The Sun.
London, England, 1827-09-20 00:00:00

PRAIRIE.

We take shame to ourselves for not having

before noticed Mr. Cooper's transatlantic pro.-

ductions. Our regrets, however, on this head,
are very sensibly diminished by knowing that

they are making, what Long Tom Coffin would
call " head-way," in public opinion, and that

despite national prejudices they have already
ensured a class of admirers as extensive as it is
discriminating. Mr. Cooper may be defined as

the Sir W. Scott of America. He has not,

indeed, all the chivalrous temperament of the
Northern Ariosto ; nor has. he any very extra-

ordinary share of that poetic faculty with
which the Great Known contrives to invest

even his tritest and most repulsive characters ;

perhaps too, he has a less-extended acquaintance
with human nature, less polish of style, and less
inventive talent ; but then, to make amends, he
has equal strength of description, and equal, if
not superior, faculty of impressing the reality of
his incidents upon the mind. • Moreover, the
stream of his sensibility, though contracted, runs
in a deeper channel ; it does not braivl .showily
over a shallow bottom, but glides' stilly onward►
indulging in no truant mazes, reflecting no im-
posing or romantic images, but bearing on its
surface the mere every-day objects of earth. - The
sketches of Indian life should perhaps be ex-
empted from this opinion. They are (like the
tipsy scenes of Scott) imbued with a feeling
so wildly original—the characters that stalk
across them are so terrific yet so lofty in
their nature, drawing their impassioned and
even their familiar imagery from nothing
accessible to civilized life, but from untrod-
den forests, lakes, and- mountains ; that the
reader throughout seems lingering on enchanted
ground. Nevertheless he -may rest assured that
however unearthly such characters may appear,
they are flesh and blood like himself. Mr.

Cooper's meagre invention precludes him from
drawing upon fiction, he can describe only what
he has seen ; hence his best portraits are those
of sailors, Virginia horsemen, back-settlers, and
those few among the native Indians with whose
manners he has been most. familiarized. His

seamen in . particular are excellent ; they have
all the homely truth of Smollett without his rage
for caricature, and to our minds are even superior,
because the author pays less attention to dra-
matic and more to natural effect than his great
predecessor. In his delineation, however, of
woman, Mr. Cooper invariably fails. His genius
represents a great but uncivilized nation ; it is a
Hercules not an Apollo in character, possessing
rude masculine energy, but no delicacy nor ele-
gance.
His females are mere idealisms, mere
beautiful generalities ; there is nothing to distin-
cruish one,from the other. He seems to think
that it is enough to make a lady tall to render
her interesting; this may do in America, or even
in Caffraria, where women are estimated by the
pound, but we implore him as he values the
good opinion of his fair English readers to take
an inch off the person of his next heroine,
assuring him that what she loses in size,
she will gain in sentiment: In his gentle-
man he is equally deficient. He can give
effect to the passionate, rough, and eccentric
energies, but cannot describe, nor apparently
conceive, the more finished peculiarities of the
male character. But this is rather owing to his
country than himself, for it is not until a nation
has become civilized that it loses its dramatic
propettiis. All the rough individualities which
in its infant state furnish the novelist with ma-
terials disappear in its improved condition. Men
become less quaintly independent ; they are no
longer isolated beings, but members of onelarge
community to which fashion prescribes certain
unchanging habits, and from which none can
swerve but at the risk of unwelcome notoriety.
Then only is it, that the gentleman—that artifi-
cial offspring of education and refinement,—re-
ceives his origin, and till then the novelist
who would wish to depict him, must be
content to draw from fiction. We have hinted
these few defects in Mr. Cooper's narratives (de-
fects which circumstances rather than want of
ability render unavoidable), and now turn with
pride and pleasure to his beauties. Genius is of
no clime or country, and whether it show itself
in America or in England, we hail it with equal
enthusiasm. We repeat, then, that Mr. Cooper
is the Scott of the New World, and that,• like
him, lie has fixed the manners and customs of
his country on an imperishable basis. He has
transferred to canvas, scenes characters and inci-
dents that must otherwise have been irretrievably
forgotten. By his delineations of the Indian
tribes in particular, of the Hurons, the Pawnees,
the Delawares of the Hills, the Mingoes, and
the " mighty Dahcotahs," he has entitled him-
self to the warmest gratitude of America.
Already these lofty-minded savages are fast dis-
appearing from earth ; already the settler's axe
gleams in. the darkest recesses of their woods ;
a few years, and " their homes shall know them,
no longer," towns shall arise where forests once
stood; and the proud lords of the Mississippi, the
Potovvmack,and the fertile plains of Shenandoah,
shall be remembered only in the pages of those.no-
velists who, like Mr. Cooper, have hinted their
: .
existence. • •
But it is .time to descend to particulars
his earliest novel of the Spy our author has
sketched incidents that occurred towards the
dose of the American war. He has given us a
miniature portrait of Washington,
:—ln
feebly execu-
ted ; a full-length likeness of a Virginian horse-
man (one of those common-place sociable cha-
racters which genius alone can render attractive)
together with a few other nondescripts, such as
a retainer of -the camp, an American subal-
tern,cis de-
fect,t
an English dandy, and a negro slave..—._
His character of the Spy, however, is a failure ;
he attempts too much--he is perpetually before
the reader, in every place, under every circum-
stance, yet inspires not the slightest interest.
and
This arises from a want of unity in the concep-
tionee
mistrust
faonrd 4
;executionwehero
m must
st
whoseohfa
verye
ve a orthodoxn
cI
iarartaauedetsiet riaore clouded b)
n
. u
to We
this cannot
feel
hd
heartsintel
intel-
ligible 1 emrre.a reason forper
has
sr
shifted
sympathy,ftedh
is o
will remain untouched.
scenes our
enes too ra-
pidly they
n i pass andthug
r repass t
he t
with
sthitge
the shuffling
beforeuffling
incongruity of a pantomime; scarcely is one per-
son or one )laon
it is laid aside to make -
way
for another. The
tale, in short, is over-done : and the reader
throughout feels himself in the condition of
Mithridates, who
, bad taken noxious stimulants
so often tnat at length they ceased to affect him.
The " Pioneers" is a tale of far different com-
plexion. The plot (Mr. Cooper invariably fails
in his plot) possesses greater simplicity ; the cha-
racters are more appropriate, and the descriptions
more detailed and picturesque. It is, in fact, the

familiar history of a new settlement in the heart of
an American forest.- Accordingly we have all the
features that would naturally characterize such
a spot. We have Ben Pump, a sailor, a sort of
regenerated Tom Pipes ;' the Judge of the co-
lony ; his fair daughter, Elizabeth ; her quaint
old housekeeper, Mrs. Remarkable Pettibone ;
a village doctor, one Elnathan Todd, a spirited
caricature ; an Indian, John Mohican, boldly
conceived, particularly his death scene ; the land-
lord of the Bold Dragoon ; Richard Jones, half-
brother to the Judge, an ably drawn busy body; a
French Emigrant, feebly sketched ; and best of all
Natty Bumpo, an old back woodsman or hunter,
one of those primitive restless characters, who,
averse to the slavery of civilization, have spent
their life among the Indians in the woods. In
description we have a vigorous combat between a
dog and a panther ; a fishing scene by moonlight,
on a lake ; and the conflagration of a forest,

bordering on the settlement. This last is de-
scribed with tremendous power. We seem to
hear the crackling of the dry wood—the instinc-
tive howling of the wild beasts, and to witness
the spread of the flames as they scatter all the ele-
ments of splendour and ruin around them. In
this spirited description we would venture to re-
commend that exquisite little dramatic touch
where Elizabeth, when surrounded by the flames
on a ledge of rock that overhangs the settlement,
sees, as the smoke draws off, her father walking,
unconscious of her danger, in his Orden. It is
Mr. Cooper's finest conception.
In the " Pilot ; a Tale of the Sea," our author
ventures on new ground, and comes boldly and
successfully into competition with Smollett.
The scene lies chiefly off the North of England,
where an American frigate and brig are cruising.
The principal character in this novel is un-
doubtedly. Long Tom Coffin, coxswain of the
Ariel, one of those genuine mermen wko could

never " see the use of land, except it were now

and then to bang out a few shirts on, or grow a
cabbage or two for supper." Captain Manuel,
an American marine, who has disciplined his

men so admirably that one of them shot him be-

cause he had no orders to do otherwise, and was in

consequence promoted by his dying commander, is
another ably-conceived character ; as is also the

very original Major Boroughcliffe—that whim-
sical ne plus ultra of chivalry and tippling.—
Among the scenes the best decidedly is the
steering the frigate out of the Northumberland
Shallows, by night ; and the next, the sea-fight,
in which the English Commodore is pinned to
the main-mast of his own vessel by the dreaded
harpoon of Tom Coffin.
The " Last of the Mohicans" is confined ex-
clusively to Indian life and manners. We have
a detail, spirited and faithful in the extreme, of
all the surprises and adventures incidental to a
journey through an American forest ; in the course
of which we are introduced to our friend Natty
Bumpo, no longer old, but young and vigorous,
the friend of the Delaware, the scourge of the
Huron Indians. We are also introduced into

the domestic arcana of an Indian village ; we see
the mode of living adopted by the tribe, of utak-.
ing prisoners for the torture, of setting out for
war, of returning home in peace. Their dress,
their manners, even their most familiar conver-
sations are detailed with extraordinary -minute-
ness ; and the grandeur of uncivilized manhood,
together with its capabilities for good or evil, well
exemplified in Magus, the Huron Chieftain,
one of those impressive characters which read
in early life, would be apt to leave its impres-
sion on the mind for ever.

The " Prairie," like the foregoing, is a narra-.
tive of Indian life, with the additio,:ii of a party
of American settlers, consisting of Ishmael Bush.
and his seven sons—a dull 'inapprehensive crew.
.--.moral fipm. pure lethargy—the incarnations, in'
fact, of mental and physical stupidity. There is
exquisite harmony in the keeping of this peculiar
family—indigenous, we suppose, 'to the country.
—they grow upon the reader imperceptibly; till
they finally become linked•in his mind with the
most impressive part of the novel: Natty Bumpo,
too, in the last stage of decay, comes once again
before us ; and we know fere things in the wide
range of English fiction superior to the death
bsmehcoaayuulsodeu rowshisuetrlarivoeer,
of this unsophisticated hunter. He is evidently
Mr. Cooper's favourite, and may vie with Scott's
very choicest creations. Long Tom Coffin comes
next in. point of merit, and on these two, together
safely rely for immortality.
wi t h his
bsoekpeetdtc,
ohs
We have given this slight- analysis of
anxious, as we said before, that ample justice
that their occasional gleams of humour
sMhor.ul dC
however,o
are mere elaborate failures. When Mr. Cooper
caricatures, he does it without humour, as ,in. the
instance of. his psalm singer, that preposterous
bore, among the woods—and, his Doctor ,Obed
Battius, a. dull, professor 'of • :natural , history--
infinitively inferior .to the ass " Asinus," as he
terms it, on which he rides We ought per-
haps, having spoken at :such length, to have
recollection, and
given extracts illuitrative of -. Ny'. Coo is
find no passage sufficiently condensed to
inpgowtheres,Vobluumt. eSonbefore us), we can
vneortss.t.thillave
do justice either. to his merits or . our analysis.
done
es 4
tfhe ,
ilnid i.
productions a nv life,;
e
We should observe, by the way, that notwith-
standing their striking ability, there are .numbers
to whom these tales will appear insipid, if not
cwi.-liatrhaocutetrrewfeirtehnicne ttohethelitmhiotusght that should
puenrvinatdeleligiibtl.t.oTo criticsad l eswwho i
mappreciate i
tislolet
the
ye
s tmt haaern'cehes;
efascinationslt,eor
i t scholarsyof ot fh e
owlwho refined
oseri
el
school,
oea
lnr:ti sentiment tn
confine
gracesl 11 di
incident
reo9nf-t
of the tritest
siallyodlhibility, and look to the construction rather
than to the vigour of a narrative • to all such they
will be destitute of the slightest interest ; but to those
who enter with a more enlarged mind into litera-
ture, who following up the notion of Terence,
deem nothing alien to them that belongs however
quaintly to human nature, or remotely to their own
customs, they will appear, as they really are, the pro-
.nature. The
Cooper, enjoys this
dlife is a dream,
(flair) cttoi ofopnrsov e , a
(and
dy
this intellect.is a alrdhdeitiyowniallibesides,go
replete from
recommen-
dation), that true happiness is only found when it
happiness
ialrpdepialaiapproachesniilze,asstaiosinndnearestpoeetfarfti
heleeedt
iwtoboinyi simplicity
emris. ,Cvioio ar
romance,
first to last with interest. Cradled in the woods,
majesty.altry passions,
Surely,
rely, find
then,
a
our
liveliest
place
gratitude
and rocked to slumber by the winds, he is the
child, the nursling, of imagination. No grovel-
lingwithin his bosom ; his virtues, and even his
vices, are all, like his own lakes, on a scale of
tremendous
is due to an author who has so mi-
nutely transcribed a character, 1 ' I
w tic t centuries of
civilization have utterly exiled f
ideas,
no
p
from Europe

Trowbridge has experienced a striking revival
of
e its t
manufacturingo n
sta e business,m pl
employment y ;
one house
and good workmen
m
gone paying in wages upards of 11000/. a week,
e with e