm, love for his fellow men, freshness, and delicacy, finds fault with him chiefly for affectation of language and carelessness; but he welcomes him as the herald of a new school which is to be humanitarian and idealistic. It is amusing to find our familiar friend, the “great original American poem,” looked for confidently from this new poet. Lowell warmed himself with this praise.[33] The most serviceable vehicle for Lowell’s literary endeavors at this time was _The Boston Miscellany_ projected by Nathan Hale, Lowell’s associate in _Harvardiana_, and published by two young Boston men, Bradbury and Soden. The _Miscellany_ had the short life characteristic of American literary magazines in the early half of the century, but it showed the sound literary judgment of its editor in the list of contributors he attracted. Lowell entered heartily into the plans for the new magazine. He wrote for it, among other things, a sketch, “My First Client,” which is in its form as near an approach to fiction as he ever attempted, and is a slightly embellished narrative of his own clientless experience as a lawyer. He thought so ill of it that he refused to allow it to be reprinted, a few years later, in one of the annuals then popular. The most significant contribution which he made to the _Miscellany_ was a series of papers on the Old English Dramatists, begun anonymously, but continued with his name. These were readings in Massinger, Marlowe, and others, with running comments, and reflected the keen interest which he took then and all his life in that great quarry of noble thoughts and brave images. The series was the forerunner of his labors in the field of criticism of literature, and the pleasure which he took in the work, as well as the appreciation which the papers received, gave him a hopeful sense that he might trust to letters for support, and abandon the law, which he hated, and which naturally returned the compliment. In September, 1842, he had become so sanguine that, after mysteriously hinting at an even more substantial means of support, he wrote to his friend Loring:--