on Hawthorne's behalf. This periodical, which had three years before absorbed Willis's "Magazine," had been conducted on somewhat grave and serious lines, as a kind of Boston cousin, as it were, of the "North American," and was now in a state of change. Mr. Buckingham relinquished the editorship, and the magazine went into the hands of Dr. Samuel G. Howe and John O. Sargent. It was at this favorable moment that Goodrich appeared with Hawthorne's manuscript; the piece was accepted; and it was published, half in the first and half in the second number issued by the new editors, in November and December, 1834. The connection proved a fortunate one for Hawthorne, and "The New England Magazine"[1] now became equally with "The Token" a constant medium for the publication of his writings of all sorts. Park Benjamin, who was soon associated with Howe and Sargent in the editorship, took sole charge in March, 1835, and was from the first, and always remained, a firm admirer of the new author's genius. To him, next to
- ↑ In the Riverside edition of Hawthorne's works a paper, Hints to Young Ambition, which appeared in The New England Magazine, 1832, signed "H.," is included. The piece is one of several, with the same signature, and there can he little hesitation in rejecting it, as Goodrich would hardly have needed to introduce Hawthorne to a magazine to which he already contributed. The other pieces are not in his vein, and "H." is a common signature in the periodicals of the time. At all events, Hawthorne would have gone further afield for a pseudonym than the initial of his own name, which he is not known ever to have used.
