After his graduation he set about the study of law, and for a short time even was a clerk in a counting-room; but his bent was strongly toward literature. There was at that time no magazine of commanding importance in America, and young men were given to starting magazines with enthusiasm and very little other capital. Such a one was the _Boston Miscellany_, launched by Nathan Hale, Lowell's college friend, and for this Lowell wrote gaily. It lived a year, and shortly after Lowell himself, with Robert Carter, essayed _The Pioneer_ in 1843. It lived just three months; but in that time printed contributions by Lowell, Hawthorne, Whittier, Story, Poe, and Dr. Parsons,--a group which it would be hard to match in any of the little magazines that hop across the world's path to-day. Lowell had already collected, in 1841, the poems which he had written and sometimes contributed to periodicals into a volume entitled _A Year's Life_; but he retained very little of the contents in later editions of his poems. The book has a special interest, however, from its dedication in veiled phrase to Maria White. He became engaged to this lady in the fall of 1840, and the next twelve years of his life were profoundly affected by her influence. Herself a poet of delicate power, she brought into his life an intelligent sympathy with his work; it was, however, her strong moral enthusiasm, her lofty conception of purity and justice, which kindled his spirit and gave force and direction to a character which was ready to respond, and yet might otherwise have delayed active expression. They were not married until 1844; but they were not far apart in their homes, and during these years Lowell was making those early ventures in literature, and first raids upon political and moral evil, which foretold the direction of his later work, and gave some hint of its abundance.