nt mark
in the annals of American statesmanship. Liverpool had not been
immediately selected, and Hawthorne had written to his friend and
publisher, Mr. Fields, with some humorous vagueness of allusion to his
probable expatriation.

"Do make some inquiries about Portugal; as, for instance, in
what part of the world it lies, and whether it is an empire,
a kingdom, or a republic. Also, and more particularly, the
expenses of living there, and whether the Minister would be
likely to be much pestered with his own countrymen. Also,
any other information about foreign countries would be
acceptable to an inquiring mind."

It would seem from this that there had been a question of offering him
a small diplomatic post; but the emoluments of the place were justly
taken into account, and it is to be supposed that those of the
consulate at Liverpool were at least as great as the salary of the
American representative at Lisbon. Unfortunately, just after
Hawthorne had taken possession of the former post, the salary attached
to it was reduced by Congress, in an economical hour, to less than
half the sum enjoyed by his predecessors. It was fixed at 7,500
dollars (L1,500); but the consular fees, which were often copious,
were an added resource. At midsummer then, in 1853, Hawthorne was
established in England.

* * * * *

CHAPTER VI.

ENGLAND AND ITALY.

Hawthorne was close upon fifty years of age when he came to Europe--a
fact that should be remembered when those impressions which he
recorded in five substantial volumes (exclusive of the novel written
in Italy), occasionally affect us by the rigidity of their point of
view. His Note-Books, kept during his residence in England, his two
winters in Rome, his summer in Florence, were published after his
death; his impressions of England, sifted, revised, and addressed
directly to the public, he gave to the world shortly before this
event. The tone of his European Diaries is often so fresh and
unsophisticated that we find ourselves thinking of the writer as a
young man, and it is only a certain final sense of something
reflective and a trifle melancholy that reminds us that the simplicity
which is on the whole the leading characteristic of their pages, is,
though the simplicity of inexperience, not that of youth. When I say
inexperience, I mean that Hawthorne's experience had been narrow. His
fifty years had be