one season, not much to his own satisfaction, according to all accounts. Of this period of his life he has written largely, though under the vail of fiction, in "The Blythedale Romance." The next year he was married, and went to live in the "Old Manse," at Concord, Mass. His manner of life here is charmingly described in the introduction to "The Mosses from an old Manse."

The old manse had been from time immemorial the dwelling of the ministers of Concord; and Hawthorne was the first lay occupant who had ever profaned it. When he first saw it, pictures of old priests and divines were on the walls, volumes of black-letter divinity in its book-cases, and bushels of MS. sermons in chests, in the half-finished garret. The last dweller had penned nearly three thousand with his own hand! but when Hawthorne took possession a change came over the old mansion. The walls were made cheerful with a fresh coat of paint; and a little study which Emerson once occupied, and in which he wrote his Essay of "Nature," became Hawthorne's, and was hung with gold-tinted paper, lovely to behold, while the shadow of a willow, that swept against the overhanging eaves, attempered the cheery, western sunshine. In place of the grim prints, there was the sweet and lovely head of one of Raphael's Madonnas, and two pleasant little pictures of the Lake of Como, probably near the site of Claude Melnotte's palace. The only other decorations were a purple vase of flowers, always fresh, and a bronze one, containing graceful gems. Here, in this little study, Hawthorne wrote the greater part, if not all, of the " Mosses," (which were successively published in the Democratic Review, then edited by his friend O'Sullivan,) and edited "The Journal of an African Cruiser."

This old manse was a famous place, just in sight of the battle-ground, a view of which it commanded; and when the battle was being fought, Hawthorne's immediate predecessor, the deceased minister, watched its progress from his window. In sight of the study-window lay, and still lies-for the old manse is standing yet Concord River, in those days one of Hawthorne's favorite haunts. Here, and up the lovely Assabeth, which flows into the Concord a little distance from the village,

In the woods, and on the sides of the hill which shelter the Assabeth; in the green fields and meadows, which nowhere in New-England are so beautiful as at Concord; in the orchard behind, and the slip of garden beside the old manse, gathering his fruits, and cultivating his summer and winter squashes; in his little study, poring over rare and pleasant books, communing with Emerson or Margaret Fuller, Longfellow or Lowell; happy in the bosom of his family-such were the scenes and such the life of Hawthorne in the old manse at Concord. In fairy-land there is no measurement of time; what wonder, then, that in so fairy-like a spot, three years hastened away with a noiseless flight? But this cannot last always. The owner of the old manse, seized with a spirit of renovation and improvement, sends down carpenters and masons, and other Goths, to disturb its sanctity, and even talks of a painter with his many colored pots. Hawthorne packs up his movables, "The world is all before him where to choose,"

and is transferred to Salem again, and into the Custom-house there. By-the-by, is it not somewhat odd that several fine poets have been in the same business? There were Chaucer and Burns and Wordsworth, and we know not how many more, all in the Custom-house, among the most unpoetic wights. One would rather expect to find them among those Custom-house haters, the smugglers.

Again at Salem, his old birthplace, the man can see the grass on which the boy rolled, the old apple-tree under which he lay, and the bushes from which he

picked the abundant currants. Does he dream now as when he sat, year in and year out, in his room up there in the attic? Does he walk the old paths in the woods, and by the solitary sea-shore? Perchance, but hardly; for he is now a man and a father, and, more than all, a surveyor in the Custom-house! Gladly would we copy, had we room, Hawthorne's own account of his life at Salem; for here (see the introduction to "The Scarlet Letter") he is his own biographer, as in "The Old Manse;" not so fully as in that instance, however, for there is but little interest in the life of a Custom-house surveyor, poet or dreamer though he be. Like many other of their benighted countrymen, his fellowofficials knew nothing of Hawthorne's literary fame. A prophet is not without honor save in his own country." To his own townsmen he was simply Mr. Hawthorne, or, it may be, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Esq.; but with anything beyond, with the author, they were hardly acquainted. And so it is with the world generally; authors are of no account with them: apart from the world's existence, to the world they are nonexistent; they are not known on 'Change; cannot get their notes of hand discounted, (that's no great wonder though, for St. Paul himself could not without a good indorser;) are not talked of in society with the last new opera, or the next new fashion.

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"No longer seeking or caring," says Hawthorne, in the introduction to "The Scarlet Letter," "that my name should be blazoned abroad on title-pages, I smiled to think that it had now another kind of vogue. The Custom-house marker imprinted it with a stencil and black paint, on pepper bags and baskets of anatto, and cigar-boxes, and bales of all kinds of dutiable merchandise, in testimony that these commodities had paid the import, and gone regularly through the office. Borne on such queer vehicles of fame, a knowledge of my existence, so far as a name conveys it, was carried where it had never gone before, and, I hope, will never go again."

Punctually and faithfully fulfilling his duties, he remained in this ungenial employment, until he was ejected by the Whigs, on the accession of General Taylor, on whose soul, and on all their souls, be blessings forever! Free again, he immediately set to work on "The Scarlet Letter," the idea of which was already in

his mind; this he finished in Salem, and shortly afterward left the city for Lenox. "The Scarlet Letter" was published in the spring of 1850. The good time had come at last. The author of "The Twicetold Tales” had written a book which was popular. The first edition of twenty-five hundred copies was all ordered before the day of publication, and another edition put immediately to press. Its success was complete. At home and abroad the newspapers and reviews were loud in its praise; and they have not done talking of it yet. Four years had elapsed since the publication of "The Mosses from an old Manse," and in that time, and slowly perhaps, for some years before, Hawthorne's fame had been steadily on the increase. Among his brethren of the quill he was well-known already; among purely literary people he had a fair reputation; but purely literary people never buy editions of books, and put money in each other's pockets. Money comes from the great mass of readers, who knew next to nothing of Hawthorne for so many years. He had no incitement to literary effort, in a reasonable prospect of reputation or profit-nothing but the pleasure itself of composition, an enjoyment not at all amiss in its way, and perhaps essential to the work in hand, but which in the long run will hardly keep the chill out of a writer's heart or the numbness out of his fingers.

The success of "The Scarlet Letter" brought out a new edition of "The Twicetold Tales," and "True Stories from History and Biography,” (a child's book,) and encouraged the author to write "The House of the Seven Gables," and "The Wonder Book," both of which last were written among the mountains of Lenox. Hawthorne, if we may judge of him by his nomadic habits, seems not to be a person who attaches himself very strongly to any one locality; so last autumn he removed from Lenox, and took a house for the winter at West-Newton, where he wrote the "Blythedale Romance," which was published in July of the past year. A few months since, (probably in the hope of inducing himself to take root, by making the soil his own,) he bought a small house and estate at Concord, where he now resides. A pleasanter and more picturesque abode than his present residence, it has seldom been our lot to meet. It stands in a space of level pasturage about twenty

feet from the road, the high road to Boston, along which, in the olden time, marched the British soldiers to Concord bridge. The yard in front of the cottage, once, perhaps, intended for a little garden, is grassy and green, with here and there a tall bush, and a spreading shrub, rose, or lilacs, we have forgotten which, and two or three mulberry-trees, studded with their strawberry-shaped fruit. The sun, if it enters the cottage, must enter through the trees and bushes, whose shadows must quiver on the floor and walls beyond. At the back of the cottage lies a little space of pasturage, then comes the declivity of a hill, upon which grows a young forest, mostly of locust-trees, with now and then a few young elms and oaks, and a few white pines, rooted amid an infinity of yellow needles. Two or three mounded embankments, the foundation of a range of terraces, never, we believe, fully completed, may be seen on the slope of the hill. Higher up, to the left of the cottage, hung like a nest on the hill side, in a picturesque opening of trees, are the remains of a decaying summer-house, made of the unbarked limbs of trees, like those framework chairs and sofas which sometimes ruralize the back piazzas of wealthy city mansions. Beyond rises the still-ascending hill, covered with trees, the whispering of whose leaves, low and indistinct, melts into the air and makes an audible silence around. From the side of the hill, but more especially from its summit, the view of the surrounding country is beautiful. Half hid in trees at its feet stands Mr. Hawthorne's cottage, and a rough blackboarded barn; over the road his garden and wheat field, eight acres of good arable land, with another summer-house thereon; and beyond, a wide extent of fields and plains rolling in grassy waves, over which flit clouds of sunlight and shadow, with here and there a country house,

"Bosom'd high in tufted trees;"

and in the distance, the line of forest which everywhere in the rural parts of America walls in the gazer's view. From the summit of the hill the scene has the appearance of a valley; though we stand on no great elevation, there seems a depth below us, and a breadth in the narrow landscape. We know of no spot in NewEngland which we would sooner chose for a life abode.

Quiet, unobtrusive, and retired, has been the life of Hawthorne, and such are his books. Had his life been different, his books could not have well been what they are. They mirror the man, and could not have been written by any other man, nor by Hawthorne himself, had he been city born and bred, and had his life been passed in the dust and noise of cities, and in close contact with mankind, instead of communion with his own soul, and the manifold influences of nature. The freshness and stillness of nature breathe through his pages, and mingle like an odor with his there-expressed thoughts and feelings. Those years of seclusion and dreaming are all reproduced in his books, and in their quintessence only; he gives us the quintessence of everything; others give us processes with their results, he the results alone; in this respect he is like Tennyson. And he has another of Tennyson's fine peculiarities-that of seeing nature with the eyes of his mind. If he, or any of his characters passes through a landscape, the landscape is always in keeping with his or her idiosyncrasies, and in keeping with the essay or sketch in which it is introduced. is an air of reserve about Hawthorne, even when most frank; as if he distrusted the propriety of frankness, or had felt, and was feeling, much which could not and should not be revealed. He reveals, we are apt to think, the characteristics of an ideal man, rather than his own; talks oftentimes of pleasant but irrelevant matters, to lead the mind from himself; shutting himself up the while in his own heart and soul, like a sensitive plant in the depths of a shady wood.

There

trunks and withering boughs, with here and there clearings of faint sweet verdure steeped in dying sunshine, and knots of delicate wild-flowers drooping on their stems. Hawthorne is a close student of country lore, from the grand phenomena of the seasons and years, down to the veriest details of insignificant rural objects. Nothing escapes his shy, wandering glance. And he has the rare faculty of reproducing his own sensations in the minds of his readers; we feel in reading his books what he must have felt in writing them. The walk of his genius, or that in which it pleases him to make his genius walk, is somewhat narrow, but it is far-reaching, ascending into skyey regions, and descending into chasms of darkness. It is a line-but a line which touches the verge of things. The chief drawback of his genius is its exceeding delicacy. It is too delicate, too shadowy, too spiritual in many of its manifestations, to be at once, or ever very widely recognized. It needs the study of a kindred mind, which the mass of readers have not, and the moods of mind which feed it, which but few have ever felt, or feeling have known how to classify and analyze. Had Hawthorne written worse, he would have written for the world of readers we mean-better. His excellences have been his worst enemies.

One of the first things that strike us in his writings, is the simplicity, purity, and beauty of his style. He is not only correct-many authors who are nothing else are that--but he makes his correctness charming. There is an indescribable grace about his sentences, and a peculiar rhythm in their construction, which falls upon the ear like the voice of some one who is dear to us. We never forget his prose, because we never find anything like it out of his books. It is better than that of Irving, admirable as that is, because it is more fresh and unstudied, while equally correct; and better than was Addison's, the heretofore model of fine English prose. It is difficult to describe it, save as style;

other writers are mannerists-Hawthorne is a styleist. Does he attempt description, the object or objects described stand before us clearly or dimly, as circumstances require, and always in their most obvious relations, which strike us the more from the vail of beauty that half conceals them, and the dramatic grouping in which they

are shown. Does he become reflective, his thoughts are new and striking, often universal in their bearings; never obscure, even while expressing obscurity, but crystal-like in their clearness, and often gorgeous with imagery, threading the intricate labyrinths of fancy and imagination with the certain clew of poetry." Does he analyze the passions of his characters, his analysis is always sure and profound, bringing many dark things to light, and laying bare the heart of many mysteries. In the region of mystery, the wildernesses and caverns of the mind, he is at home-more at home, it seems to us, than in the upper and outer world. His personages are not so much men and women, as passions, simple or complex in their forms; ideas made palpable and familiar, sentiments clothed in flesh. A single character sometimes embodies the result of many years' thought and observation. Nothing is wanting to make many of his characters perfect, save that spontaneity which is the crown of human nature. They are either too bad or too good

"For human nature's daily food." But we always see-not always, however, "with eye serene”—

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The very pulse of the machine." He aims to impart form, symmetry, harmony and beauty to whatever he touches; unless he does this, he does nothing. He conceives an idea which he wishes to work out in an essay or tale; broods over it, it may be for years, until it takes form; broods over the form until it suits and satisfies his conscience of taste; and then broods over its various parts, carefully adapting each to each, and linking all together

with the most subtile threads of fact and

feeling. A sentence or a single word sometimes gives one the clew to whole pages. A seemingly random speech or action, admits a flood of light into the chambers of the heart." Not only"-says Poe, in a critique on Hawthorne-" not only is all done that should be, but (what perhaps is an end with more difficulty attained) there is nothing done which should not be. Every word tells, and there is no word which does not tell."

The form of Hawthorne's works is gen

In his younger days Hawthorne passed for a poet, and, for anything that we know, wrote and destroyed whole reams of poetry.

and softened by touches of inherent melancholy. Melancholy-a quiet pensiveness, like the faint light of an autumn afternoonis the atmosphere of Hawthorne's writings. Without palpably aiming at morality, and

"The land which lies, as legend saith,
Between the worlds of life and death-"

where the living and dead meet familiarly and equally. The ancient witch element of his native town pervades all that he has written. He seems to have brooded over it, until it has become a portion of his being. Not that he deals in witches, ghosts, or any of the unearthly agencies of Mrs. Radcliffe, or Monk Lewis; he has too pure and natural a taste, too keen a sense of the ludicrous for that; but rather that he gives us glimpses of existences and worlds, other and darker than our own. The strange moods of mind, the many temptations to sin, the feeling of the Evil One at his elbow, and in his heart, which, in "The Scarlet Letter," comes over the minister, Arthur Dimmesdale, after parting from Hester Prynne in the forest, will perhaps explain what we mean. In analysis of soul-torture, the struggle between the good and evil principles in man's nature, Hawthorne is very profound and instructive. Bunyan himself is not more at home in the mystical world of spirit-life and allegory. And Hawthorne has written allegories not unworthy the inspired tinker-not, like many, to show his ingenuity in, that difficult field of composition, but to insinuate beautiful morals, and to teach beautiful truth, clothing truth herself

"In the quaint garments of a parable.” Bunyan, the reader will remember, was one of Hawthorne's earliest favorites.

The traditions and legends of New-England find in Hawthorne a fitting historian. The spirit of the early settlers glares fiercely in his pages, or glimmers like dull red flame. There is something of the old Puritan about all that he writes; something stern, uncompromising, toned down

moralist, and the tendency of all his books is to make men wiser and better. And herein lies his chiefest merit, without which his many beautiful intellectual qualities were as sounding brass and tinkling cymbals. For intellect is often depraved, while extremely beautiful. The beauty of an author's books does not always suffer from the depravity of his mind; sometimes it seems to increase as he becomes depraved.

Hence the danger to which its worshipers are exposed. "It cannot mislead us," say they, "because it is beautiful." It cannot be far wrong, if we grant it wrong at all,

"For even the light that leads astray,

Is light from heaven."

A pernicious doctrine, and one that is utterly false. For no light from heaven ever did, or ever can lead astray; though many lights that may seem akin to it,-wandering Will-o'-the-Wisps, and beacon fires on lofty peaks of mind,-may entice thousands into the broad but downward paths of darkness, over which they shed a flickering, mocking brilliancy. For this reason many beautiful books-many philosophies, poems, and romances-are pernicious. None who have read can deny the brilliancy and beauty of most of the modern French and English novels, though but few are hardy enough to deny their unhealthy and evil tendency.

Of Hawthorne's works separately we have not left ourselves room to speak. We have confined ourselves to general, rather than to particular criticism, much to our regret and the reader's loss. Could we have selected some of our favorite extracts, and have allowed Hawthorne to speak for himself, it would have been better perhaps for both of us. But after all, specimen-bricks, the best that can be selected-even the block of granite, the corner-stone of a mansion, is a poor apology for the mansion itself; above all, for the mind-mansion of a man of genius

"Who ransacks mines and ledges,
And quarries every rock,
And hews the famous adamant
For each eternal block."