Part 42

Nathaniel entered Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine, in the autumn of 1821, where he became acquainted with two students who were destined to distinction--Henry W. Longfellow and Franklin Pierce. He was an excellent classical scholar, his Latin compositions, even in his freshman year, being remarkable for their elegance, while his Greek (which was less) was good. He made graceful translations from the Roman poets, and wrote several English poems which were creditable to him. After graduation three years later (1825) he returned to Salem, and to a life of isolation. He devoted his mornings to study, his afternoons to writing, and his evenings to long walks along the rocky coast. He was scarcely known by sight to his townsmen, and he held so little communication with the members of his own family that his meals were frequently left at his locked door. He wrote largely, but destroyed many of his manuscripts, his taste was so difficult to please. He thought well enough, however, of one of his compositions to print it anonymously in 1828. A crude melodramatic story, entitled _Fanshawe_, it was unworthy even of his immature powers, and should never have been rescued from the oblivion which speedily overtook it. The name of Nathaniel Hawthorne finally became known to his countrymen as a writer in _The Token_, a holiday annual which was commenced in 1828 by Mr S. G. Goodrich (better known as "Peter Parley"), by whom it was conducted for fourteen years. This forgotten publication numbered among its contributors most of the prominent American writers of the time, none of whom appear to have added to their reputation in its pages, except the least popular of all--Hawthorne, who was for years the obscurest man of letters in America, though he gradually made admirers in a quiet way. His first public recognition came from England, where his genius was discovered in 1835 by Henry F. Chorley, one of the editors of the _Athenaeum_, in which he copied three of Hawthorne's most characteristic papers from _The Token_. He had but little encouragement to continue in literature, for Mr Goodrich was so much more a publisher than an author that he paid him wretchedly for his contributions, and still more wretchedly for his work upon an _American Magazine of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge_, which he persuaded him to edit. This author-publisher consented, however, at a later period (1837) to bring out a collection of Hawthorne's writings under the title of _Twice-told Tales_. A moderate edition was got rid of, but the great body of the reading public ignored the book altogether. It was generously reviewed in the _North American Review_ by his college friend Longfellow, who said it came from the hand of a man of genius, and praised it for the exceeding beauty of its style, which was as clear as running waters.

The want of pecuniary success which had so far attended his authorship led Hawthorne to accept a situation which was tendered him by George Bancroft, the historian, collector of the port of Boston under the Democratic rule of President Van Buren. He was appointed a weigher in the custom-house at a salary of about $1200 a year, and entered upon the duties of his office, which consisted for the most part in measuring coal, salt and other bulky commodities on foreign vessels. It was irksome employment, but faithfully performed for two years, when he was superseded through a change in the national administration. Master of himself once more, he returned to Salem, where he remained until the spring of 1841, when he wrote a collection of children's stories entitled _Grandfather's Chair_, and joined an industrial association at West Roxbury, Mass. Brook Farm, as it was called, was a social Utopia, composed of a number of advanced thinkers, whose object was so to distribute manual labour as to give its members time for intellectual culture. The scheme worked admirably--on paper; but it was suited neither to the temperament nor the taste of Hawthorne, and after trying it patiently for nearly a year he returned to the everyday life of mankind.

One of Hawthorne's earliest admirers was Miss Sophia Peabody, a lady of Salem, whom he married in the summer of 1842. He made himself a new home in an old manse, at Concord, Mass., situated on historic ground, in sight of an old revolutionary battlefield, and devoted himself diligently to literature. He was known to the few by his _Twice-told Tales_, and to the many by his papers in the _Democratic Review_. He published in 1842 a further portion of _Grandfather's Chair_, and also a second volume of _Twice-told Tales_. He also edited, during 1845, the _African Journals_ of Horatio Bridge, an officer of the navy, who had been at college with him; and in the following year he published in two volumes a collection of his later writings, under the title of _Mosses from an Old Manse_.

After a residence of nearly four years at Concord, Hawthorne returned to Salem, having been appointed surveyor of the custom-house of that port by a new Democratic administration. He filled the duties of this position until the incoming of the Whig administration again led to his retirement. He seems to have written little during his official term, but, as he had leisure enough and to spare, he read much, and pondered over subjects for future stories. His next work, _The Scarlet Letter_, which was begun after his removal from the custom-house, was published in 1850. If there had been any doubt of his genius before, it was settled for ever by this powerful romance.

Shortly after the publication of _The Scarlet Letter_ Hawthorne removed from Salem to Lenox, Berkshire, Mass., where he wrote _The House of the Seven Gables_ (1851) and _The Wonder-Book_ (1851). From Lenox he removed to West Newton, near Boston, Mass., where he wrote _The Blithedale Romance_ (1852) and _The Snow Image and other Twice-told Tales_ (1852). In the spring of 1852 he removed back to Concord, where he purchased an old house which he called The Wayside, and where he wrote a _Life of Franklin Pierce_ (1852) and _Tanglewood Tales_ (1853). Mr Pierce was the Democratic candidate for the presidency, and it was only at his urgent solicitation that Hawthorne consented to become his biographer. He declared that he would accept no office in case he were elected, lest it might compromise him; but his friends gave him such weighty reasons for reconsidering his decision that he accepted the consulate at Liverpool, which was understood to be one of the best gifts at the disposal of the president.

Hawthorne departed for Europe in the summer of 1853, and returned to the United States in the summer of 1860. Of the seven years which he passed in Europe five were spent in attending to the duties of his consulate at Liverpool, and in little journeys to Scotland, the Lakes and elsewhere, and the remaining two in France and Italy. They were quiet and uneventful, coloured by observation and reflection, as his note-books show, but productive of only one elaborate work, _Transformation, or The Marble Faun_, which he sketched out during his residence in Italy, and prepared for the press at Leamington, England, whence it was despatched to America and published in 1860.

Hawthorne took up his abode at The Wayside, not much richer than when he left it, and sat down at his desk once more with a heavy heart. He was surrounded by the throes of a great civil war, and the political party with which he had always acted was under a cloud. His friend ex-President Pierce was stigmatized as a traitor, and when Hawthorne dedicated his next book to him--a volume of English impressions entitled _Our Old Home_ (1863)--it was at the risk of his own popularity. His pen was soon to be laid aside for ever; for, with the exception of the unfinished story of _Septimius Felton_, which was published after his death by his daughter Una (1872), and the fragment of _The Dolliver Romance_, the beginning of which was published in the _Atlantic Monthly_ in July 1864, he wrote no more. His health gradually declined, his hair grew white as snow, and the once stalwart figure that in early manhood flashed along the airy cliffs and glittering sands sauntered idly on the little hill behind his house. In the beginning of April 1864 he made a short southern tour with his publisher Mr William D. Ticknor, and was benefited by the change of scene until he reached Philadelphia, where he was shocked by the sudden death of Mr Ticknor. He returned to The Wayside, and after a short season of rest joined his friend ex-President Pierce. He died at Plymouth, New Hampshire, on the 19th of May 1864, and five days later was buried at Sleepy Hollow, a beautiful cemetery at Concord, where he used to walk under the pines when he was living at the Old Manse, and where his ashes moulder under a simple stone, inscribed with the single word "Hawthorne."

The writings of Hawthorne are marked by subtle imagination, curious power of analysis and exquisite purity of diction. He studied exceptional developments of character, and was fond of exploring secret crypts of emotion. His shorter stories are remarkable for originality and suggestiveness, and his larger ones are as absolute creations as _Hamlet_ or _Undine_. Lacking the accomplishment of verse, he was in the highest sense a poet. His work is pervaded by a manly personality, and by an almost feminine delicacy and gentleness. He inherited the gravity of his Puritan ancestors without their superstition, and learned in his solitary meditations a knowledge of the night-side of life which would have filled them with suspicion. A profound anatomist of the heart, he was singularly free from morbidness, and in his darkest speculations concerning evil was robustly right-minded. He worshipped conscience with his intellectual as well as his moral nature; it is supreme in all he wrote. Besides these mental traits, he possessed the literary quality of style--a grace, a charm, a perfection of language which no other American writer ever possessed in the same degree, and which places him among the great masters of English prose.

His _Complete Writings_ (22 vols., Boston, 1901) were edited, with introduction, including a bibliography, by H. S. Scudder. The standard authority for Hawthorne's biography is _Nathaniel Hawthorne and his Wife_ (2 vols., Boston, 1884), by his son Julian Hawthorne (b. 1846), himself a novelist and critic of distinction. See also Henry James, _Hawthorne_ (London, 1879), in the "English Men of Letters" series; Julian Hawthorne, _Hawthorne and his Circle_ (New York, 1903); a paper in R. H. Hutton's _Essays Theological and Literary_ (London, 1871); George B. Smith, _Poets and Novelists_ (London, 1875); Moncure D. Conway, _Life of Nathaniel Hawthorne_ (London, 1890, in the "Great Writers" series); Horatio Bridge, _Personal Recollections of Nathaniel Hawthorne_ (New York, 1893); Rose Hawthorne Lathrop, _Memories of Hawthorne_ (Boston, 1897); W. C. Lawton, _The New England Poets_ (New York, 1898); Sir L. Stephen, _Hours in a Library_ (1874); Annie Fields, _Nathaniel Hawthorne_ (Boston, 1899); G. E. Woodberry, _Life of Hawthorne_ (1902); and bibliography by N. E. Browne (1905). (R. H. S.)

HAWTREY, CHARLES HENRY (1858- ), English actor, was born at Eton, where his father was master of the lower school, and educated at Rugby and Oxford. He took to the stage in 1881, and in 1883 adapted von Moser's _Bibliothekar_ as _The Private Secretary_, which had an enormous success. He then appeared in London in a number of modern plays, in which he was conspicuous as a comedian. He was unapproachable for parts in which cool imperturbable lying constituted the leading characteristic. Among his later successes _A Message from Mars_ was

## particularly popular in London and in America.

HAWTREY, EDWARD CRAVEN (1789-1862), English educationalist, was born at Burnham on the 7th of May 1789, the son of the vicar of the parish. He was educated at Eton and King's College, Cambridge, and in 1814 was appointed assistant master at Eton under Dr Keate. In 1834 he became headmaster of the college, and his administration was a vigorous one. New buildings were erected, including the school library and the sanatorium, the college chapel was restored, the Old Christopher Inn was closed, and the custom of "Montem," the collection by street begging of funds for the university expenses of the captain of the school, was suppressed. He is supposed to have suggested the prince consort's modern language prizes, while the prize for English essay he founded himself. In 1852 he became provost of Eton, and in 1854 vicar of Mapledurham. He died on the 27th of January 1862, and was buried in the Eton College chapel. On account of his command of languages ancient and modern, he was known in London as "the English Mezzofanti," and he was a book collector of the finest taste. Among his own books are some excellent translations from the English into Italian, German and Greek. He had a considerable reputation as a writer of English hexameters and as a judge of Homeric translation.

HAXO, FRANCOIS NICOLAS BENOIT, Baron (1774-1838), French general and military engineer, was born at Luneville on the 24th of June 1774, and entered the Engineers in 1793. He remained unknown, doing duty as a regimental officer for many years, until, as major, he had his first chance of distinction in the second siege of Saragossa in 1809, after which Napoleon made him a colonel. Haxo took part in the campaign of Wagram, and then returned to the Peninsula to direct the siege operations of Suchet's army in Catalonia and Valencia. In 1810 he was made general of brigade, in 1811 a baron, and in the same year he was employed in preparing the occupied fortresses of Germany against a possible Russian invasion. In 1812 he was chief engineer of Davout's I. corps, and after the retreat from Moscow he was made general of division. In 1813 he constructed the works around Hamburg which made possible the famous defence of that fortress by Davout, and commanded the Guard Engineers until he fell into the enemy's hands at Kulm. After the Restoration Louis XVIII. wished to give Haxo a command in the Royal Guards, but the general remained faithful to Napoleon, and in the Hundred Days laid out the provisional fortifications of Paris and fought at Waterloo. It was, however, after the second Restoration that the best work of his career as a military engineer was done. As inspector-general he managed, though not without meeting considerable opposition, to reconstruct in accordance with the requirements of the time, and the designs which he had evolved to meet them, the old Vauban and Cormontaigne fortresses which had failed to check the invasions of 1814 and 1815. For his services he was made a peer of France by Louis Philippe (1832). Soon after this came the French intervention in Belgium and the famous scientific siege of Antwerp citadel. Under Marshal Gerard Haxo directed the besiegers and completely outmatched the opposing engineers, the fortress being reduced to surrender after a siege of a little more than three weeks (December 23, 1832). He was after this regarded as the first engineer in Europe, and his latter years were spent in urging upon the government and the French people the fortification of Paris and Lyons, a project which was partly realized in his time and after his death fully carried out. General Haxo died at Paris on the 25th of June 1838. He wrote _Memoire sur le figure du terrain dans les cartes topographiques_ (Paris, N.D.), and a memoir of General Dejean (1824).

HAXTHAUSEN, AUGUST FRANZ LUDWIG MARIA, FREIHERR VON (1792-1866), German political economist, was born near Paderborn in Westphalia on the 3rd of February 1792. Having studied at the school of mining at Klausthal, and having served in the Hanoverian army, he entered the university of Gottingen in 1815. Finishing his course there in 1818 he was engaged in managing his estates and in studying the land laws. The result of his studies appeared in 1829 when he published _Uber die Agrarverfassung in den Furstentumern Paderborn und Corvey_, a work which attracted much attention and which procured for its author a commission to investigate and report upon the land laws of the Prussian provinces with a view to a new code. After nine years of labour he published in 1839 an exhaustive treatise, _Die landliche Verfassung in der Provinz Preussen_, and in 1843, at the request of the emperor Nicholas, he undertook a similar work for Russia, the fruits of his investigations in that country being contained in his _Studien uber die innern Zustande des Volkslebens, und insbesondere die landlichen Einrichtungen Russlands_ (Hanover, 1847-1852). He received various honours, was a member of the combined diet in Berlin in 1847 and 1848, and afterwards of the Prussian upper house. Haxthausen died at Hanover on the 31st of December 1866.

In addition to the works already mentioned he wrote _Die landliche Verfassung Russlands_ (Leipzig, 1866). His _Studien_ has been translated into French and into English by R. Farie as _The Russian Empire_ (1856). Other works of his which have appeared in English are: _Transcaucasia; Sketches of the Nations and Races between the Black Sea and the Caspian_ (1854), and _The Tribes of the Caucasus_ (1855). Haxthausen edited _Das konstitutionelle Prinzip_ (Leipzig, 1864), a collection of political writings by various authors, which has been translated into French (1865).

HAY, GEORGE (1729-1811), Scottish Roman Catholic divine, was born at Edinburgh on the 24th of August 1729. He was accused of sympathizing with the rebellion of 1745 and served a term of imprisonment 1746-1747. He then entered the Roman Catholic Church, studied in the Scots College at Rome, and in 1759 accompanied John Geddes (1735-1799), afterwards bishop of Morocco, on a Scottish mission. Ten years later he was appointed bishop of Daulis _in partibus_ and coadjutor to Bishop James Grant (1706-1778). In 1778 he became vicar apostolic of the lowland district. During the Protestant riots in Edinburgh in 1779 his furniture and library were destroyed by fire. From 1788 to 1793 he was in charge of the Scalan seminary; in 1802 he retired to that of Aquhorties near Inverury which he had founded in 1799. He died there on the 15th of October 1811.

His theological works, including _The Sincere Christian, The Devout Christian, The Pious Christian_ and _The Scripture Doctrine of Miracles_, were edited by Bishop Strain in 1871-1873.

HAY, GILBERT, or "SIR GILBERT THE HAYE" (fl. 1450), Scottish poet and translator, was perhaps a kinsman of the house of Errol. If he be the student named in the registers of the university of St Andrews in 1418-1419, his birth may be fixed about 1403. He was in France in 1432, perhaps some years earlier, for a "Gilbert de la Haye" is mentioned as present at Reims, in July 1430, at the coronation of Charles VII. He has left it on record, in the Prologue to his _Buke of the Law of Armys_, that he was "chaumerlayn umquhyle to the maist worthy King Charles of France." In 1456 he was back in Scotland, in the service of the chancellor, William, earl of Orkney and Caithness, "in his castell of Rosselyn," south of Edinburgh. The date of his death is unknown.

Hay is named by Dunbar (q.v.) in his _Lament for the Makaris_, and by Sir David Lyndsay (q.v.) in his _Testament and Complaynt of the Papyngo_. His only political work is _The Buik of Alexander the Conquerour_, of which a portion, in copy, remains at Taymouth Castle. He has left three translations, extant in one volume (in old binding) in the collection of Abbotsford: (_a_) _The Buke of the Law of Armys_ or _The Buke of Bataillis_, a translation of Honore Bonet's _Arbre des batailles_; (_b_) _The Buke of the Order of Knichthood_ from the _Livre de l'ordre de chevalerie_; and (_c_) _The Buke of the Governaunce of Princes_, from a French version of the pseudo-Aristotelian _Secreta secretorum_. The second of these precedes Caxton's independent translation by at least ten years.

For the _Buik of Alexander_ see Albert Herrmann's _The Taymouth Castle MS. of Sir Gilbert Hay's Buik, &c._ (Berlin, 1898). The complete Abbotsford MS. has been reprinted by the Scottish Text Society (ed. J. H. Stevenson). The first volume, containing _The Buke of the Law of Armys_, appeared in 1901. _The Order of Knichthood_ was printed by David Laing for the Abbotsford Club (1847). See also S.T.S. edition (u.s.) "Introduction" and Gregory Smith's _Specimens of Middle Scots_, in which annotated extracts are given from the Abbotsford MS., the oldest known example of literary Scots prose.