Years after the sentences quoted above had been printed in the second series of "Twice-Told Tales," the peculiar punishment referred to was elaborated and refined into the theme of "The Scarlet Letter." The prescribing of such a punishment by the Puritan code is well authenticated. Hawthorne, it is understood, had seen it mentioned in some of the records of Boston, and it will be found among the laws of Plym outh Colony for 1658. A few years since, that close student of New England annals, the Rev. Dr. George E. Ellis, of Boston, stated incidentally in a lecture that there was not the slightest authenticity as to the person and character of the minister who plays the chief male part in the "Scarlet Letter" drama. Dr. Ellis held that, since Dimmesdale is represented as preaching the Election Sermon in the year of Governor Winthrop's death, he must be identified with the Rev. Thomas Cobbett, of Lynn, who actually deliv ered the Election Sermon in the year named; and he wished to defend the character of that clergyman against the suspicions of those who, like himself, conceived Dimmesdale to be simply a mask for the real Election preacher of that time. At the date under notice there was but one church in Boston, and its pastors were John Wilson and John Cotton. Wilson is mentioned under his own name in the romance; so that there can be no confusion of his identity with Dimmesdale's. Neither is there any reason for sup posing that Hawthorne had the slightest intention of fixing the guilt of his imaginary minister on either John Cotton, or Thomas Cobbett of Lynn. The very fact that the name of Arthur Dimmesdale is a fictitious one, while the Rev. Mr. Wilson and Governor Bellingham are introduced under their true titles, ought to be proof enough that Dimmesdale's story cannot be applied to the actual Election preacher of 1649. The historic particularization must be understood as used simply to heighten the verisimilitude of the tale, while its general poetic truth and the possibility of the situation occurring in early New England remain unquestionable. I believe it has not before been recorded that, when "The Scarlet Letter" had been written nearly through, the author read the story aloud, as far as it was then completed, to Mrs. Hawthorne; and, on her asking him what the ending was to be, he replied: “I don't know." To his wife's sister, Miss Peabody, he once said: "The difficulty is not how to say things, but what to say;" implying that, whenever he began to write, his subject was already so well developed as to make the question mainly one of selection. But it is easy to understand how, when he came to the final solution of a difficult problem, he might then, being carried away by the conflicting interests of the differ ent characters, hesitate as to the conclusion. When this romance was published it brought to Hawthorne letters from strangers, people who had sinned or were tempted and suffering, and who sought his counsel as they would that of a comprehensive friend or a confessor. The introductory chapter on the Custom House, upon which Hawthorne relied to alleviate the sombreness of the story, successfully accomplished that result; but, at the time of its publication, its good-natured and harmless humor roused great ire in some of the Salem people, who recognized the sketches it contained of now forgotten officials. One individual, of considerable intelligence otherwise, was known to have firmly abstained from reading anything the author afterwards wrote; a curious revenge, which would seem to be designed expressly to injure the censor himself, without hurting or even being known to Hawthorne. G. P. L. MUCH to the author's surprise, and (if he may say so without additional offence) considerably to his amusement, he finds that his sketch of official life, introductory to THE SCARLET LETTER, has created an unprecedented excitement in the respectable community immediately around him. It could hardly have been more violent, indeed, had he burned down the Custom House, and quenched its last smoking ember in the blood of a certain venerable personage, against whom he is supposed to cherish a peculiar malevolence. As the public disapprobation would weigh very heavily on him, were he conscious of deserving it, the author begs leave to say that he has carefully read over the introductory pages, with a purpose to alter or expunge whatever might be found amiss, and to make the best reparation in his power for the atrocities of which he has been adjudged guilty. But it appears to him, that the only remarkable features of the sketch are its frank and genuine good-humor, and the general accuracy with which he has conveyed his sincere impressions of the characters therein described. As to enmity, or ill-feeling of any kind, personal or political, he utterly disclaims such motives. The sketch might, perhaps, have been wholly omitted, without loss to the public, or detriment to the book; but, having undertaken to write it, he conceives that it could not have |