that with
which he paints the aspects of Nature and the movements of natural man. As
respects the structure of the story, and the probability of the incidents,
the novel is open to criticism; but such is the fascination that hangs
over it, that it is impossible to criticize. To do this would be as
ungracious as to correct the language and pronunciation of an old friend
who revives by his conversation the fading memories of school-boy and
college life.

Cooper would have been a better writer, if he had had more of the quality
of humor, and a keener sense of the ridiculous; for these would have saved
him from his too frequent practice of introducing both into his narrative
and his conversations, but more often into the latter, scraps of
commonplace morality, and bits of sentiment so long worn as to have lost
all their gloss. In general, his genius does not appear to advantage in
dialogue. His characters have not always a due regard to the brevity of
human life. They make long speeches, preach dull sermons, and ventilate
very self-evident propositions with great solemnity of utterance. Their
discourse wants not only compression, but seasoning. They are sometimes
made to talk in such a way that the force of caricature can hardly go
farther. For instance, in "The Pioneers," Judge Temple, coming into a room
in his house, and seeing a fire of maple-logs, exclaims to Richard Jones,
his kinsman and factotum,--"How often have I forbidden the use of the
sugar-maple in my dwelling! The sight of that sap, as it _exudes_ with the
heat, is painful to me, Richard." And in another place, he is made to say
to his daughter,--"Remember the heats of July, my daughter; nor venture
farther than thou canst _retrace before the meridian_." We may be sure
that no man of woman born, in finding fault about the burning of
maple-logs, ever talked of the sap's "exuding"; or, when giving a daughter
a caution against walking too far, ever translated getting home before
noon into "retracing before the meridian." This is almost as bad as Sir
Piercie Shafton's calling the cows "the milky mothers of the herds."

So, too, a lively perception of the ludicrous would have saved Cooper from
certain peculiarities of phrase and awkwardnesses of expression,
frequently occurring in his novels, such as might easily slip from the pen
in the rapidity of composition, but which we wonder should have been
overlooked in the proof-sheet. A few instances will illustrate our