called, was probably rather a wild fellow in his youth. A miniature of him, preserved in the family (and of which an engraving is here given), shows him to have been a robust man, of fair, sanguine complexion, with strong, sharply cut features, and large blue eyes. The expression of his ruddy countenance is open and pleasant; but one sees that he was of a temperament easily moved to wrath or passion. A romantic and rather strange story is connected with his younger days, which, although the dénouement of it occurred more than sixty years after his death, may be inserted here. In the year 1858 Nathaniel Hawthorne was living with his family in the Villa Montauto, just outside the walls of Florence. Among his near neighbors during that summer- - the summer of Donati's comet were Mr. and Mrs. Robert Browning; and they were often visitors at Montauto. Mrs. Browning was at that time deeply interested in spiritualism; and in the course of some discussions on the subject, it was accidentally discovered that the governess in Mr. Hawthorne's family, a young American lady of great attainments and lovely character, was a medium, the manifestation of her capacities in this direction being by writing. If she held a pencil over a sheet of paper for a minute or so, her hand would seem to be seized, or inspired with motion, and words, sentences, or pages would be written down, sometimes rapidly, sometimes slowly, and in various totally dissimilar styles of handwriting, none of which bore any resemblance to the lady's own. She herself had no