When Mr. George Bancroft, then Collector of the Port of Boston,
appointed Hawthorne weigher and gauger in the custom-house, he did a
wise thing, for no public officer ever performed his disagreeable duties
better than our romancer. Here is a tattered little official document
signed by Hawthorne when he was watching over the interests of the
country: it certifies his attendance at the unlading of a brig, then
lying at Long Wharf in Boston. I keep this precious relic side by side
with one of a similar custom-house character, signed _Robert Burns_.

I came to know Hawthorne very intimately after the Whigs displaced the
Democratic romancer from office. In my ardent desire to have him
retained in the public service, his salary at that time being his sole
dependence,--not foreseeing that his withdrawal from that sort of
employment would be the best thing for American letters that could
possibly happen,--I called, in his behalf, on several influential
politicians of the day, and well remember the rebuffs I received in my
enthusiasm for the author of the "Twice-Told Tales." One pompous little
gentleman in authority, after hearing my appeal, quite astounded me by
his ignorance of the claims of a literary man on his country. "Yes,
yes," he sarcastically croaked down his public turtle-fed throat, "I see
through it all, I see through it; this Hawthorne is one of them 'ere
visionists, and we don't want no such a man as him round." So the
"visionist" was not allowed to remain in office, and the country was
better served by him in another way. In the winter of 1849, after he had
been ejected from the custom-house, I went down to Salem to see him and
inquire after his health, for we heard he had been suffering from
illness. He was then living in a modest wooden house in Mall Street, if
I remember rightly the location. I found him alone in a chamber over the
sitting-room of the dwelling; and as the day was cold, he was hovering