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In 1828, three years after graduating from Bowdoin College, Hawthornepublished his first romance, "Fanshawe." It was issued at Boston by Marsh& Capen, but made little or no impression on the public. The motto on thetitle-page of the original was from Southey: "Wilt thou go on with me?"
Afterwards, when he had struck into the vein of fiction that came to beknown as distinctively his own, he attempted to suppress this youthfulwork, and was so successful that he obtained and destroyed all but a fewof the copies then extant.
Some twelve years after his death it was resolved, in view of the interestmanifested in tracing the growth of his genius from the beginning of hisactivity as an author, to revive this youthful romance; and the reissue of"Fanshawe" was then made.
Little biographical interest attaches to it, beyond the fact that Mr.Longfellow found in the descriptions and general atmosphere of the book adecided suggestion of the situation of Bowdoin College, at Brunswick,Maine, and the life there at the time when he and Hawthorne were bothundergraduates of that institution.
Professor Packard, of Bowdoin College, who was then in charge of the studyof English literature, and has survived both of his illustrious pupils,recalls Hawthorne's exceptional excellence in the composition of English,even at that date (1821-1825); and it is not impossible that Hawthorneintended, through the character of Fanshawe, to present some faintprojection of what he then thought might be his own obscure history. Evenwhile he was in college, however, and meditating perhaps the slenderelements of this first romance, his fellow-student Horatio Bridge, whose"Journal of an African Cruiser" he afterwards edited, recognized in himthe possibilities of a writer of fiction—a fact to which Hawthornealludes in the dedicatory Preface to "The Snow-Image."
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"Our court shall be a little Academe."—SHAKESPEARE.
In an ancient though not very populous settlement, in a retired corner ofone of the New England States, arise the walls of a seminary of learning,which, for the convenience of a name, shall be entitled "Harley College."This institution, though the number of its years is inconsiderablecompared with the hoar antiquity of its European sisters, is not withoutsome claims to reverence on the score of age; for an almost countlessmultitude of rivals, by many of which its reputation has been eclipsed,have sprung up since its foundation. At no time, indeed, during anexistence of nearly a century, has it acquired a very extensive fame; andcircumstances, which need not be particularized, have, of late years,involved it in a deeper obscurity. There are now few candidates for thedegrees that the college is authorized to bestow. On two of its annual"Commencement Days," there has been a total deficiency of baccalaureates;and the lawyers and divines, on whom doctorates in their respectiveprofessions are gratuitously inflicted, are not accustomed to consider thedistinction as an honor. Yet the sons of this seminary have alwaysmaintained their full share of reputation,