ay be illustrated by
comparing such personages of this class as Cooper has delineated with
Colonel Talbot, in "Waverley," Colonel Mannering and Counsellor Pleydell,
in "Guy Mannering," Monkbarns, in "The Antiquary," and old Osbaldistone,
in "Rob Roy." These are all old men: they are all men of education, and in
the social position of gentlemen; but each has certain characteristics
which the others have not: each has the distinctive individual
flavor-perceptible, but indescribable, like the savor of a fruit--which is
wanting in Cooper's well-dressed and well-behaved lay-figures.

In the delineation of female loveliness and excellence Cooper is generally
supposed to have failed,--at least, comparatively so. But in this respect
full justice has hardly been done him; and this may be explained by the
fact that it was from the heroines of his earlier novels that this
unfavorable judgment was drawn. Certainly, such sticks of barley-candy as
Frances Wharton, Cecilia Howard, and Alice Munro justify the common
impression. But it would be as unfair to judge of what he can do in this
department by his acknowledged failures as it would be to form an estimate
of the genius of Michel Angelo from the easel-picture of the Virgin and
Child in the Tribune at Florence. No man ever had a juster appreciation
of, and higher reverence for, the worth of woman than Cooper. Towards
women his manners were always marked by chivalrous deference, blended as
to those of his own household with the most affectionate tenderness. His
own nature was robust, self-reliant, and essentially masculine: such men
always honor women, but they understand them better as they grow older.
There is so much foundation for the saying, that men are apt to love their
first wives best, but to treat their second wives best. Thus the reader
who takes up his works in chronological order will perceive that the
heroines of his later novels have more spirit and character, are drawn
with a more discriminating touch, take stronger hold upon the interest,
than those of his earlier. Ursula Malbone is a finer girl than Cecilia
Howard, or even Elizabeth Temple. So when he has occasion to delineate a
woman who, from her position in life, or the peculiar circumstances into
which she is thrown, is moved by deeper springs of feeling, is obliged to
put forth sterner energies, than are known to females reared in the
sheltered air of prosperity and civilization,--when he paints the heart of
wo