In the first flush of a romancer’s fame, there is rarely any distinct recognition of the peculiar originality of his powers as distinguished from other great novelists, who equally fasten the interest and thrill the hearts of their readers. The still, small voice of analysis is lost amid thunders of applause. In the case of Hawthorne this mode of reception does but little justice either to the force or refinement of his powers. It is only when we explore the source of his fascination, when we go over the processes of his mind in creation, that we can realize the character and scope of his genius, and estimate, on true principles, the merit of each succeeding product of his pen. It is obvious to every reader that his mind is at once rich in various faculties, and powerful in its general action; that he possesses observation, fancy, imagination, passion, wit, humor; but a great writer can never be accurately described in those abstract terms which apply equally to all great writers, for such terms give us only the truth as it is about the author, not the truth as it is in him. The real question relates to the modification of his powers by his character; the tendency, the direction, the coloring, which his faculties receive in obeying the primary impulses of his individuality. This brings us at once to the sharpest test to which an author can be subjected, for it puts to him that searching query which instantly dissolves the most plausible bubbles—has he novelty of nature? Is he an absolutely new power in literature? It is Hawthorne’s great felicity that he can stand the remorseless rigor of this test. He is not made up by culture, imitation, appropriation, sympathy, but has grown up in obedience to vigorous innate principles and instincts seated in his own nature; his power and peculiarity can be analyzed into no inspirations caught from other minds, but conduct us back to their roots in his original constitution. Thus he has imagination, and he has humor; but his imagination is not the imagination of Shelley or the imagination of Richter; neither is his humor the humor of Addison or the humor of Dickens; they are both essentially _Hawthorneish_, and resent all attempts to identify them with faculties in other minds. His style, again, in its clearness, pliability, and melodious ease of movement, reminds us of the style of Addison, of Scott, and of Irving, in making us forget itself in attending to what it conveys; but for that very reason every vital peculiarity of it is original, for what it conveys is the individuality of Hawthorne, and there is not a page which suggests, except to the word-mongers and period-balancers of mechanical criticism, even an unconscious imitation of any acknowledged master of diction. This contented movement within the limitations of his own genius, this austere confinement of his mind to that “magic circle” where none can walk but he, this scorn of pretending to be a creator in regions of