a yellowish tinge. Fresh cut it weighs 68 ℔ 12 oz. per cubic foot, and dry 57 ℔ 3 oz. It can seldom be obtained in large portions, and has the disadvantage of being apt to warp; its great hardness, however, renders it valuable for the manufacture of various articles, such as the cogs of mill-wheels, flails and mallets, and handles of hammers. Both green and dry it forms excellent fuel. The bark possesses tanning properties, and in Scotland in past times yielded with ferrous sulphate a black dye for wool. The leaves are eaten by cattle, and have been employed as a substitute for tea. Birds and deer feed upon the haws, which are used in the preparation of a fermented and highly intoxicating liquor. The hawthorn serves as a stock for grafting other trees. As an ornamental feature in landscapes, it is worthy of notice; and the pleasing shelter it affords and the beauty of its blossoms have frequently been alluded to by poets. The custom of employing the flowering branches for decorative purposes on the 1st of May is of very early origin; but since the alteration in the calendar the tree has rarely been in full bloom in England before the second week of that month. In the Scottish Highlands the flowers may be seen as late as the middle of June. The hawthorn has been regarded as the emblem of hope, and its branches are stated to have been carried by the ancient Greeks in wedding processions, and to have been used by them to deck the altar of Hymen. The supposition that the tree was the source of Christ’s crown of thorns gave rise doubtless to the tradition current among the French peasantry that it utters groans and cries on Good Friday, and probably also to the old popular superstition in Great Britain and Ireland that ill-luck attended the uprooting of hawthorns. Branches of the Glastonbury thorn, C. Oxyacantha, var. praecox, which flowers both in December and in spring, were formerly highly valued in England, on account of the legend that the tree was originally the staff of Joseph of Arimathea.
The number of species in the genus is from fifty to seventy, according to the view taken as to whether or not some of the forms, especially of those occurring in the United States, represent distinct species. C. coccinea, a native of Canada and the eastern United States, with bright scarlet fruits, was introduced into English gardens towards the end of the 17th century. C. Crus-Galli, with a somewhat similar distribution and introduced about the same time, is a very decorative species with showy, bright red fruit, often remaining on the branches till spring, and leaves assuming a brilliant scarlet and orange in the autumn; numerous varieties are in cultivation. C. Pyracantha, known in gardens as pyracantha, is evergreen and has white flowers, appearing in May, and fine scarlet fruits of the size of a pea which remain on the tree nearly all the winter. It is a native of south Europe and was introduced into Britain early in the 17th century.
HAWTHORNE, NATHANIEL (1804–1864), American writer,
son of Nathaniel Hathorne (1776–1808), was born at Salem,
Massachusetts, on the 4th of July 1804. The head of the
American branch of the family, William Hathorne of Wilton,
Wiltshire, England, emigrated with Winthrop and his company,
and arrived at Salem Bay, Mass., on the 12th of June 1630. He
had grants of land at Dorchester, where he resided for upwards
of six years, when he was persuaded to remove to Salem by the
tender of further grants of land there, it being considered a public
benefit that he should become an inhabitant of that town. He
represented his fellow-townsmen in the legislature, and served
them in a military capacity as a captain in the first regular troop
organized in Salem, which he led to victory through an Indian
campaign in Maine. Originally a determined “Separatist,”
and opposed to compulsion for conscience, he signalized himself
when a magistrate by the active part which he took in the Quaker
persecutions of the time (1657–1662), going so far on one occasion
as to order the whipping of Anne Coleman and four other Friends
through Salem, Boston and Dedham. He died, an old man, in
the odour of sanctity, and left a good property to his son John,
who inherited his father’s capacity and intolerance, and was in
turn a legislator, a magistrate, a soldier and a bitter persecutor
of witches. Before the death of Justice Hathorne in 1717, the
destiny of the family suffered a sea-change, and they began to
be noted as mariners. One of these seafaring Hathornes figured
in the Revolution as a privateer, who had the good fortune to
escape from a British prison-ship; and another, Captain Daniel
Hathorne, has left his mark on early American ballad-lore.
He too was a privateer, commander of the brig “Fair American,”
which, cruising off the coast of Portugal, fell in with a British
scow laden with troops for General Howe, which scow the bold
Hathorne and his valiant crew at once engaged and fought for
over an hour, until the vanquished enemy was glad to cut the
Yankee grapplings and quickly bear away. The last of the
Hathornes with whom we are concerned was a son of this
sturdy old privateer, Nathaniel Hathorne. He was born in
1776, and about the beginning of the 19th century married Miss
Elizabeth Clarke Manning, a daughter of Richard Manning of
Salem, whose ancestors emigrated to America about fifty years
after the arrival of William Hathorne. Young Nathaniel took
his hereditary place before the mast, passed from the forecastle
to the cabin, made voyages to the East and West Indies, Brazil
and Africa, and finally died of fever at Surinam, in the spring of
1808. He was the father of three children, the second of whom
was the subject of this article. The form of the family name was
changed by the latter to “Hawthorne” in his early manhood.
After the death of her husband Mrs Hawthorne removed to the house of her father with her little family of children. Of the boyhood of Nathaniel no particulars have reached us, except that he was fond of taking long walks alone, and that he used to declare to his mother that he would go to sea some time and would never return. Among the books that he is known to have read as a child were Shakespeare, Milton, Pope and Thomson, The Castle of Indolence being an especial favourite. In the autumn of 1818 his mother removed to Raymond, a town in Cumberland county, Maine, where his uncle, Richard Manning, had built a large and ambitious dwelling. Here the lad resumed his solitary walks, exchanging the narrow streets of Salem for the boundless, primeval wilderness, and its sluggish harbour for the fresh bright waters of Sebago lake. He roamed the woods by day, with his gun and rod, and in the moonlight nights of winter skated upon the lake alone till midnight. When he found himself away from home, and wearied with his exercise, he took refuge in a log cabin where half a tree would be burning upon the hearth. He had by this time acquired a taste for writing, that showed itself in a little blank-book, in which he jotted down his woodland adventures and feelings, and which was remarkable for minute observation and nice perception of nature.
After a year’s residence at Raymond, Nathaniel returned to Salem in order to prepare for college. He amused himself by publishing a manuscript periodical, which he called the Spectator, and which displayed considerable vivacity and talent. He speculated upon the profession that he would follow, with a sort of prophetic insight into his future. “I do not want to be a doctor and live by men’s diseases,” he wrote to his mother, “nor a minister to live by their sins, nor a lawyer and live by their quarrels. So I don’t see that there is anything left for me but to be an author. How would you like some day to see a whole shelf full of books, written by your son, with ‘Hawthorne’s Works’ printed on their backs?”
Nathaniel entered Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine, in the autumn of 1821, where he became acquainted with two students who were destined to distinction—Henry W. Longfellow and Franklin Pierce. He was an excellent classical scholar, his Latin compositions, even in his freshman year, being remarkable for their elegance, while his Greek (which was less) was good. He made graceful translations from the Roman poets, and wrote several English poems which were creditable to him. After graduation three years later (1825) he returned to Salem, and to a life of isolation. He devoted his mornings to study, his afternoons to writing, and his evenings to long walks along the rocky coast. He was scarcely known by sight to his townsmen, and he held so little communication with the members of his own family that his meals were frequently left at his
