THE years which Hawthorne passed in England were outwardly the most successful, in worldly prosperity the most ab uldant, a nd in other respects anlong the happiest of his life forming in the autumn of his career a sort of counterpoise to the idyllic period spent at the Old Jlanse. Of these years, - from the spring of 1853 to June of 1860, excepting a part of 1858 ancl 1859, which interval was chiefly spent in Italy, - Our Old Home was the literary outcome. Much of the material composing the sketches in this volume occurs in embryonic form in the English Note-Boolrs, which were then still veiled from publicity but various eleineilts and touches of fancy were supplied by the authors mood or memory at the instant of writing. His impressions of England, outliiled in the Kote-Boolrs and scatt, ered at random throu glm a ny pages, here assume a connected and artistic shape. The articles embraced ill Oar Old Honle were begun at The TITaysicle, Concord, in 1862, and were first published in the Atlantic Monthly, which was then edited by Mr. James T. Fields. Mr. Fields has placed on record, in his Yesterdays with Authors, the fullest memoranda now to be had relative to the production of these sketches. Ha vthornei, n speaking of them, said to hirp We must remember that tlrer , is s l io2d . c , . bed, of intellectual ice mingled with this wine of memory. Indeed, he took a discouraged tone regarding the work, and wrote, on forwarding one of the manuscripts I hope you will like it, for the subject seemed interesting to me when I was on the spot, but I always feel a singular despondency and heaviness of heart in reopening these old journals now. At another time e a v e n sees fit - to visit me with an unshakable conviction that all this series of articles is good for nothing but that is none of nly business, provided the public and you are of a different opinion. It is probable that this down-hearted mood was a part of the general depression which weighed heavily upon Hawthorne from the beginning of the civil war until his death, and was caused by the unhappy state of the country. He looked back, also, to his English sojourn as a pleasant experience never likely to be repeated, and often longed to return to the mother-country, which had entertained him so hospitably and where he had made warm friends. Some of these friends were startled, and perhaps a little h rbty, the frankness of the characterizations and criticisins which the book bestowed on the Eng lish. Hawthorne, however, remarks in a letter to Mr. Fields I really think Americans have more cause than they to complain of me. Looking over the vol. ume, I am rather surprised to find that whenever I draw a comparison between the two peoples, I almost invariably cast the balance against ourselves. And it was from Americans, in fact, that Hawthorne re ceived the severest censure on the publication of Our Old Home, though for quite another cause than his remarks on their national character.