ook once more at the features which
they remembered with the lights and shadows of life's sunshine upon
them. The cold moonbeam of death lay white on the noble forehead and
still, placid features; but they never looked fuller of power than in
this last aspect with which they met the eyes that were turned upon
them.

In a patch of sunlight, flecked by the shade of tall, murmuring pines,
at the summit of a gently swelling mound where the wild-flowers had
climbed to find the light and the stirring of fresh breezes, the tired
poet was laid beneath the green turf. Poet let us call him, though his
chants were not modulated in the rhythm of verse. The element of poetry
is air: we know the poet by his atmospheric effects, by the blue of his
distances, by the softening of every hard outline he touches, by the
silvery mist in which he veils deformity and clothes what is common so
that it changes to awe-inspiring mystery, by the clouds of gold and
purple which are the drapery of his dreams. And surely we have had but
one prose-writer who could be compared with him in aerial perspective,
if we may use the painter's term. If Irving is the Claude of our
unrhymed poetry, Hawthorne is its Poussin.

This is not the occasion for the analysis and valuation of Hawthorne's
genius. If the reader wishes to see a thoughtful and generous estimate
of his powers, and a just recognition of the singular beauty of his
style, he may turn to the number of this magazine published in May,
1860. The last effort of Hawthorne's creative mind is before him in the
chapter here printed. The hand of the dead master shows itself in every
line. The shapes and scenes he pictures slide at once into our
consciousness, as if they belonged there as much as our own homes and
relatives. That limpid flow of expression, never laboring, never
shallow, never hurried nor uneven nor turbid, but moving on with
tranquil force, clear to the depths of its profoundest thought, shows
itself with all its consummate perfections. Our literature could ill
spare the rich ripe autumn of such a life as Hawthorne's, but he has
left enough to keep his name in remembrance as long as the language in
which he shaped his deep imaginations is spoken by human lips.

A SCENE FROM THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE.

Doctor Dolliver, a worthy personage of extreme antiquity, was aroused
rather prematurely, one summer morning, by the shouts of the child
Pansie, in an adjoining chamber, summoning Old M