MES FENIMORE COOPER’S
LIONEL LINCOLN:
A SOURCE AND LTTERAR’Y STUDY

Thesis for the Degree of Ph. D.
MICHIGAN STATE UNTVERSITY
BETTY ELAINE NICHOLS
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ABSTRACT
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER'S LIONEL LINCOLN:

A SOURCE AND LITERARY STUDY

BY

Betty Elaine Nichols

The purpose of this study is to analyze James
Fenimore Cooper's Lionel Lincoln (1825), his novel dealing
with the outbreak of the American Revolution in Boston.
The analysis divides into two parts, a consideration of
the sources employed to provide authenticity and an
examination of some literary aspects of the novel,
specifically, characterization, plot, and theme. Lionel
Lincoln has never been regarded as a critical or a popu-
lar success, and the intent here is not to change the
generally unfavorable estimate of it. But because it is
preceded and followed in the Cooper canon by major
successes, it is interesting to speculate on the causes
of its singular failure.

The first part of the study is concerned with
sources. Cooper regarded Lionel Lincoln as his only
historical novel and to him that classification meant

that authenticity had to be achieved. To attain it,

 

 

Betty Elaine Nichols

he did two things: journied to Boston to view the setting
for himself and read books and articles about the events.
From the evidence of letters and secondary sources, it
is possible to say that Cooper did tour Bunker Hill and
probably Lexington and Concord, and visited one of the
still-remaining opulent houses in the city, which became
the model for the Lechmere mansion. It is also possible
to speculate, on the basis of internal evidence of the
novel, on some of the other places that he might have
seen.

It is easier to identify the written sources
employed by Cooper, by comparing the originals with the
text of Lionel Lincoln. Major sources include Samuel

Swett's Historical and Topographical Sketch of Bunker

 

gill Battle (1818), James Thacher's 5 Military Journal
(1823), and General John Burgoyne‘s "letter to a noble
lord," written in 1775 but frequently reprinted after-
ward. Other minor sources are noted, as is Cooper's
technique of integrating them into the narrative. Cooper
handled sources well; some of the most exciting and
believable scenes in Lionel Lincoln are those which depend
heavily on sources for their content.

Other aspects of the novel are less successful
however. Characterization is not regarded as one of
Cooper's strengths, and here it varies from stereotypic

portraits, such as the dull-witted Job Pray's, to the

 

 

Betty Elaine Nichols

strong and individualized ones, such as the corrupt Mrs.
Lechmere's. The hero Lionel and most of the other char—
acters can best be described as adequate.

Plot and theme in this novel are obviously
intended to be closely connected. Two plots can be
identified, the action plot which moves through political
revelations and battles as the hero tries to discover his
proper allegiance, and the family mystery plot, in which
he slowly unravels the tangled history of the Lincoln
family. These in turn are supposed to illuminate the
two primary themes, patriotism and appearance/reality.
The latter does work well with both plots. But the
patriotism theme, while growing in strength as each
stage of the action plot progresses, is suddenly and
irreparably damaged by the climax of the family mystery
plot. When the major spokesman for the American cause,
Ralph, turns out to be the lunatic Sir Lionel Lincoln,
the cause itself naturally suffers a diminution of
credibility. It is too abrupt a reversal, despite
Cooper's attempts to prepare the reader for it, and that
climactic revelation is the main cause of the novel's
failure, though other weaknesses can be identified as
well.

Lionel Lincoln is worthy of the Cooper scholaris

attention because of its skillful use of sources and its

 

 

Betty Elaine Nichols

   

JAMES FENIMORE COOPER'S LIONEL LINCOLN:

A SOURCE AND LITERARY STUDY

BY

Betty Elaine Nichols

\v

52;.- ‘g 9%7 M -—’,Z.
”'YIUA 21v.”

A THESIS

i
.A'_____i_.___l_~ _.._ -A A

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Department of English

1972

 

Copyright by
BETTY ELAINE NlCflOLS
1972

 

   

 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I wish to thank Dr. James H. Pickering for his

assistance, kindness, and patience, and Dr. Russel B.

Nye for his advice and guidance.

ii

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . .
‘TRE USE OF SOURCES IN LIONEL LINCOLN . . .

PLOT AND THEME--INTERDEPENDENCE AND ITS
I RESULTS I C I I . O C I . I . I

CHARACTERIZATION. . . . . . . . . .

 

. CONCLUSION. . . . . . . . . . . -
’ ' _ .. tree or womcs consumes. . . . . . . . . .
- U”- "meanness

Y'.§bpendix
Hi-Ffl A." Letter from William Branford Shubrick to

. James Fenimore Cooper, February 22,
1824' O O C I O I O I O O O U

iii

Page

34

91
118
161
170

177

 

 

PREFACE

James Fenimore Cooper was among the first of
America's novelists and, as the creator of Natty Bumppo,
remains among the most famous. His successful books,
such as the Leatherstocking and Littlepage series (1845-
1846), traditionally have received considerable critical
attention. Many of the lesser—known works, however, have
been neglected. Lionel Lincoln (1825), his novel dealing
with the outbreak of the American Revolution in Boston
and once the first of a projected series of American
historical novels, is a case in point. No critic has
treated the novel in depth, although excellent and
accurate brief analyses have been offered by such
people as George Dekker in James Fenimore Cooper the

Novelist and Donald A. Ringe in James Fenimore Cooper.

 

And although sources play a crucial role in the novel's
construction, no scholar has given them sufficient
attention. Usually critics note the facts that Cooper
made a trip to Boston to study the physical locale and
that he studied carefully the firsthand and sometimes
conflicting accounts of the fighting, but they say little

more.

 

 

. w
‘..’4‘—

a-

What I propose then is a two—fold study to begin
remedying both these deficiencies. In the first part,

I will discuss the research Cooper did preparatory to
writing Lionel Lincoln, including both the evidence con-
cerning Cooper's activities while he was in Boston and
the written sources he found and employed. I have sought
out as much as possible of the original material that
Cooper might have seen and after extensive comparisons

of the sources with the text of the novel, I believe I
can identify some of them.

The second part of this study will consist of a
detailed literary analysis of the book. An attempt will
be made to point out where and how Cooper succeeded or
failed in terms of character, plot, and theme. I will
examine these aspects in detail and in so doing will
identify the major and minor flaws which led to the
novel's failure as a whole.

This study is the first to investigate Lionel
Lincoln in depth, and as such, is certainly justifiable.
However, neither the new facts about the sources of the
novel nor the more lengthy analysis of its literary and
artistic qualities can or should change the generally
low critical and popular estimate of it. Lionel Lincoln
will remain one of Cooper's least successful fictional'
creations, but at least its origins and the exact nature

of its failure will be better understood.

 

-_-.._P_

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

In general his thoughts seem to have turned upon
ships, and the sea, and farming, and landscape
gardening. I can remember trotting around after
him while he was planning a sweep, and a ha—ha
fence-—a novelty in those days. He set out many
trees.
Thus Susan Cooper described the activities of
her father as he approached the age of thirty. James
Fenimore Cooper appeared comfortably settled in the life
style of a Westchester County gentleman farmer and no
doubt felt that the future would bring few changes. He
was to be proven wrong.
He was born in 1789, the son of Judge William
Cooper, a man who genuinely deserved the title of pioneer,
having built up the village of Cooperstown, New York,
literally out of the wilderness. James had an easier
time of it. His father's growing wealth provided material
comforts during his childhood and was sufficient to send
the boy to Yale-—from which he was soon expelled, appar—

ently for some high-spirited prank. It certainly did not

seem that the fates had intended him for any bookish

 

occupation. He went to sea at seventeen and enjoyed it,
or at least, always retained vivid memories of his ship—
board existence. He was then commissioned in the Navy,
spending much of his service on the inland lakes. He
might very well have stayed with the Navy as a career,
but complicating factors arose: since a peacetime Con-
gress was not supplying adequate funds for the service,
the opportunities for advancement were meager, the death
of William Cooper had given him an independent income,
and, he had fallen in love. The attraction of the sea
was strong, but the attraction of Susan DeLancey was
stronger, and she apparently did not relish the idea of
a husband who spent many months of the year far away.
Shortly after his marriage in 1811, Cooper resigned

from the Navy.

Although he intended to establish a permanent
home in Cooperstown, his wife preferred to be near her
own family in Mamaroneck, and she soon got her way. The
Cooper family home became Angevine Farm, a part of
Susan's inheritance just a short distance from Heath—
cote Hill, the DeLancey home. Here, according to his
daughter, Cooper spent his time in such gentlemanly pur-
suits as "improving" the grounds, serving as a colonel
in the local militia, playing his favorite game, chess,

and leisurely reading the new English novels.2

As a Cooper biographer, Henry walcott Boynton,
has said, "All this sounds idyllic to the point of tame-
ness."3 He suggests that there were underlying aspects
of Cooper‘s situation and character which made him take
advantage of the possibility of a novel—writing career
when it offered itself. One such factor was Cooper's
still tenuous financial situation. His older brothers
had squandered their shares Of the father's estate, and
had left widows and children who were forced to turn
frequently to the sole remaining brother for aid. Cooper
himself still had the habit from his comfortable youth
of spending freely, yet the size of his family was
increasing. He was not poor, but more money could
always be put to good use. A second factor, related to
the first, was that there still remained in Cooper
touches of the old spirit of adventure ,which left him
restive despite a happy marriage and the pleasant life
on the farm. This spirit is evidenced by his purchase
of a whaling vessel, the REESE! in 1818. She made
several successful voyages and proved profitable to
Cooper, but, considering the dangers of whaling, surely
there were safer investments available?

One day in the following year, as the legend has
it, that adventurous spirit in Cooper took another form.
His daughter relates the change from country gentleman

to newborn novelist:

 

A new novel had been brought from England in the last
monthly packet; it was, I think, one of Mrs. Opie's,
or one of that school. My mother was not well; she
was lying on the sofa, and he was reading this newly
imported novel to her; it must have been very trashy;
after a chapter or two he threw it aside, exclaiming,
"I could write you a better book than that myself!"
Our Mother laughed at the idea, as the height of
absurdity--he who disliked writing even a letter,
that he should write a bookll He persisted in his
declaration, however, and almost immediately wrote
the first pages of a tale, not yet named, the scene
laid in England, as a matter of course. He soon
became interested and amused with the undertaking,
drew a regular plot, talked over the details with
our Mother, and resolved to imitate the tone and
character of an English tale of the ordinary type.
After a few chapters were written he would have
thrown it aside, but our dear Mother encouraged him
to persevere; why not finish it, why not print it?4

 

 

Encouraged by his wife and his friends the Jay
family, Cooper finished the book, entitled Precaution,
and had it printed.

Precaution is important only as the starting point
of a career; the most ardent Cooperian cannot defend it
as a novel. The characters, all English gentlemen and
ladies, are only crudely differentiated, any sense of
physical setting is lacking, and the dialogue is frozen
with politeness. The novel's theme is that parents
should exercise precaution in marrying their children.

In the depiction of that theme lies a point of interest
to the reader of Lionel Lincoln, for the characters are
at first deceived by appearances, and only when the
reality beneath appearance is perceived are wise marriage

choices made. For instance, Colonel Egerton at first

 

appears to be an eligible suitor and an honorable man;
later he is revealed as the admirer of another woman
and, worse yet, a confirmed gamester. The more humble
suitor, George Denbigh whose behavior, such as an
apparent lack of the proper charitable feeling for a
penniless family, is misunderstood throughout the book,
turns out to be the noble Lord Pendennyss in disguise.
The appearance/reality conflict, first recognizable here,
will be seen again and again, and will be especially vital
to the plot and theme of Lionel Lincoln. But little
more needs to be said about Precaution.

That Cooper automatically imitated an English
novel on his first attempt at writing says something
about the state of American literature at the time; that
is, that it barely existed. To use a cliche, America
had gained political independence from England, but her
literature was still in thrall to the mother country. A
native literature had been talked of ever since the
Revolution, and after the War of 1812, the talk became
clamor.5 Later students of American Literature have
noted the many obstacles to the growth of such a liter-
ature: the mercenary spirit of the American public,
too much guided by philistinism to reward its art and
artists, the cheap importing and reprinting of British
books due to inadequate international copyright laws

which left publishers economically uninterested in

 

American books, and America's gross deficiencies in
romantic scenes and objects, such as castles and ruins,
thought of as necessary to invoke poetic associations.
But now all such objections were overpowered by the
forces working gee the creations of an American Liter-
ature. Among such forces were the strengthened feelings
of nationalism resulting from America's victory in the
war, the vigorous campaign in favor of a national
literature carried on by American periodicals, and soon,
"the impressive example of Scott's treatment of scenes
and events which appeared analogous to those in America."6
This rising tide of literary nationalism, urged
on by the periodical writers and aided by the example set
by Sir Walter Scott, could not be ignored and Cooper
would soon illustrate, not only in his novels but in his
prefaces and in Notions 9: EEe Americans, that he was
well aware of both the difficulties and pleasures involved
in writing "an American book." Whether he was influenced
by specific suggestions concerning the need for a native
American novel will never be known. For instance, he
may have read William Dunlap's Elie e£ Brockden eeege,
which praised that early novelist especially for his
nationalism, or perhaps noted the tremendous popular
reaction to Waverley,7 whose subject was the rise of
nationalistic fervor among the Scots. The general cry

for an American Literature was in the air, however, and

 

Cooper obviously heard it. Encouraged by family and
friends to write again, and finding a subject in one of
Governor John Jay's stories of the Revolution, Cooper
produced Tee EEK-

The story, as every student of American literature
knows, is about the humble but noble—hearted and cour-
ageous pedler Harvey Birch and his sacrifices for the
Revolutionary cause. Its cast of characters includes a
pair of lovely American girls with divided loyalties,

a duplicitous British officer, and General George Wash—
ington himself, for the most part in disguise. Its
setting is Westchester County, the "Neutral Ground" on
which the opposing sides clash. The reader of Lionel
Lincoln sees familiar elements in all this, such as the
patriotic intent (although in the later book, intent

does not become accomplishment). The preface to the
first edition of TQe Spy notes its patriotic theme, and
is in fact a disquisition on the problems and pleasures
of writing about and for Americans, employing much the
same arguments on both mentioned above. If further proof
were needed that Cooper was highly sensitive to the
question of creating a native literature, this preface
along would provide it. Then, too, the appearance/reality
conflict appears frequently in TEe §EX as it does in
Lionel Lincoln. Harvey Birch is thought to be a British

spy while actually working for the Americans; Washington

 

10

initially appears as the mysterious stranger Harper;
Colonel Wellmere seems to be an honest suitor for Sarah
Wharton's hand when he is really already married, and

so on. The appearance/reality conflict will become both
a literary device and a major theme for Cooper.

TEe Spy is a great improvement over Cooper's
first novel. The plot is more substantial and the char-
acters more varied and lifelike. There are surprising
and welcome doses of comedy in Surgeon Sitgreaves and
Betty Flanagan. Despite touches of melodrama, the
insipidity of most of the females, and a weak ending,
the book has a liveliness and a feeling of realism that
can only come from a writer's familiarity with and real
interest in his subject.

Precaution had made little stir in the literary
marketplace; in the United States and in England, Boynton

says, it was "mildly commended."8

TEe §py, so unlike the
typical reading matter of the American public, was a
riskier venture. Thus Cooper was forced to be his own
publisher, keeping the copyright; Charles Wiley would
serve only as printer when the book came out in 1821.9
The book was an immediate success with readers; reviewers,
despite their avidly expressed desires for an American

book, cautiously awaited British opinion as usual--a

habit of cultural dependence which angered Cooper.

 

11

Critical appreciation for See Spy came late, and in some
cases grudgingly.lo

With the popular success of Spe Spy, changes
began to take place in Cooper's life. The entire family
moved to New York City in 1822, partly in order to be
nearer the printer;11 Cooper had not been able to watch
over the printing of his first two, typographically
flawed books and was determined to remedy this situation.
Once there, he became part of the current literary circle
composed of such men as Halleck, Bryant, and Verplanck.
He even became the leading spirit of a conversational
and convivial club, the Bread and Cheese Lunch, attended
by men of literary and social prominence. The pace of
his life must have picked up considerably from the
leisurely days at Angevine.

He continued to write, producing his third novel,
Spe Pioneers, in 1822. Once more he could warm to his
subject as he had to Ipe Spy's, since the novel's locale
was the Cooperstown of his boyhood, or at least his
gentler memories of it. Spe Pioneers holds more interest
for the student of the Leatherstocking Tales than for the
student of Lionel Lincoln, since it is the first of the
Natty Bumppo stories. There is nevertheless some common
ground between the two. Both are "pictures" (EEe Pioneers
is labelled "A Descriptive Tale") of segments of American

society involved in conflict, and both pictures are

   

12

presented in part so that the reader may gain an under—
standing of the causes and principles behind the conflicts.
In She Pioneers, the young settlement and the characters
of Oliver, Judge Temple, Natty, and Indian John serve as
an illustration of Cooper's views on "The conflict between
the principles of vested family rights, individual demo—

. . . . . . . 12
cratic initiative, and a moral imperative."

In Lionel
Lincoln, the opening of the Revolution in Boston plainly
illustrates the thesis that British misunderstanding of,
and prejudice against, the American character led directly
to the war; this is Cooper's view on the conflict's
causes. Both novels, then, portray part of the American
experience with an eye to explaining KEY that experience
occurred.

Cooper also found it desirable to use the
appearance/reality device in She Pioneers, disguising
the heir Oliver Effingham as the hunter Oliver Edwards
to facilitate plot development. The reader of Lionel
Lincoln will see a parallel; there too plot development
depends heavily on its use.

She Pioneers was reasonably successful and it
was quickly followed by a book which sailed in yet another
new direction, She SSSee. Apparently piqued by what he
thought was the lubberliness of Sir Walter Scott's
descriptions of sea life in She Pirate, Cooper set about

writing a genuine sea novel. Once more his own

\

 

13

experience and knowledge was to serve as the basis for
a novel, as it had in part for The Spy and The Pioneers.
His helpmate and advisor on the new book was William
Branford Shubrick, once a midshipman with Cooper and
later an admiral at the Boston naval yard.l3 Shubrick,
as we shall see, was also closely connected with the
beginnings of Lionel Lincoln.

There was a slight hiatus before The Pilot was
published in 1824; Boynton notes the reasons for it and
the final result:

The completion of The Pilot was delayed by the
death of Cooper's two-year—old son Fenimore, and by
his own serious illness. In a letter written many
years later he speaks of this seizure as "a bilious
attack" from which he had never wholly recovered.
The new novel was not published until January, 1824.
The S and The Pioneers had made a sure audience
for it, and the first printing was sold out at once.
Miller published it in England, and there too it was

greeted with enthusiasm. 14
Cooper was the lion of the hour.

 

Flushed by success, Cooper seems to have decided
that at this point in his career it was time to stop
skipping haphazardly from subject to subject, from
setting to setting, and to start a more carefully planned
and ordered method of novel-writing. He may have
reasoned that it would be more sensible to mine one
subject thoroughly, say, the Revolution and only then
move on to others, such as the frontier. Whatever his

logic, he settled upon a scheme intended to guide him

 

14

firmly for some time to come. That scheme was the
writing of a series of novels, each dealing with a par—
ticular state's participation in the Revolution, to be
called "Legends of the Thirteen Republics.“ The plan
sounded admirable. Even a little known portion of the
subject had proven its public appeal in She Spy. And
although Cooper ever refused to conciliate the reviewers
and critics, he was one with them in the belief that
America deserved and had the materials for a literature
unique to her. As Ezra Stiles remarked, "None but
Americans can write the American war"15 and one staunch
American was about to try. As Arvid Shulenberger has
said, "In [Cooper's] outlining such a series, his
patriotic motives seem to have been at their strongest."l6
In keeping with this new method of novel—writing,
Cooper selected the most logical starting point for the
series: the exciting and famous events in Massachusetts
which opened the conflict. This particular choice too
must have seemed an excellent one. The fiftieth anni-
versary of the Battle of Bunker Hill was but a year off
and no doubt Cooper sought to bring out the novel in time
to coincide with the patriotic commemorations and cele-
brations already being planned. Furthermore, the subject
would not only appeal strongly to the local audience of

Boston, but to the broader national audience as well; by

 

15

1824, the heritage of Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill
belonged not just to New England, but to the whole nation.
Yet certain problems immediately presented them—
selves. In writing She Spy, Cooper had a foundation on
which to build. First, the anecdote about the spy told
to him by Governor Jay provided the basic idea, and
second, his personal knowledge of the Westchester County
area allowed him to create, with ease, a believable,
detailed setting. For the new book, however, the story
line would have to be the product of his own invention,
while the setting and the way in which the events
unfolded would have to be true to historical fact.
Since Cooper's knowledge of the Boston area and its
history was not adequate, he would have to increase that
knowledge in order to recreate the setting and events.
He obviously had no difficulty in inventing plots, and
he set about remedying the second problem at once. He
began planning a trip to Boston where his friend and
advisor on She ESSee William Shubrick lived. He intended
to visit the battle sites and also to consult written
material on the events of 1775-1776, in order to obtain
an accurate view of them. To Cooper, such accuracy was
a major goal in a strictly historical novel, which was
how he conceived of Lionel Lincoln. In January, 1824,
he did visit Boston and continued to read a good deal

17

in preparation for his own writing. The problem of

 

16

achieving authenticity and a better knowledge of his
subject was solved satisfactorily.

There was another more subtle problem, however,
which could not be solved so easily or directly, for it
stemmed from a deeply ingrained attitude. Cooper always
attempted to be fair to New Englanders. His description
of their character in Notions e: She Americans, for
instance, is, if not enthusiastic, at least scrupulous
in giving them credit for their virtues:

The people of New England are, even to this hour,
distinguished among their own active and quick-witted
countrymen, for their enterprise, frugality, order,
and intelligence. The three latter qualities, taken

in conjunction, I believe they have a right to claim
to a degree that is elsewhere unequalled.18

Less formally ,he wrote in 1830:

Whatever else I may think of the Yankees, they are
precisely the last people on earth I should attempt
to bully out of an opinion. A calmer, firmer,
braver people does not walk this earth.
But one key to his difficulty in writing a novel about
New Englanders lies, of course, in that "Whatever else
I may think." Cooper was a writer who needed a certain
amount of rapport with a place and its people before he
could recreate it fictionally. His ability to construct
a believable setting and realistic characters, that is
to achieve verisimilitude, depended on his having a

comfortable familiarity with their originals. Thus his

 

l7

intimate knowledge of the settings and/or people of
She Spy, She Eilee, and She Pioneers was a contributing
factor in their success. In Lionel Lincoln, Cooper had
to try to overcome not just a lack of knowledge about
the area itself, but at bottom, a real lack of sympathy
for what he understood to be the Yankee character. The
sharp eye always open for a bargain, the tendency to
cant inherent in Puritanism, perhaps even the nasality
of the speech grated on him. Moreover, he saw New
Englanders as pushing their way into political and
economic power while self-righteously condemning and
trying to correct the ways of people different from them.
As one of his biographers has said of Cooper at this time:
"If ever a New Yorker of Quaker descent, married into a
Tory family with a long French lineage, and moving easily
among the young 'Knickerbocker' group of writers of the
early twenties, warmly sympathised with the New Englanders,
it was surely not the author of Lionel Lincoln."20
Cooper was not unaware of his negative attitude.
Indeed, how could he be when friends soon brought to his
attention the fact that he already had expressed that
attitude in his writing? For instance, in She Pioneers,
Cooper created two New England characters. One, Hiram
Doolittle, is characterized as a man "of a tall, gaunt
formation, with rather sharp features, and a face that

expressed formal propriety, mingled with low cunning."21

 

18

The other, Dr. Elnathan Todd, with the tall gangling body
Cooper tended to appropriate solely to New Englanders,

is a more comic figure. Dr. Todd has come to Templeton
to make his fortune by doctoring after being "educated"
in Massachusetts. Cooper's account of his progress to
his present status, i.e. the public's having "great con-
fidence in Dr. Todd, whose reputation was hourly increas—
ing, and, luckily for his patients, his information

also,"22

is humorous, but filled with gibes at the
Yankees. In both characters, the traits which identify
them as New Englanders are the traits which make them
unpleasant or foolish. That fact was noticed at once
by Cooper's New England readers and friends. Richard
HenryIDana of Boston wrote Cooper a long letter in 1823,
full of praise for the man who is "doing for us what
Scott and Miss Edgeworth are doing for their homes.“23
Yet the letter ends with a hint of displeasure:
Allow me to add that my few literary friends feel
grateful for the pleasure you have given them, and
for what you are doing for the literary character
of our country. The voice of praise will, I doubt
not, soon reach you from the other side of the water,
tho' it should not come to you down the Connecticut
and thro' the Sound from the friends and relatives
of Hiram Doolittle and Dr. Todd.24
In his reply, Cooper did not apologize for his.

creations but vowed to "remove the impression"25 with a

noble New Englander in The Pilot. But after promising

 

19

that Dick Barnstable will compensate for the earlier
characters, Cooper in fact defends them and himself:
I write of men and things as I have seen them, and
few men of my years, have seen the world in more of
its aspects than myself——There may be a want of
ability in the delineations but there is no
unworthyness of motive—-

In 1823, Cooper's friend Shubrick also commented
on the harsh treatment of New Englanders, and only half—
jokingly implored Cooper: "But I beg you, to have some
mercy on the Yankees this time—-if they have their Doo-
littles and Todds, recollect they have also had a
Franklin and a Hancock."27

Thus Cooper had graphically illustrated his
prejudice against New England and its people before he
began writing Lionel Lincoln, and he could not help but
be aware of it, given such comments from his friends.

He must have made a conscious attempt to create more
admirable Yankees in Barnstable and Long Tom Coffin.

8 and the reader can see its

But the bias was indelible2
influence on Lionel Lincoln in both large and small ways.
It is simply not possible to find a New England character
in that novel treated heeh in depth and with sympathy.
Among the women, Mrs. Lechmere and Cecil Dynevor are
more British than American in manners and attitudes.

Agnes Danforth is at times a charming Yankee, but she

is clearly less well-mannered and less a true gentlewoman

i

20

than her cousin, and Cooper even twits her on her accent,
that "slight vernacular peculiarity" that "offended"
Lionel's ear.29 The woman with two sons, both of whom
she is willing to sacrifice for the cause of liberty,

is an admirable example of Yankee character--yet she
remains nameless and appears only once in the book.
Among the men, Job Pray can hardly be counted; Seth
Sage, though he appears often, is basically the comic
Yankee; and Joseph warren too distant and too infrequently
seen to engage us as a character. The hero, though a
"Boston boy" by birth, is British in speech, manners,
and attitudes. There are no male characters who are
identifiable both as New Englanders and sympathetic
characters; Cooper simply could not manage the combi-
nation. Also, the action is seen from an essentially
British point of view. On the long march back from Lex—
ington, we find ourselves, with them, wearied from the
nagging American attacks. Only at Bunker Hill do we
feel that the arrogant English should be beaten, and
there it is because we identify with the Americans
rather than the Yankees. Some of this slighting of the
New England character is due to the demands of plot and
theme, but much is also due to Cooper's constitutional
inability to write about New England with genuine sym—

pathy.

 

"'TIIIll""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

Such was the result, but Cooper struggled hard
with that problem and others throughout 1824. Toward
the end of that year, Lionel Lincoln was finished and
sent to the publisher. There has been a long-standing
confusion about the book's publication date, since in
volume one it is given as 1825 and in volume two as 1824.
Robert E. Spiller suggests some likely reasons for the

odd dating in the Descriptive Bibliography of Cooper's

 

writings:

Then, as now, publishers pro-dated a title page, if
the book were in press at the end of the year. This
would account for 1825 appearing in vol. I, as the
copyright was entered December 7. It may be that
vol. II was printed first, and that the dates were
actually the year of finishing the respective volumes;
or that vol. I was purposely or by mistake pro—
dated, after which Wiley changed the date of the
second volume to 1824, the copyright year.30

In any event, by early 1825 Lionel Lincoln was
before the reading public, and the reviewers. We know
now that the book is an artistic failure, that few
people except Cooper scholars will ever leaf through
its pages, that it will rest in peace, perhaps with

Mercedes efi Castille and Precaution as companions, on

 

library bookshelves. However, its failure did not
become immediately apparent to Cooper for certain factors
mitigated against the book's instant demise, as the

Cooper scholar Marcel Clavel has shown:

 

W

22

The well—established reputation of the author of
the Spy and of the Pilot, the national desire to
encourage "The American Novelist" to go on with his
plan of publishing his LEGENDS OF THE THIRTEEN
REPUBLICS, the national enthusiasm-—and sometimes
the local pride--aroused by a tale of Lexington
and Bunker Hill, and finally some undeniable merits
in the novel itself could not but influence certain
critics.31
Such is the case, for example, with the reviewer
of the United States Literagy Gazette, whose praise
admittedly stems from patriotic motives:
Brief as is the period since history first saw our
infant nation cradled in a howling wilderness, she
has found much to tell of deeds of high emprize.
She offers to the novelist abundance of materials,--
the harvest is rich enough, and we rejoice to wel-
come labourers so worthy to gather it.
Hence he expressed great satisfaction with the Lexington
march and with the battle scene at Bunker Hill, and com-
mended the drawing of some minor characters. But inter—
estingly enough he declined to comment on most of the
major characters and on plot. The critic obviously saw
flaws in the novel, but gently excused himself from
pointing them out, ostensibly because his article was
33
already too long.
other American periodicals adopted a more extreme
version of this position; feeling that they could express
little but disapproval of the book, they chose to say V

nothing at all. Their silence, according to Clavel,

intimates the novel's failure.34 The North American

 

23

Review, for instance, did not review Lionel Lincoln at
all until July, 1826, and then it received only a few
paragraphs out of some forty pages dealing mostly with
The Pioneers and She £322 e£ Ehe Mohicans. Those para-
graphs are full of pleasantries but hardly qualify as
real criticism.35
British reviewers were not so reticent. Opinions

varied. One critic found Job Pray lacking in even "the

36

virtues of a beast" but another quoted his death scene,

calling it Cooper's best effort.37 Plot was generally
castigated as being improbable or lacking in interest.
Some aspects, such as the hero's retention of his
British partisanship, were lauded (as might be expected):
"Mr. Cooper has the good taste to preserve his hero true
to his allegiance, which his fair cousin and mistress
Miss Dynevor, a staunch and candid loyalist like him—

I.38

self, feels no inclination to shake. . . . Only one

review, by the American John Neal in Blackwood's Magazine,

 

flatly categorized Lionel Lincoln as "a poor book; a

39

very poor book." Neal, however, had other than literary

motives for his attack; he saw Cooper as an ill-equipped

rival to himself in the writing of America's story,40 and

that jealousy led him to cutting remarks:

. . it is not even so good a thing as we might
have looked for from Cooper-—"the Sir Walter Scott
of Americal"--for he was never the man to set
rivers on fire. . . . 41

 

24

Sharp-eyed British reviewers were the first to
point out the odd but undeniable aspersions cast on the
American cause by Cooper's picturing Ralph and Job Pray
as its most visible leaders, and they continued to do so
for several years:

It is singular enough that the author, all throughout
most zealous for the honor of his country, makes in
this novel an idiot and a madman two principal actors
in the cause of American independence. Pretty sup-
porters truly!42
Yet most reviewers, with the exception of Neal, did in
the end recommend the book for their readers' perusal.

Interest in the book on both sides of the Atlantic
was short-lived, however, and it was quickly eclipsed by
the publication of She heee 2: She Mohicans the following
year. By 1832, when Lionel Lincoln was reprinted as part
of Colburn's collection of Standard Novels, it was dis-
missed by the Gentleman's Magazine with a single sentence:
"This volume, as well as others of the series, has,
besides its other merits, the advantage of revision,
very useful notes by the author, and an introduction."43

Cooper must have been dismayed, but he was not
one to be put off by reviewers--or lack of them--at this
point in his career. He continued to write. He pre-
ferred to see the failure of Lionel Lincoln, in fact, as
44

the failure of the idea of the American historical tale,

while he did not regard The Spy or The Pioneers as

 

A“
25

belonging to that genre. In them he had allowed his
invention full play and had felt free to violate the
order of time and events or include customs from another
age. In Lionel Lincoln, he had taken no such liberties;
rather, he had aimed for stern conformity with documented
historical facts. Such, to him, was the nature and
standard for the historical novel, but he was forced to
conclude that it "was not to be done well at all"45 if
American materials were used as the foundation. His
solution was to abandon the American historical novel,
and hence the "Legends" scheme, altogether; by 1832, he
states that he has "discontinued attempts of whose use-
lessness he has been so clearly, though so delicately,

admonished."46

In 1844, he could look back, and while
once more candidly admitting Lionel Lincoln's failure,
quietly triumph over those who had thought that such a
failure marked the end of Cooper the writer:

Lionel Lincoln appeared in 1824 [1825]. This
book failed, and perhaps justly. It was strictly
an American Historical Novel, a class of which none
ever succeeded. The end of the author's career was
now openly announced.

The Mohicans was published in 1825 [1826]. . . .
It succeeded perfectly, forming a totally new class
of romance.47

Before he died in 1851, Cooper, still embittered.

by the American press' harsh treatment of him in his

later years, asked his daughter Susan Fenimore Cooper

not to authorize a biography.48 Thus, with the exception

 

26

of her Small Family Memories, written for the family, no
biography of him appeared until 1882. In that year,
Thomas Lounsbury published the first critical biography,

James Fenimore Cooper. About four pages are devoted to

 

Lionel Lincoln. His treatment of it is harsh; it is
termed "one of Cooper's most signal failures."49 He
finds the incidents of the plot "impossible," the style
"labored," the dialogue "both stilted and dull," and the

. 50
characters "in no case successfully drawn."

In damning
the character of Job, he manages to damn the entire cast
of characters as well: "It is, indeed, impossible to
feel much sympathy with one particular imbecile, no
matter how patriotic, in a story where most of the actors

are represented as acting like idiots."51

Only in the
battle scenes, deferring to the historian Bancroft, who
once said that the Battle of Bunker Hill is described
better in Lionel Lincoln "better than it is described

in any other work,"52

does Lounsbury find "real excel—
lence."53 Praise for the historical scenes has been
and continues to be a constant in the criticism of the
novel.

Critics have by and large followed Lounsbury's
lead. With a nod to the battle scenes, they generally
judge the book a mistake to be passed over quickly.

Such is the case with Carl Van Doren and F. L. Pattee in

the 1920's; as Clavel notes, both dispatch Lionel Lincoln

 

27

in short order.54

More recently, interest in Cooper has
taken other than purely literary directions. His politi—

cal attitudes have been examined,55 for instance, and

.there have been brief excursions into his ability to

create psychologically correct characters. In that
light, Lionel Lincoln appears satisfactory. Ernest

Leisy says the book contains "penetrating psychological

56

analysis," and George Snell states that "of all his

novels, 'Lionel Lincoln' shows the greatest depth of

insight and a seriousness of interpretation lacking in

57

the better-known works." But more modern critics of

Cooper have reverted to the original estimate of the
book. Two can serve as samples of the rest. To James
Grossman, the story "is remarkably successful in the

handling of the purely historical material but a dismal

58

failure as a whole." He attributes that failure pri—

marily to the great reversal at the end, citing it as

"59

"too tremendous and too unexpected. George Dekker,

in James Fenimore Cooper the Novelist agrees that it is

the ending which wrecks the novel completely.60 H. W.

 

Boynton, a biographer, attributes the book's inferiority
to Cooper's lack of sympathy with New England and its

people, and finds the preface more entertaining than the
book itself.61 Among current critics and scholars, the 1

reasons for the book's failure may be disputed, but the

 

28

fact that Lionel Lincoln fails is not. And Fenimore

Cooper himself concurred in that judgment.

 

NOTES--CHAPTER I

lSusan Fenimore Cooper, Small Family Memories,
in Correspondence of James Fenimore Coo er, ed. James
Fenimore Cooper, I—TNew Haven: Yale University Press,
1922), p. 35.

 

21bid., p. 37.

3Henry Walcott Boynton, James Fenimore Cooper
(New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Company, 1966),
p. 69.

 

4Susan Cooper, Family Memories, p. 38.

5My account of the rise of literary nationalism
in the United States is taken from Benjamin T. Spencer,
She Quest See Nationality (Syracuse University Press,
1957), Chapters 1- .

6Ibid., p. 74.

7Spencer, p. 38, quotes contemporary observer
Samuel Goodrich as saying that Waverley made "a greater
sensation in the United States than . . . some of the
battles of Napoleon."

8Boynton, Cooper, p. 84.

91bid., pp. 92-93.

10Detailed information on American critics'
belated reactions to The S can be found in Marcel y
Clavel, Fenimore Cooper an His Critics (Aix-en-Provence:

Universitaire de Provence, 1938), pp. 77—107.

29

 

30

11Susan Cooper, Family Memories, p. 48.

12Robert E. Spiller, "Afterword," in James Feni-
more Cooper, The Pioneers (New York: The New American
Library, 1964), p.

l3Shubrick remained a lifelong friend of the
entire Cooper family; after his death, the eldest Cooper
daughter, Susan, wrote an admiring biographical article
on him. See Susan Fenimore Cooper, "Rear-Admiral William
Branford Shubrick," Harper's hey Monthly Magazine, 53
(August, 1876), 400—07.

l4Boynton, Cooper, p. 124.

15Quotation from President Ezra Stiles of Yale
in Spencer, p. 42.

l6Arvid Shulenberger, Coo er's Theor eS Fiction
(Lawrence: University of Kansas Publications, 1955),
p. 24.

17The trip and the sources consulted by Cooper
will be considered in more detail in the following chapter.

18James Fenimore Cooper, Notions e: the Americans,
I (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Company, I§63),
p. 91.

19W. B. Shubrick Clymer, James Fenimore Cooper
(New York: Haskell House Publishers Ltd., 1968), p. 41.

2°Ibid.

21James Fenimore Cooper, The Pioneers; 2E! The
Sources e; the Sus uehanna, XIX (New York: W. A. Town—
send and Company, g859), p. 128.

221bid., p. 79.

23James Fenimore Cooper, ed., Correspondence eS
James Fenimore-Coo er, I (New Haven: Yale UniverSity
Press, 1922), p. §2

31

24Ibid., p. 94.

25James Franklin Beard, ed., The Letters and
Journals 2: James Fenimore Coo er, I (Cambridge: The
Belknap Press of Harvard UniverSity Press, 1960), p. 94.

 

26Ibid.

27Boynton, Cooper, p. 121.

281n fact, Cooper's anti-New England feelings
appear to have grown stronger in later years. The por-
trait of the Connecticut schoolmaster Jason Newcome in
Satanstoe (1845) is far more vicious than humorous.

29James Fenimore Cooper, Lionel Lincoln; 93, The
Leaguer 9: Boston, XII (New York: W. A. Townsend and
Company, 1859), p. 46.

 

30Robert E. Spiller and Philip C. Blackburn, 5
Descriptive Bibliography 9: She Writihgs eS James Feni—
more Coo er (New York: R. R. Bowker Company, 1934),
pp. 39-40.

 

 

31Marcel Clavel, Fenimore Cooper and His Critics
(Aix-en—Provence: UniverSitaire de Provence, 1938),
p. 265.

32"Lionel Lincoln; or, The Leaguer of Boston,"
The United States Literagy Gazette, 1 (March 1, 1825), 337.

 

33Ibid., 340.

34Clavel, Cooper and Critics, p. 267.

35"Cooper's Novels," The North Americeh Review,
23 (July, 1826), 152-53.

 

36Clavel, Cooper and Critics, p. 283.

37Ibid., p. 276.

381bid., p. 283.

 

32

39"N" [John Neal], "Late American Books; Lionel
Lincoln," Blackwood's Magazine, 18 (September, 1825), 323.

 

 

4oClavel, Cooper and Critics, p. 279.

41Neal, "Late American Books," 323.

42Clavel, Cooper and Critics, p. 284.
43Ibid.
44

See Cooper's remarks in the preface to the 1832
English edition of Lionel Lincoln, reprinted in Shulen—
berger, pp. 26—27.

45Shulenberger, Cooper's Theory, p. 26.
461bid.
47

James Fenimore Cooper, "Cooper's Autobiographical
Notes," in Clavel, p. 393.

48Cooper, Correspondence, p. 3.

49Thomas R. Lounsbury, James Fenimore Copper
(Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1884), p. 50.

 

5°Ibid., p. 51.

51Ibid.

52Clavel, Cooper and Critics, p. 269.

53Lounsbury, Cooper, p. 51.

54Clavel, Cooper and Critics, p. 274.

55See Dorothy Waples, The Whig Myth of James

Fenimore Cooper (New Haven: Yale UniverSity_Fress, 1938).
56Ernest E. Leisy, The American Historical Novel

(Norman: The University of Oklahoma Press, 1950), pp. 70-
71.

 

 

 

33

57George Snell, "The Shaper of American Romance,"
Yale Review, 34 (March, 1945), 485.

58James Grossman, James Fenimore Cooper (New York:

William Sloane Associates, 1949), p. 40.

 

59Ibid., p. 42.

60George Dekker, James Fenimore Copper the Novelist
(London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1967), p- 41.

 

61Boynton, Cooper, p. 128.

 

CHAPTER II

THE USE OF SOURCES IN

LIONEL LINCOLN

Mr. Cooper, the author of the "Spy," "Pioneers,"

etc is now on a visit to this city. His last work,

the "Pilot," is announced for sale by the book-

sellers.

Thus the Boston Commercial Gazette for Monday,
January 12, 1824, tersely remarked on James Fenimore
Cooper's presence in the heartland of the Yankees. After
many delays and postponements, he had finally come to do
the research for Lionel Lincoln, which would consist of
touring battle sites and examining terrain, visiting the
landmarks still surviving from Revolutionary days, and
procuring various written accounts of the historical
events themselves. Much time and activity went into his
preparations for the novel, and this chapter will attempt
to delineate some of the ways in which Cooper spent that
time: what he looked at and what books he read, both
in Boston and after he had "safely . . . got out of
2

Yankee'landl“ In other words, it will deal with the

"sources" for Lionel Lincoln, both the information

34

 

35

gathered from the Boston trip itself, and the information
gained from written accounts.

Cooper's Boston journey has long been an object,
if not of mystery, at least of much uncertainty. That
he had long planned to go there is made plain in a letter
to William Branford Shubrick on September 7, 1823, in
which his initial greeting is, "I was in hopes of seeing
you before this. . . . "3 But serious events at home,
the death of his son Fenimore Cooper on August fifth of
that year and his own ill-health,4 forced him to postpone
the journey even past the October date suggested by Shu-
brick.5 From the dates of two published letters, one to
Samuel Lewis Southard, postmarked December 11, 1823 in
New York6 and one to Shubrick, discussing his return
home, dated by James Franklin Beard as "25—30? Jan—-5

Feb 1824,"7

it is evident that Cooper finally made the
trip sometime between those two dates, but its exact
date has never been established. The newspaper notice
quoted above does, however, help to fix the date more
specifically. It may be assumed that the notice was
printed soon after Cooper's arrival, and since the
Boston Commercial Gazette was published twice a week,
on Mondays and Thursdays, it seems likely that Cooper
arrived some time between Thursday, January 8, and
Monday, January 12, 1824. The specific date of his

departure from Boston still cannot be ascertained,

36

although it was obviously shortly before January 25, 1824,
the first date on the letter to Shubrick referring to
Cooper's return home.

While in the Boston area, Cooper evidently stayed
in Charlestown with his friend, advisor, and the man to

whom The Pilot was dedicated, William Branford Shubrick.8

 

0 O O 0 9
One other companion accompanied Cooper on his "buSiness,"

the research for Lionel Lincoln: Paul Trapier, a Harvard

 

student and a nephew of Shubrick.

The relationship between Cooper and Trapier must
have been a congenial one, for Cooper quickly invented
a nickname, "St. Paul,"10 for the young man, and the
pleasant memory of the days spent searching out battle
sites together endured over the years. In 1845, Trapier,
by then a noted Episcopalian clergyman in Charleston,

South Carolina, wrote to C00per that he remembered "dis—

tinctly even the sobriquet, which you bestowed on him

 

[Trapier himself] so many years ago, when we went together
over the fields, which the 'leaguer of Boston' was soon to
invest with fresh interest for every American reader."ll
That sentence, from a letter written twenty—one
years after the fact, is unfortunately the only definite
statement available concerning Cooper's activities in
Boston.12 But from that statement we can assume that

Cooper did achieve his primary purpose, to see the

"fields," that is, Bunker Hill and probably Lexington

37

and Concord, since the word is plural, at first hand.
Whether or not viewing those battlefields was helpful
to the novel is a moot point. By the time of Cooper's
visit, vestiges of the American fortifications on Bunker
Hill were disappearing. According to a local historian,
Samuel Adams Drake, "A visitor in 1824 says the redoubt
was nearly effaced; scarcely a trace of it remaining,
while the intrenchment running towards the marsh was
still distinct."13
For what Cooper saw besides the actual battle

sites, we must depend on less direct evidence obtained

from secondary sources and from the text of Lionel Lincoln

 

itself. Such evidence ranges from the substantial to the
purely theoretical; I will examine it in the order of its
plausibility.

A very strong case can be made for Cooper's
visiting a mansion known as the Frankland house, and
using it as the model for the Lechmere house in the
novel. This is stated as unquestionable fact by two

different sources. The mammoth Memorial Histopy eh

 

Boston declares, "The novelist Cooper's description of

the Frankland house on Garden Court Street may stand as

a tolerably just account of a house which was regarded
"14

as expressing the greatest personal pride . . . and.

proceeds to quote from Lionel Lincoln. A footnote

 

adds that Cooper manipulated fact to suit fiction:

38

"Cooper has applied the actual description to the purposes
of his story; the centre piece was a shield bearing the
device of the family of William Clark, who built and
occupied the house before Frankland,--a bar with three
white swans."15 In 1900, Samuel Adams Drake puts the
idea even more firmly and notes another instance of
Cooper's poetic license—-a change in the location of
the house:
Mr. Cooper, the novelist, visited the Frankland
house and examined it minutely before he wrote
"Lionel Lincoln," in which the house is described
as the residence of Mrs. Lechmere and located in
Tremont Street. Mr. Cooper talks about the "salient
lions" of the tesselated floor, into which a fertile
imagination converted the peaceful swans of the
Clarks.15
Furthermore, Cooper describes the house as having two
stories with seven windows, those at the ends being much
narrower than the others.17 Thus the description cor-
responds to the actual house pictured in the Memorial

18 The evidence is persuasive, though neither

History.
book gives a source for its information, that Cooper
did indeed visit the Frankland house and adopt it as a
suitable model for the opulent Lechmere mansion.

In the early 1820's, another well-known landmark
in the city was the Triangular Warehouse. There seem to
have been two reasons for its notoriety: its odd shape

and the fact that no one knew the purpose for which it

was originally constructed. In 1825, a local historian,

39

Caleb Snow, discussed the materials of its construction,

its dimensions and its possible origins at length:

The origin of that singular building is involved in
a happy obscurity, which has given rise to much
curious speculation. It stood at the head of the
Town Dock, as it was in July last, on the north side
of the same. . . . It was built of brick, on a stone
foundation, and had a slated roof. There were two
principal stories in the building with a good celler
underneath. The lower story appeared to have been
arched, with very many doors and windows. On each
corner, and in the centre of the roof there was a
tower, . . . topped with a ball. The centre ball
was of wood; the others were of stone, all fixed on
iron spires set in lead. Conjecture has made this
edifice to have been a fort built for the protection
of the town, or a custom house for the accomodation
of government; there is, however, good reason to
believe that it was not erected for any publick
purpose, but that it was built about the year 1700,
by London merchants, for a commercial warehouse.l9

In 1882, the Memorial Histogyp in an attempt at more

 

straightforward history, "regrets" that a "clear and
authentic account" cannot be given of "that curious old
structure, the mysterious Triangular Warehouse.“20 And
it comments tartly on Snow's cheerful acceptance of the
mystery:
We are told that its origin is "involved in a happy
obscurity." What special cause for congratulation
is to be found in this uncertainty of origin is not

quite clear, unless it be the furnishing a guessing
problem for Yankee wits.21

The structure was not razed until August, 1824.22 The

point of all this, of course, is that Cooper did not

draw the picture of the "old ware'us'" where Abigail

40

Pray dwells (31-32) from any written account but from
what he himself saw. It seems likely that he visited

the building in the course of his wanderings about
Boston, perhaps heard the tales and speculation about its
mysterious shape and purpose, and used that information
when he began writing. Like the mystery surrounding

the stone tower known as the "NeWport Ruin" which COOper

discusses in The Red Rover (1827), the mystery surrounding

 

the Triangular Warehouse is just the sort of thing which
intrigued him, and that building's odd atmosphere is per-

fectly suited to its function in Lionel Lincoln.

 

Furthermore, it is highly likely that there are
other buildings in the novel which COOper described
accurately not because he consulted history texts, but
because he E2! them. I can produce no documentation,
but it seems self-evident that if the ordinary tourist
in Boston customarily visits such places as Faneuil Hall
and the Common, then surely a novelist in the city to do
research for a historical novel would make a point of
doing so. One such building was the mansion which
housed the royal governors, Province House, later used
for public business until the Massachusetts State House
was built. It was still standing in January of 1824,
although by then it was the property of the Massachusetts
General Hospital.23 In Revolutionary days, Province

House was "the central scene of the chief pageantries,

41

gayeties, and formalities of the king's vice-court in

Boston,"24

and this is precisely how Cooper employs the
building. Lionel stops before its "gates," a correct
detail of its exterior,25 to query a sentinel about the
meeting of generals within (110-111), applies there for
permission from General Gage to serve at Bunker Hill
(218-219), and Cecil Dynevor interrupts a banquet of
the British command there to ask help of General Howe
(376 ff.).

Directly next to the Frankland House, described
earlier, was the mansion of Governor Thomas Hutchinson,
one of the figures in the early Stamp Act troubles who
was most hated by the patriots. Job Pray points to the
house with scorn:

"And there ag'inl" he continued; "there's palaces
for you! Stingy Tommy lived in the one with the

pileaxters, and the flowers hanging to their tops;
and see the crowns on them, too!" (28)

If we compare this to the Memorial History's less emotional

 

description, we see that Cooper is accurate again: "The
house itself was of brick and painted, the plainness of
the facade being relieved by a representation of the
British crown over every window, and by a row of Ionic
pilasters, the capital of one of which, richly adorned.
with a sculptured crown and festoon, is preserved in the

"26

collection of the Historical Society. The pilasters

and crowns are here, albeit slightly rearranged, and the

42

"hanging flowers" are apparently Job's version of a
festoon. The description quoted dates from 1882; however,
in 1824, Cooper could have seen the house itself, which
was well-known as one of the "chief architectural orna-

ments"27

of the city. In fact, given its location, it
would have been nearly impossible for him not to have

seen it, assuming that Drake and the Memorial History

 

are correct in stating that he came to the Frankland
house. It is likely therefore that the description of
the Hutchinson mansion is based on first-hand observation,
as is that of the Province House.

The present day visitor to Boston in search of
his nation's roots automatically visits Faneuil Hall;
would the historical novelist do less? Cooper's brief
description of its external appearance (30) is accurate
for the building as it would have looked in 1775. By
the time of his visit, however, it had been enlarged and

28 Details about its former

a third story added.
appearance would still have been available though. The
rebuilding had not altered its basic design and, besides,
engravings of the older structure had been printed and
widely circulated.29

Two churches play parts in Lionel Lincoln. King's

 

Chapel, in which Lionel attends services and is married,
stood in Cooper's time, as it still does. Though it is

the scene of several important incidents in the novel,

43

Cooper's physical description of it is scanty. He does
make much of the soldiers idly loitering in the heavy
portico at its entrance and the colonnade is frequently
noted (265-266). The portico is one of the novel's few
anachronisms; it was not completed until 1789.30 By and
large, COOper's research and careful attention to detail
resulted in a high degree of historical accuracy; errors
occur infrequently, and when they do, they are very minor,
as is the case with the portico.

Cooper could also have visited the Old South
Church. He uses the famous story about the abuse it
took during the British occupation of Boston. Its pews
were taken out, its floor covered with dirt, and it was
converted into a riding school for the dragoons--a
notorious and particularly flagrant example of British
disrespect for the colonists and their values. Cooper
employs the story successfully tounderline his theme
that the real cause of the Revolution was just such con-
tempt and misunderstanding on the part of the British;
only Lionel, sensitive to both sides, notes what a gross
affront to the colonists this act is (298-299). The
story would have been available to Cooper from virtually
any book on Boston's history; it appeared, for instance,

at least as early as the 1794 volume of the Massachusetts

 

Historical Society Collections.31 The multiplicity of

 

the places in which the story was printed makes it

44

impossible to determine from which, if any, Cooper

obtained it; indeed the tale seems to have been so well

known that he might have heard it, rather than read it.
So far, all the buildings mentioned by Cooper in

Lionel Lincoln were still standing in January, 1824; it

 

is highly likely that he visited them, gathering "atmos-
phere" and background details for his novel at first
hand. His daughter Susan has said of her father's
method, "When writing on subjects connected with history,
biography, or statistics, . . . he immediately became the
careful, pain-staking student, and would search out any
interesting little detail of relative importance with

great patience and close application."32 Lionel Lincoln,

 

in Cooper's own words, was his only "American Historical

Novel;"33

is it unlikely that he would have walked about
the city, looked up at the colonnade of King's Chapel,
wondered at the oddity of the Triangular Warehouse, been
struck by the story of the Old South's desecration, when
he had come to Boston with the express purpose of gather-
ing such historical background? It seems most probable
that he would have, and that the descriptions of the
buildings noted were drawn "from life"--the structures
themselves.

But even in a city which has always valued and

attempted to preserve its past as Boston has, changes

are made. Old structures are torn down; new ones replace

45

them. Many of the landmarks of the Revolution had already
disappeared by the time of Cooper's visit, yet by some
means he gained enough knowledge about them to reconstruct
them for his novel. A few of these will be noted and
possible sources for Cooper's knowledge of them suggested.

One important early landmark was already severely
damaged by the time of Lionel's arrival in Boston: the
Liberty Tree. As part of Lionel's introduction to the
patriot cause, Cooper has Job Pray spend nearly two
pages telling of "this marvellous tree"; how it unfail—
ingly provided news of the king's plans or of town meet-
ings, the mysterious and well-kept secret of who posted
such news, and its use as a gallows for effigies (91-93).
Job, who is usually rude, even bares his head in reverence
before its stump--the British, in an act of petty ven-
geance, had cut it down in 1774.

After the war, the stump was marked by a liberty-
pole which remained until 1826.34 Where did Cooper obtain

the details for Job's lengthy story? One possible written

source is The Life 9: James Otis by William Tudor, pub-

 

lished in 1823; as I shall show later, Cooper had a ten-
dency to draw from recently published, hence easily
available, books.

There are differences in language between Tudor's
account and Job's, for Cooper gives Job a peculiar
countryman's idiom, but similarities in content. Here is

the pertinent passage from Tudor:

46

This tree was one of those majestic elms, of
the American species, that form one of the greatest
ornaments in the landscape of this country. It
stood in front of a house, opposite the Boylston
Market, on the edge of the street, . . . On the 14th
of August, 1765, an effigy representing Mr. Oliver,
appointed to distribute the stamps, and a boot (the
emblem of Lord Bute) with the devil peeping out of
it, with the Stamp Act in his hand, and various
other satirical emblems, were suspended from its
branches. . . . In the evening the figures were
taken down, carried in procession through the
streets, and through the Town House, to a small
building in State-street, which Mr. Oliver had
erected for a stamp office; this was entirely
demolished. . . .

The next day Mr. Oliver announced through his
friends on the exchange, that he had declined the
office of stamp distributor; but it being intimated
to him, that it would conduce to the quiet of the
public, if he would come to this tree and resign it,
Openly, he appeared there accordingly, and declared
in the presence of a large concourse of spectators
that he would not accept the place. It was thence-
forward called Liberty Tree. . . . On future occasions
there was seldom any excitement on political subjects,
without some token of a salute to it. Whenever any
obnoxious offices were to be resigned, or agreements
for patriotic purposes entered into, the parties
received notice clandestinely, that they would be
expected at the Liberty Tree, at a particular time,
where they always found pens and paper and a numerous
crowd of witnesses, though the genius of the tree
was invisible. When the British army took possession
of the Town in 1774, it fell a victim to their ven-
geance, or to that of the individuals, to whom its
shade had been disagreeable.35

The same basic information is given both in this
account and in Cooper's passage (91-93). Cooper says the
tree is "on the borders of a street"; Tudor says it is
"on the edge of the street." Popular processions salute
it as Job does. The effigy represents Mr. Oliver, who

becomes "old Noll" in Job's folksy dialect, and Lord Bute

(in Job's pronunciation, "Lord Boot," the object and the

47

man become one) as the devil peeping out of a shoe, or,
as Job says, "Satan sticking out on't." Job becomes one
of the spectators who watch Oliver decline his office.

In both accounts, the tree's function is a kind of news-
paper for the patriots whose publisher is unknown, though
Job says it is Liberty herself. Cooper elaborates a bit,
adding a fanciful comparison of the writing on the tree
to that of Master Lovell, famous master of the Boston
Latin School, but the facts in both passages are essen-
tially the same. Cooper could have gained all the infor-
mation he gives about the Liberty Tree from this brief
passage. The theory that he did so is strengthened by

other similarities between Tudor and Lionel Lincoln.

 

For instance, Tudor stresses the idea that Governor
Hutchinson continually tried "to enrich and aggrandize

himself"36

while in the provincial government; Job always
characterizes him as a man who "loved crowns" (28).
Another structure frequently mentioned in Lionel
Lincoln is the swing bridge, near the Triangular Ware-
house; entry to and exit from the Warehouse are made via
this bridge. By 1824, it had long since vanished, and a
genuinely likely source for Cooper's knowledge of it

cannot be suggested. He might have noted its description

in a volume of the Historical Society's Collections or

 

perhaps looked at an old map in the Historical Society

itself. He certainly could have visited the Society,

48

then located in the Tontine Crescent,37 a fine place

for the examination of the "local publications" which
he mentions in his introduction to the novel, yet proof
that he actually did so cannot be produced.

Cooper's penchant for accuracy led him not only
to recreate old structures, but in some cases, to revert
to the use of place names which had been changed or aban-
doned since the Revolution. For instance, the district
referred to as "Fort-hill" in 1824 becomes "Corn-Hill"
as it was called in 1775, and State Street returns to
its older name of King Street. Such name changes lead
me to suspect the use of a map, perhaps the one known as
the Bonner Map, since it was well-known and includes all
the details I have mentioned thus far in this chapter,
unlike later maps.40 If Cooper went so far as to con—
sult a "journal" on the vagaries of the weather as he
states,41 the use of a map for names and locations is not
improbable.

The question of names and where Cooper obtained
his information about them also arises in connection
with the characters. What are the origins of the surnames
Cooper gives them? I have not found any single book of
genealogy published prior to 1824 from which he could
have selected them; once more I can only offer reasonable

conjecture. One name at least seems easily accounted

for, that of Lechmere. The point of land, which Cooper

49

is careful not to name, on which the British debark on
the eve of Lexington, was called first Phip's Farm and
then for many years, Lechmere's Point. The name came
from one Richard Lechmere, who got the land by marrying
the daughter of Spencer Phips, a royal lieutenant-
governor; Lechmere too was a Tory and during the
Revolution, his land was confiscated and he was forced
to flee.42 The name and the story were common knowledge
and Lechmere must have appealed to Cooper as an appro-
priate surname for the old woman royalist.

The main character's name is less easy to account
for. The name is an old one, the first Lincoln having

settled in the Boston area in 163743

yet its bearers
were not particularly distinguished in local history,

as for example, the Adams' were. Perhaps Cooper
selected it for that very reason; the name would have

a comfortable, familiar New England ring to it, yet it
would remain free from instant identification with either
side in the conflict. Most of the other names seem
suitable for the characters who bear them, such as

Pray, a common local name, for Abigail and her son,

and Dynevor, a name BEE found in New England history,
for the essentially British heroine. One name, however,
remains a puzzling choice, that of Danforth for the
patriot heroine. This name too was a well-established

one; the first Danforth settled in New England in 1635.44

50

During the Revolution, the two most notable bearers of
the name, a lawyer and a judge, were royalists.45 There-
fore, Danforth is a strange name to give the girl who is
such an ardent defender of the American cause, especially
since names with more logical associations abound in the
Boston area. I can only suggest that Cooper may not

have known of the Danforth Toryism and merely chose the
name for its solid New England sound. Perhaps, for
instance, he saw the name engraved on a tomb in the

Old Burying Ground46

and thought it appropriate. Still,
considering the care he took for accuracy in other
details and the suitability of the other names, the
use of the name Danforth strikes a false note.47
To return again to the subject of Cooper's
sojourn in Boston and his activities there, it is plain
that more questions and theories can be raised than
answers and facts found. There is no doubt that Cooper
visited the sites of the battles he describes or that
he examined Frankland house. There is little doubt that
he saw and was intrigued by the Triangular Warehouse or
that he neglected to see such obvious landmarks as
Faneuil Hall. But what, for instance, of the Green
Dragon Tavern, where Lionel witnesses the caucus, or
political meeting? Did Cooper's description of the

"house of rather mean appearance" (93) arise from his

personal examination of it? It could have; the building

51

was not razed until 1828.48 Or did it arise jointly

from his invention and the suggestions about the meet-
ing's atmosphere contained in Tudor's The Life 2: James

Otis?49

It could have; the description of the building's
interior could easily be the product of COOper's invention
and the facts about the conduct of the meeting parallel
Tudor's. Is the caucus episode a result of combining

the three: a visit, invention, and a written source?

That could also be the case. These questions cannot be
answered definitively in the absence of written records,
journals or letters.

Much of what I have offered in the past few
pages has been, of necessity, conjecture. All of my
suppositions are based on the theory that C00per, pre-
paring to write a historical novel and having come to
Boston with the avowed intent of gathering information
for that novel, would have visited as many of the places
where Revolutionary history was made as possible. It is
logical, then, to believe that, wherever possible, Cooper
actually saw the historic sites described in Lionel

Lincoln.

Lionel Lincoln, though, is not merely a pastiche

 

of historic localities; it is a novel whose strong point
is its descriptions of the exciting events of the
American Revolution's first year. From Lexington and

Concord, to Bunker Hill, to the Evacuation: that is

52

the novel's forward movement and its basic structure.
Part of COOper's intent was to recreate these events
believably and with a sense of their original drama, and
in this, no matter what the novel's other failures, he
succeeded brilliantly. His descriptions, as I have noted
in the previous chapter, have been and continue to be
heartily praised. Yet upon investigation, it is evident
that such praise does not belong solely to Cooper.
Written sources are crucial to this novel. Cooper

relied heavily upon the accounts of men who were there

as participants or observors and men who had carefully
studied and compiled information about the Revolution's
beginnings. He used their writings freely and frequently,
altering them as he saw fit. Of course major credit
must go to Cooper for his talent in incorporating these
sources into a coherent narrative and for bringing them
alive with his own unique touch, yet it is time the
sources themselves were enumerated and Cooper's exact
debt to them noted.

Cooper himself mentions his careful examination
of "local publications" in his Introduction to the novel.
Boston has always been a town with an ardent concern for
and pride in its past, as evidenced by such things as
the Historical Society, organized in 1791, and the
Athenaeum, dating from 1807. Cooper could have seen the

material he refers to at either, but books and magazine

53

articles which reprinted original narratives and letters
were also flourishing since the fiftieth anniversary of
Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill was approaching.
Thus it will not usually be possible to point out where
COOper obtained his sources and read them; I can only
identify each and show how it was incorporated into

Lionel Lincoln.

 

One comment on sources in the novel was made
before it was written. William Branford Shubrick was
again serving as unofficial advisor to Cooper, as he

had when The Pilot was being written. In this case,

 

Shubrick helped guide Cooper to possible sources and
actually provided these sources himself after COOper
left Boston. Proof of his aid lies in an unpublished
letter from Shubrick to Cooper dated February 22, 1824,
written shortly after Cooper had returned to New York.

The beginning of the letter reads:

I sent you by yesterdays mail Coln Swetts account
of the battle of Bunker Hill, bound in the same
cover with the life of General Putnam, I could not
get it separate without waiting until Coln S.
returned to Boston which will not be probably for
some weeks, and I thought also that you might
probably glean some-thing interesting from the

life of the old general. Swetts work is not thought
in Boston to be so correct as that of General Dear-
born, which you have, you can however by comparing
the two accounts doubtless get a pretty correct
account of the affair-~50

This letter identifies three potential sources:

Historical and Topographical Sketch e: Bunker Hill Battle

 

54

by Samuel Swett, bound in this case with he Essay eh the

Life e£ the Honourable Major General Putnam by Colonel

 

 

David Humphreys, and eh Account 9: the Battle e: Bunker

 

SSSS by Henry Dearborn. The question of how much use
Cooper made of each should be considered.

Samuel Swett (1782-1866) was a long-time student
of the Battle of Bunker Hill who examined the many con-
flicting accounts of what occurred there, selected facts
from among them, and finally formulated his own carefully
reasoned account. His Sketch is chronologically organized
and literally crammed with detail, such as numbers of
troops involved, remarks and anecdotes about those who
fought, and even bits of biographical information.
Swett's point of view is obviously American, to the
extent of being biased, but the activities of the British
are also dealt with to some degree. It seems apparent
that COOper came to know Swett's account very well; not
only does he use the order of events given therein,
which is common to other accounts as well, but details

from it are scattered everywhere in Lionel Lincoln,

 

sometimes altered to suit their new context better,
sometimes kept in their original form. Coincidences of
phrasing reoccur so often that there is no doubt that

Swett is a major printed source for Lionel Lincoln, a

 

book not merely scanned by Cooper but absorbed. Many

parallels between the two can be demonstrated.

55

Cooper structures the "build—up" to the battle of
Bunker Hill in the same way that Swett does. Both begin
with the gathering of men from all over New England just
outside Boston, enumerate the leaders of both sides, note
the prisoner exchange with its attitude of cordiality
between Putnam and his former British comrades, move on
to the "silent night" before the battle and finally give
a lengthy account of the battle itself. This parallel
structure is significant, but, alone, it is not enough
to establish Swett as a source. Common details however
abound in the two.

Prior to the battle, Cooper includes a brief
catalog of the leaders on both sides. He notes Ward
and Thomas; "Both were regularly commissioned by the
congress of the colony. . . . " (186) Swett speaks of
Ward, "commissioned by the Provincial Congress,"51 and
then, because of his American viewpoint, gives a longer
account of the qualifications Ward and Thomas possessed.
The civil engineer who laid the fortifications for the
Americans was "Richard Gridley . . . born in Boston,
1711."52 In the novel it is necessary for Job Pray to
give us this information, so Cooper alters it to fit his
idiom:

There is no occasion to go from the Province to

find a workman to lay out a cellar! Dickey Gridley
is a Boston boy! (216)

56

A biography of Colonel William Prescott, sometimes

referred to as the man in command at Bunker Hill, is

given in SWGtt; it begins, "He was of Pepperell. . . . "53

In Lionel Lincoln, he is twice referred to as "Prescott
of Pepperel" (216, 230).

The British army, whose initial strength is given
in both accounts as four thousand, also has its com-
manders enumerated. In Swett, the list reads, "Gage,
Howe, Clinton, Burgoyne, Pigot, Grant and Robinson,

Lords Percy and Rawdon."54 Since Cooper's account is
told from the British point of view, more details are

added, but note the order of the listing of names:

. . . the reinforcements continued to arrive, and
general after general appeared in the place to
support the unenterprising Gage in the conduct of
the war. The timid amongst the colonists were
appalled as they heard the long list of proud and
boasted names recounted. There was Howe, . . .
Clinton, . . . and the elegant and accomplished
Bur o ne, who had already purchased a name in the
fields of Portugal and Germany, which he was
destined soon to lose in the wilds of America.

In addition to these might be mentioned Pigot,
Grant, Robertson [sic], and the heir e£ Northumber-
land, each of whom led a brigade in the cause of
his prince; . . . As if this list were not sufficient
to overwhelm their inexperienced adversaries, the
pride of arms had gathered many of the young among
the noble and chivalric in the British empire, to
the point on which all eyes were turned; amongst
whom, the one who afterwards added the fairest
wreath to the laurels of his ancestors, was the
joint heir of Hastings and Moira, the gallant, but,
as yet, untried boy of Rawdon. (196-97) (italics
mine.)

 

 

57

Swett also devotes two paragraphs to the British attitude
toward the Americans: "a sovereign contempt" for these

"55 As I have

"foul, ungrateful and unnatural rebels.
already noted, this is precisely the attitude which
Cooper believes is the cause of the hostilities.

Swett briefly includes other details about the
British, recalling their leaders' remarks on being shut
up in Boston: "Their narrow quarters galled their pride;
Burgoyne declared they would have elbow room, and General
Gage proclaimed his mortification 'that the Americans

'"56 Cooper

affected to hold the British army besieged.
uses these remarks but alters their context. In Lionel
Lincoln, at a dinner party which takes place months
after Bunker Hill, Cooper has Admiral Graves twit Bur-
goyne on his conceited remark: " . . . I should like
'elbow-room' even in my coffin-~ha, ha, ha,--what d'ye
think of that, master wit?" (378). Cooper then puts
Gage's expression into the mouth of Howe ,now in command:

"God grant us a chance at the rascals with the

bayonet in the open field," cried Howe, "and an

end of these winter-quarters! I say winter-

quarters, for I trust no gentleman can consider

this army beseiged by a mob of armed peasants!" (380)
The words and context are altered for greater drama; the
sentiments identical.

Swett even includes a footnote on the mascot of

the regiment known as the Welsh fusiliers:

58

From a tradition that a former Prince of Wales had
ridden from his principality into England on a goat;
a very large one, with gilded horns, was always
maintained by the corps, and they celebrated the
anniversary of the feat by a procession, rejoicing
and exultation.57

Notes are rare in Lionel Lincoln, but this one appears:

 

This regiment, in consequence of some tradition,
kept a goat, with gilded horns, as a memorial. Once
a year it celebrated a festival, in which the
bearded quadruped acted a conspicuous part. In

the battle of Bunker Hill, the corps was distin-
guished alike for its courage and its losses.58
(252)

All of the material from Swett just quoted occurs
in the sections which introduce the battle. Reading
further, one finds both accounts speaking of the silence
preserved by the Americans as they laid out the fortifi—
cations on the night of June 16, 1775. In both, the
deceived British sentries cry "All's well." Just before
the battle begins on June 17, Swett notes the British
"quietly dining, and most of them for the last time,
from their crowded and cumbrous knapsacks;"59 Cooper
also says the British were eating "a meal, which to
hundreds amongst them proved to be their last" (223).

In the novel, the actual battle is seen primarily
from a British point of view; with Lionel and generals
Burgoyne and Clinton on Copp's Hill, the reader focuses

on the British assault and then is led into the fighting

itself, again, with the British. Therefore, for the

59

battle proper, Cooper's major source is probably a
British one, as shall be demonstrated later. Still,
there are many details which Cooper seems to have taken
directly from Swett, such as the British soldiers finally
abandoning their useless decorative paraphernalia and
even their coats, and the Americans, exhausted of
ammunition, resorting to stones. And just as Swett's
Pitcairn cries out in triumph "the day is ours" just
before he is shot down,60 so Cooper's Pitcairn shouts
"the day's our own!" and falls (234).61

Many more instances of parallels between Swett's
narrative and Cooper's novel could be offered, but the
examples above are sufficient to establish Swett as a
source. It seems evident that COOper not only read
Swett's account, but came to rely heavily upon it.

Such a statement cannot be made about the biography
of Israel Putnam, bound with Swett, which Shubrick sent.62

Putnam is mentioned with great respect in Lionel Lincoln,

 

but he is not a major figure, and the lengthy admiring
biography was of less use than the Swett account. It
seems likely that COOper read the Elie rather casually,
but that perhaps two of its dramatic incidents stayed in

his mind and reappeared in some form in Lionel Lincoln.

 

In one of these ,Putnam singlehandedly confronts and

kills a wolf.63 In the novel, when we are first intro-

duced to Putnam, Cooper refers to his "strange and

60

fearful encounters with the beasts of the forest" (187)
and later he is referred to as "the wolf-hunter of Con-
necticut" (216). Humphreys could certainly be the
source for these references, since he makes much of the
incident as being characteristic of Putnam's daring
temperament. Humphreys also notes Putnam's reaction
upon hearing about Lexington and Concord: "Putnam, who
was plowing when he heard the news, left his plough in
the middle of the field, unyoked his team, and without
waiting to change his clothes, set off for the theatre
of action."64 Cooper says Putnam "literally deserted
his plough, and mounting a beast from its team, made

an early halt, after a forced march of a hundred miles,
in the foremost ranks of his countrymen" (186). However,
this anecdote is told and retold in Revolutionary annals;
Swett, for instance, tells it, including the one hundred

mile figure.65

Therefore, it is impossible to say

whether or not Humphreys is the specific source in this
case. His SSSe contains no other significant parallels
with Cooper's novel. Humphreys deals with Bunker Hill
summarily and though his account does not greatly differ
from Cooper's, neither does it offer any of those striking
similarities of language or fact that would establish it

as a source. At best then, Cooper gave the Life a

cursory reading, adopting its admiring tone and the

61

incident of the wolfhunt, but little else. The biography
of Putnam may be a source, but it is definitely not a
major one.

Nor is the account by General Henry Dearborn, the
third book we know from Shubrick's letter to have been
in Cooper's hands, a major source. Despite Shubrick's
favorable comment on its accuracy, Cooper apparently
did not find it appealing or interesting enough to be

incorporated into Lionel Lincoln. One or two details

 

are probably taken from Dearborn. For instance, Cooper
says that, "Ten breathless minutes flew by like a moment
of time" (227) before the first British advance on the
hill is revealed as a total failure; Dearborn also says
that in ten or fifteen minutes the enemy was forced to
retreat.66 Also, Cooper gives British losses at Bunker
Hill as twelve to fifteen hundred men (251); Dearborn

67 Yet aside

sets the loss at about twelve hundred.
from these minor details, there is no evidence to show
that Cooper made any significant use of Dearborn. In
fact, since part of Dearborn's account is devoted to
harsh censure of General Israel Putnam on the grounds of
his alleged cowardice,68 while Cooper's Putnam is a
wholly admirable and brave man, it can be assumed that

Cooper rejected all but the most minor factual details

from General Dearborn's account.

62

Although Cooper's reliance on Samuel Swett's
narrative, for basic structure and the events leading
up to the battle, was great, he did not seem to employ
Swett for the action of the battle itself. Nor, as I
have just shown, did he use the brief accounts of
Humphreys or Dearborn. What then is Cooper's major
source for the actual battle at Bunker Hill? It is the
"letter to a noble lord" written by General John Bour-
goyne.69 The "letter" was very well suited to Cooper's
needs at this point in the novel. Lionel, the observor,
describes the scene from an essentially British point
of View, which Burgoyne's letter does and the three
preceding three accounts do not. Also, Lionel's com-
panion in watching the action is none other than Cooper's
fictionalized Burgoyne himself. What could be more
appropriate than to use the real Burgoyne's account?

The letter, or at least reprints of it, were
readily available, for it was well known and had been
widely republished. It was printed in British and
American newspapers in 1775 and then took its place in
the history books. It continued to be republished in
Cooper's time. One place in which he might well have

seen it was in the March, 1818, issue of The Analectic

 

Magazine; however, the letter was certainly available

to Cooper elsewhere as well.

63

The correspondence between letter and novel is
convincing. Burgoyne says that he and Clinton took their
stand in a large battery directly opposite to Charles-
town;70 this, of course, is on Copp's Hill, the position
they occupy in the novel. Burgoyne continues:

Howe's disposition was exceeding soldier-like; in
my opinion it was perfect. As his first army
advanced up the hill, they met with a thousand

impediments from strong fences, and were much
exposed.

Cooper uses this very language:

"It is a glorious spectacle!" murmured the graceful
Chieftain by the side of Lionel, keenly alive to all

the poetry of his alluring profession. "How exceed-
ing soldier-like! and with what accuracy his 'first—
arm ascends the hill,‘ towards his enemyl'" (226)

Burgoyne tries to capture the impact of the whole pano-

rama:

. . . and now ensued one of the greatest scenes of
war that can be conceived. If we look to the
heights, Howe's corps ascending the hill, in the
face of intrenchments, and on a very disadvantageous
ground, was much engaged; to the left the enemy
pouring in fresh troops, by thousands over the

land; in the arm of the sea our ships and floating
batteries cannonading them; straight before us, a
large and noble town in one great blaze, the church
steeples being of timber were great pyramids of

fire above the rest; behind us the church steeples
and heights of our own camp covered with spectators
of the rest of our army which was [not] engaged; the '
hills round the country covered with spectators; the
enemy all in anxious suspence, the roar of cannon,
mortars and musquetry, the crush of churches, ships
upon the stocks and whole streets falling together
in ruins to fill the ear; the storm of the redoubts,

64

with the objects above described to fill the eye,
and the reflection that perhaps a defeat was a
final loss he_the British empire in America to fill
the mind, made the whole a picture and a compli-
cation of horror and importance beyond anything
that ever fell to my lot to be witness to.72

It is precisely this panorama, this grasp of the

entire scene in all its excitement, that Cooper aims for,

especially on pages 221 and 222, just prior to the
battle. To some extent Cooper continues the attempt
right up to the point at which Lionel becomes a par-
ticipant (224-32). Echoes of Burgoyne constantly
reappear:

. . . to the left the enemy pouring in fresh
troops, by thousands over the land. . . . 73

Far on the left, across the waters of the Charles,

the American camp had poured forth its thousands to
the hills; . . . (221)

. . . in the arm of the sea our ships and float-
ing batteries cannonading them; . . . 74

The vessels of war had hauled deep into the
rivers, or, more properly, those narrow arms of
the sea. . . . (222)
Burgoyne's description is concentrated into one
powerful paragraph; Cooper's goes on for several pages
with more elaboration and some repetition. But the

similarities, in substance and in Spirit, between the

two are so strong that it seems obvious that Cooper

used the Burgoyne letter as inspiration for this section

of his novel.

65

There is one other published source for Lionel
Lincoln which merits the term "major," for details from
its pages permeate the novel from beginning to end. This

book is the Military Journal of James Thacher,75 the

 

Revolutionary War surgeon. Its entries begin in January,
1775, and continue through 1783, although only its
earlier sections and perhaps its appendices were of use
to Cooper. But from these entries Cooper drew not only
facts but also suggestions about the attitudes held on
both sides; Thacher reflected the concerns of his times

and these in turn are reflected in Lionel Lincoln. One

 

telling example of this "double borrowing" is immediately
below, followed by instances of other parallels widely
scattered through the novel, which illustrate how com-
pletely Cooper integrated Thacher into his work.

Part of Thacher's March entry reads thus:

The public indignation is now greatly excited by

the following shameful transaction. The people

from the country, whose business called them into
Boston, were suspected by the officers, of purchasing
guns from their soldiers. In order to furnish an
opportunity to inflict punishment and to raise
occasion for a serious quarrel, Lieutenant Colonel
Nesbit of the forty-seventh regiment ordered a
soldier to offer a countryman an old rusty musket.

A man from Billerica was caught by this bait and
purchased the gun for three dollars. The unfortunate
man was immediately seized by Nesbit and confined in
the guard house all night. Early next morning they
stripped him entirely naked, covered him over with
warm tar, and then with feathers, placed him on a
cart and conducted him through the streets as far

as liberty-tree, where the people began to collect

in vast numbers, and the military, fearing for their

66

own safety, dismissed the man, and retreated to their
barracks. The party consisted of about thirty grena-
diers with fixed bayonets, twenty drums and fifes
playing the Rogues' March headed by the redoubtable
Nesbit with a drawn sword! What an honorable deed
for a British field officer and grenadiers! The
selectmen of Billerica remonstrated with General
Gage respecting this outrage, but obtained no
satisfaction.75
With his initial sentence, Thacher indicates the
strong effect this incident had upon the townspeople of
Boston, and the incident itself, with the soldiers using
a citizen for horseplay, graphically illustrates the
British attitude toward the colonists. I believe Cooper
seized on this incident as a symbol of the division
between the two parties and proceeded first to create
his own variation on it as Lionel's introduction to the
tense situation in Boston, and second, to make two
references to the actual incident which indicate the
disparity of opinion between colonists and soldiers.
To be more specific, the beating of Job Pray by the
soldiers which Lionel encounters almost as soon as he
sets foot on his native soil (21-24) is apparently
Cooper's own variation on the Nesbitt incident.
Thacher's "unfortunate man" becomes the literally
"unfortunate" Job; the soldiers are from the same
Forty-seventh regiment, a coincidence that can hardly

occur by chance. Lionel is made a major of the Forty-

seventh also, so that their brutal behavior is even more

67

shocking to him. He stops the beating and his words to
the men echo the journal's sarcasm:

[Thacher] What an honorable deed for a British

field officer and grenadiers!77

[Cooper] Ye are noble supporters of the well-

earned fame of "Wolfe's own!" fit successors to the
gallant men who conquered under the walls of Quebec!
(23)

Cooper has taken the incident from Thacher and
altered its content and participants just enough to suit
his purposes: the immediate presentation of the gulf
between soldiers and townsfolk, and the establishment of
Lionel's equivocal position in the conflict.

The second way in which Cooper makes use of
Thacher is more readily apparent; he makes direct
references to material contained in the Journal. In
this case, Cooper refers twice to the Nesbitt incident,
once to help illustrate the townspeople's current feel-
ings, once the soldiers'. After the beating, Lionel
converses with a crippled Bostonian, a spokesman for
the people, who predicts:

If these sorts of doings an't checked, I fear
much trouble will grow out of them! Hard laws
from t'other side of the water, and tarring and
feathering on this, with gentlemen like Colonel
Nesbitt at their head, will-- (24)

Cooper here refers to a historical fact obtained from

Thacher as a symbol of the reason for the colonists'

68

bitterness; all the casual callousness of the British
toward them is summed up in that reference. Shortly
afterward, Cooper uses the Nesbitt incident again, this
time to demonstrate British feelings. Captain Peter
Polwarth, Lionel's friend, as part of his discourse on
what an enigma the colonists are to him, says, "There
has been a nasty business here, lately, in which the
47th has gained no new laurels--a matter of tarring and

feathering, about eh old rusty musket" (64). (italics

 

mine.) Note here that Cooper used Thacher's exact words,
but has them take on new meaning from their speaker and
context. When spoken by Polwarth, the sarcastic phrase
"an old rusty musket" implies a casual dismissal of the
colonists' feelings; there is a patronizing contempt
in the phrase. In the context of Polwarth's whole con-
versation (64-66), we see that to him the colonists are
a strange lot who blow up out of all proportion a bit
of rough horseplay over a single gun. The reference
from Thacher, in this instance then, symbolizes British
contempt for and total misunderstanding of the colonists'
views.

Before continuing this discussion of Thacher, a
general comment on Cooper's use of sources seems appro-
priate. It must be evident by now that Cooper's use of

written source material is not a simple matter. He did

not merely search out historical facts to incorporate

69

here and there in the narrative for the sake of an
authentic atmosphere. Historical details abound, of
course, but sources are also used in other ways. From
Samuel Swett comes the basic structure of chapters XIII
through XVI of the novel: the preparation of both sides
for another encounter, the roll—call of British and
American leaders, the ominous silence on the eve of the
battle, and finally the day of the battle itself. The
use of Swett's structure gave C00per a chance to build
suspense and the sense of two great forces slowly,
inevitably moving toward a clash. From General Bur-
goyne's letter, COOper acquired detail 229.3 point of
view from which to see Bunker Hill: war as panoramic
spectacle. By adopting Burgoyne's point of view, Cooper
was able to describe the day as one of momentous, living
drama. From Thacher's Journal came an abundance of his-
torical facts as well as suggestions for incident and
attitude, as just demonstrated. If ever a man used his

sources creatively, it is Cooper in Lionel Lincoln.

 

 

To return to Thacher, one more of his Journal
entries should provide sufficient proof of Cooper's
wide-ranging borrowing from him. The previous compari-
son between Thacher and COOper came from chapters I and

II of Lionel Lincoln; this one comes from chapter XXIX.

 

The Americans are fortifying Dorchester Heights and

firing has begun:

70

"Our men have woke up the British by their fire,"
said one of the guards: "and all their eyes are
turned to the batteries!"

"Yes, it's very well as it is," returned his
comrade; "but if the old brass congress mortar
hadn't gi'n way yesterday, there would be a dif-
ferent sort of roaring."

A large body of men now approached, and moved
swiftly past them, in deepest silence, defiling at
the foot of the hills, and marching towards the
shores of the peninsula. The whole of this party
was attired and accoutred much in the fashion of
those who had received Cecil. One or two who were
mounted, and in more martial trappings, announced
the presence of some officers of higher rank. At
the very heels of this detachment of soldiers, came
a great number of carts, which took the route that
led directly up to the neighboring heights. After
these came another, and more numerous body of
troops, who followed the teams, the whole moving
in the profoundest stillness, and with the diligence
of men who were engaged in the most important under-
taking. In the rear of the whole, another collection
of carts appeared, groaning under the weight of
large bundles of hay, and other military preparations
of defence. (400)

Looking at Thacher's entries for March, 1776, we find:

3d.--The firing from our works continues, but the
great brass mortar, the Con ress, and two others,
have unfortunately burst; which is exceedingly
regretted.

4th.--The object in view is now generally under-
stood to be the occupying and fortifying of the
advantageous heights of Dorchester. A detachment
of our troops is ordered to march at 4 o'clock in
the morning ,to relieve them. We are favored with
a full bright moon, and the night is remarkably mild
and pleasant; the preparations are immense; more
than three hundred loaded carts are in motion. . . .
The covering party of eight hundred men advance
in front. Then follow the carts with the entrenching
tools; after which, the working party of twelve
hundred. . . . Next in the martial procession are a
train of carts, loaded with fascines and hay,
screwed into large bundles of seven or eight hundred
weight. The whole procession moved on in solemn

71

silence, and with perfect order and regularity;
while the continued roar of cannon serves to engage
the attention and divert the enemy from the main
object.78

Once again we see Cooper's creative use of a
source. The first entry is transposed into the guard's
conversation; the second becomes part of the narrative.
The silence, noted briefly in Thacher's last sentence ,is
mentioned three times by Cooper, setting the tone of the
whole passage. By such changes, then, do Thacher's
entries become Cooper's own material.

The Appendix to the Journal may also have served
Cooper. There the anecdote of Putnam saving Small's

79

life by beating up the American guns, which Cooper

adapted for Ralph and Lionel, and Putnam's hundred mile

80

ride both reappear. Thacher too may be the source for

these just as Swett or Humphreys may; it is not possible
to determine which Cooper encountered first.

The portrait of General Charles Lee in Lionel
Lincoln (406-08) may also have its origin in Thacher.

For there this paragraph occurs:

General Lee was rather above the middle size, "plain
in his person even to ugliness, and careless in his
manners even to a degree of rudeness; his nose was
so remarkably aquiline, that it appeared as a real
deformity. His voice was rough, his garb ordinary,
his deportment morose. He was ambitious of fame
without the dignity to support it. In private life
he sank into the vulgarity of the clown." His
remarkable partiality for dogs was such, that a
number of these animals followed constantly in his

72

train, and the ladies complained that he allowed his
canine adherents to follow him into the parlor, and
not unfrequently, a favorite one might be seen on

a chair next his elbow at table.81

 

 

This is Cooper's Lee certainly: rude, rough-
spoken, vulgar, and followed by a train of dogs. Yet

Thacher gives Alexander Garden's Anecdotes as his source.82

 

But it does not seem likely that Cooper went back to
Garden for his portrait of Lee. Garden gives no other
pertinent information about Lee and his anecdotes are
concerned almost exclusively with the war and its per-
sonages in the South. Nothing else in Garden seems to

relate to Lionel Lincoln in any way, therefore it may be

 

assumed that Thacher is the source for Cooper's infor—
mation about General Lee.

C00per's account of Lexington and Concord has
not been dealt with except in passing. It is a lengthy
one, full of details about the British march--the detach-
ing of companies from the main body of troops, when and
where halts occurred, etc. Such detail makes the reader
suspect, again, the use of a source. The strongest

possibility seems to be General Gage's Circumstantial

 

Account (1775),83 perhaps supported by the De Berniere

84

Narrative pi Occurrences, 1775. Cooper follows pre-

 

 

cisely the chronological order of events in Gage, but
he expands on the details which will heighten the drama

and barely mentions others. For instance, Gage states

73

that the soldiers "heard many signal guns, and the ringing

of alarm bells repeatedly, which convinced them, that the

country was rising to oppose them. . . . "85 Cooper

rightly sees this as the ominous symbol of all that will
go wrong on Gage's supposedly secret expedition and as

such he gives the moment much more importance:

. . . the deep tones of a distant church-bell came
sweeping down the valley in which they marched,
ringing peal on peal, in the quick, spirit-stirring
sounds of an alarm. The men raised their heads in
wondering attention, as they advanced; but it was
not long before the reports of firearms were heard
echoing among the hills, and bell began to answer
bell in every direction, until the sounds blended
with the murmurs of the night air, or were lost in
the distance. The whole country was now filled
with every organ of sound that the means of the
peeple furnished, or their ingenuity could devise,
to call the population to arms. Fires blazed along
the heights, the bellowing of the conchs and horns
mingled with the rattling of the muskets and the
varied tones of the bells, while the swift clattering
of horses' hoofs began to be heard, as if their
riders were dashing furiously along the flanks of
the party. (128-29)

Gage's account is the foundation, but the excitement of
the narrative is due to Cooper's skillful expansion of
the original source.

Cooper also alters the tone inherent in the Cage
and De Berniere accounts; although both maintain a sem-

blance of objectivity, their real attitude towards the

"rebels" frequently slips in. In Lionel Lincoln, however,

 

though the reader is nominally on the side of the British,

his sympathies are constantly drawn to the Americans.

74

This altered viewpoint can be seen most plainly when the
two accounts of the search for military stores at Concord

are compared. Gage states:

. . . both the colonel [Smith] and major Pitcairn
having taken all possible pains to convince the
inhabitants, that no injury was intended them, and
that if they opened their doors when required, to
search for said stores, not the slightest mischief
should be done; neither had any of the people the
least occasion to complain; but they were sulky,
and one of them even struck major Pitcairn.

It is evident that Gage finds the people's atti—
tude both incomprehensible and inexcusable. Cooper how-
ever understands their feelings and finds the soldiers

at fault:

In the mean time, the work of destruction was com-
menced in the town, chiefly under the superintendance
of the veteran officer of the marines. The few male
inhabitants who remained in their dwellings were of
necessity peaceable, though Lionel could read, in
their flushed cheeks and gleaming eyes, the secret
indignation of men, who, accustomed to the protection
of the law, now found themselves subjected to the
insults and wanton abuses of a military inroad.

Evepy door was flung open, and he place was held
sacred from the rude scrutiny of the licentious
soldiery. Taunts and execrations soon mingled with
the seeming moderation with which the search had com-
menced, and loud exultation was betrayed, even among
the officers, as the scanty provisions of the
colonists were gradually brought to light. (141)
(italics mine.)

 

 

 

 

Note especially the words and phrases which I have itali--
cized; they are calculated to make the reader share the
people's sentiments. Cooper's tone here resembles that

of the account of the expedition written by the

75

Provincial Congress (1775), which he may also have seen;

that account betrays its tone even in its title, Ravages

p: the King's Troops.88

 

 

Only at the very end of the march does Cooper
relent in his harsh treatment of the British soldiers.
Exhausted by the forty-mile march and the constant skir-
mishing, and having learned something of Yankee courage,
they are a pathetic sight, "dragging their weary and
exhausted limbs up the toilsome ascent of Bunker Hill"
(152).

Another source is used only once, but with mar—
velous appropriateness. The majority of the headnotes

in Lionel Lincoln are from Shakespeare; a speech from

 

King Lear on fools prepares us for Job Pray in chapter II,

 

and a line from King Henry S! in reference to Falstaff

 

foreshadows the appearance of Peter Polwarth in chapter

IV. The only unusual headnote is that of chapter XV:

We are finer gentlemen, no doubt, than the plain
farmers we are about to encounter. Our hats carry
a smarter cock, our swords hang more gracefully by
our sides, and we make an easier figure in a ball-
room; but let it be remembered, that the most
finished maccaroni amongst us, would pass for an
arrant clown at Pekin.

Letter From a Veteran Officer, Etc. (210)

That chapter begins the narrative of the battle
at Bunker Hill, that disastrous victory which finally

taught the British that "plain farmers" could prove their

equals. The headnote provides a perfect introduction

76

to that battle. The full title of the pamphlet in which

the sentence quoted occurs is 5 Letter from e_Veteran pp
89

 

the Officers pg the Army Encamped eh Boston (1774).

 

 

It is an anomaly among Cooper's sources in being the only
one which was not printed or reprinted within the ten
years prior to 1823; its only publication date is 1774,
unlike, for instance, the De Berniere narrative which

was first printed in 1779, but reprinted in the Massachu-

setts Historical Society Collections in 1816. Cooper

 

must have chanced upon it in Boston, perhaps at the His-
torical Society, which owns a copy. It remains an oddity
among his sources.

There are many other possible sources that Cooper

may have looked at in preparing to write Lionel Lincoln.

 

It is tempting to speculate as to whether Cooper may

have read Mercy Warren's History pg the Revolution

 

(1805),90 since he was obviously an admirer of Joseph

Warren, or perhaps Charles Stedman's classic history,91

or William Carter's Genuine Detail, the personal narra-

 

tive of a British soldier during the siege of Boston.92
But although all of these could be sources, a close cor-

respondence of content or structure with Lionel Lincoln

 

cannot be established. Such correspondence occurs only
in those accounts treated in the last few pages; for
them, sufficient textual proof can be offered to support

the theory that they are sources.

77

My conclusions are, then, that major or heavily
used sources are Swett, Burgoyne, Thacher, and Gage; minor
source, books we either know Cooper read but apparently
used little or those used only infrequently are Otis,
Humphreys, Dearborn, De Berniere and Prescott. Undoubtedly
there are more, but at least the influence of these on

Lionel Lincoln and Cooper's creative and many—faceted use

 

of them have been illustrated.

Students of Cooper have considered the problem of
historical sources in his other novels, and they have
also raised the idea of his use of fictional models.

That is, other novels served as springboards from which
Cooper launched his own books, especially in his first
years of writing. One theory of Cooper's purpose and
method, particularly in the years 1820—1827, suggests
that while Cooper had truths of life and society to
represent, he did not struggle with problems of literary
experimentation or work for literary improvement.93
Instead, he expended minimal effort on creating original
characters and scenes, relying on fictional and historical
material from which to fashion his tales, and using his
own experience to fill the gaps; his maximum energy

was spent on the presentation of his social thought.

Thus in the early novels, we should look for sources,

both fictional and historical, to provide the "germ for

his characters and incidents."94

78

For instance, the primary model for Precaution is

 

usually thought to be Jane Austen's Persuasion. Cooper's

 

principal "contribution" to his first novel is neither
characterization nor plot construction, but the didactic
theme that parents must exercise more care in the mar-
riages of their children.95 In the case of She Spy,
models include Judge Jay's anecdote and a story from
Henry Lee's Memoirs. Cooper's use of the other materials
is a significant factor in the early novels; as one
critic concludes: "On the basis of the total evidence,
then, it seems that Cooper made use of the material

offered him by Lee's Memoirs, and that The Spy, like

Precaution before it and the novels which followed it,

 

grew out of material which Cooper found suitable for his

theme."96

Traditional theory, then, sees Cooper, dissatis-
fied with the portrait of nautical life in Scott's The
Pirate and wanting to improve on it, selecting material

97

about John Paul Jones and producing The Pilot. Finally,

 

Lionel Lincoln is seen as another clear case of the use
98

 

of source materials.
The last statement is not to be argued with, of

course. The historical sources for the novel have just

been discussed. But the question arises: was there

some kind of fictional model for Lionel Lincoln, as

 

there apparently was for Precaution and The Pilot?

 

 

79

My answer is that a model exists, but its similarities
to Cooper's novel are superficial ones, and its dif-
ferences crucial. In this case, the value and influence
of the historical sources far outweigh the importance of
the fictional model.

That model is suggested in a comment made by

Mrs. Lechmere early in Lionel Lincoln:

 

. . . we in the colonies are apt to make the most of
the language, and count our cousins almost as far as
if we were members of the Scottish clans. Speaking
of the clans reminds me of the rebellion of '45. It
is not thought, in England, that our infatuated
colonists will ever be so fool-hardy as to assume
their arms in earnest? (48)
The reader is immediately reminded of Sir Walter
Scott's Waverley, and upon reflection, some resemblances

99 The main character,

between the two come to mind.
Edward Waverley, is, as his name suggests, a young man
of unsteady, unsettled habit of mind. He journeys to
Scotland just as the drama of the rebellion of the Scots
under the Prince begins to unfold. The plot follows
Edward's "waverings" between the opposing sides and his
attempts to make the right decision. The first char-
acter he meets is the simple-minded Davie Gellatley,

who serves as a guide for a short time. Edward stays

at the home of the Baron of Bradwardine, who has an
affected concern for rank and ancestry. Two lovely

females, Flora and Rosa, play important parts. There is

even a character named Polwarth!

80

However, these similarities are superficial ones.
The differences between the two novels are far more
important. One such difference lies in the personalities
of Edward and Lionel. Edward is a shallow young man;
he has come to Scotland, specifically, to seek romantic
adventure, and it is that purpose which guides his
decisions. He joins the Prince's forces on impulse,
awed and fascinated by the glamor of that leader; the
principles and causes of the rebellion interest him
little, if at all. Lionel is taken far more seriously
by both his author and his readers. Although he has a
romantic streak, it is an attribute he bears unwillingly
by heredity, and he is happily freed from it at the
novel's end. Lionel seeks the truth about his family
and about the political situation through much of the
book; Cooper has him explore the reasons for this
struggle, rather than shun them as Edward does. The
"glamor" of the rebel cause is nonexistent and hence
not a factor; its rightness and justification are
crucial factors.loo
There also seems to me to be a significant dif-
ference in the purposes for which the two were written.
Scott's primary intent was to write a novel; the histori-
cal setting was an occasion for the inclusion of much '
pageantry, romance, and exciting action, devised by

the author's vivid imagination, plus a large, varied

81

cast of characters. Cooper's avowed intent was to
write a novel with a patriotic theme; the historical
setting allowed for an exploration of the reasons behind
the actions, and an attempt to represent, with a high
degree of accuracy, the actual way in which those
actions occurred. These purposes governed the con-
struction of the two novels, and naturally resulted in
books which are far more different than they are alike.
In conclusion, I would say that Waverley ought
to be mentioned briefly as a fictional model for Lionel
Lincoln, but it should be remembered as providing only
the "germ of character and incident." Historical sources
play a far more important part in the content and

structure of Lionel Lincoln.

 

NOTES--CHAPTER I I

lBoston Commercial Gazette, January 12, 1824, p. 2.

 

 

2James Franklin Beard, ed., The Letters and
Journals pg James Fenimore Cooper, I (Cambridge: The
Balknap Press of HarvardiUnIversity Press, 1960), p. 109.

31bid., p. 103.

41bid., pp. 103-04.

5Ibid., pp. 104-05.

61bid., p. 105.

7Ibid., p. 109.

8Ibid., p. 111.

91bid., p. 104.

loIbid., p. 111.

llUnpublished letter from Paul Trapier, Charleston,
South Carolina, March 3, 1845, in the Collection of Ameri-
can Literature, The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript
Library, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.

12Although Shubrick, in a later letter, mentions a
Mr. Phillips, a reviewer of The Pilot for the North
American Review, "who dined with us at Rouillard's,"
presumably during Cooper's visit, that social engagement
does not seem to have any bearing on the research for

Lionel Lincoln.

 

 

 

82

83

13Samuel Adams Drake, Historic Mansions and High-
ways Around Boston, rev. ed. (Rutland, Vermont: Charles
E. Tuttle Company, 1971), p. 66. This is a reprint of
the 1906 edition published by Little, Brown, and Company,
Boston.

 

 

 

l4Justin Winsor, ed., The Memorial History of

Boston, II (Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1882),
p. 451.

 

lSIbid.

16Samuel Adams Drake, Old Landmarks and HistorSe
Personages pg Boston (Detroit: Singing Tree Press, 1970),
pp. 165-66. This is a facsimile reprint of the 1900
edition published by Little, Brown, and Company, Boston.

 

 

17James Fenimore Cooper, Lionel Lincoln; or,
The Leaguer of Boston, XII (New York: W. A. Townsend
and Company, 1859), p. 39. This and all subsequent quo-
tations from Cooper, unless otherwise noted, are taken
from the so-called "Darley Edition," published by W. A.
Townsend and Company, New York, 1859-1861. The Darley
Edition of Cooper's Novels is generally considered as
standard. Citations to the quotations are given paren-
thetically in the text.

18Winsor, History pS Boston, p. 527.

19Caleb Snow, A History p: Boston (Boston: 1825),
pp. 107-08.

20Winsor, History pg Boston, p. 501.

ZlIbid.

22Snow, History pg Boston, p. 108, and Winsor,
History p: Boston, p. 501.

23Winsor, History pg Boston, p. 91.

24Ibid., p. 90.

25Snow, History p: Boston, p. 241.

84

26Winsor, History p: Boston, p. 526.

27Ibid.

28Ibid., p. 266.

291bid., p. 267.

30Drake, Old Landmarks, p. 31.

 

31Massachusetts Historical Society, Collections,

III (Cambridge: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1794),
p. 258.

 

32Susan Fenimore COOper, "Introduction," in James

Fenimore Cooper, The Crater (Cambridge: The Riverside
Press, 1884), p. xiv.

 

33James Fenimore Cooper, "Cooper's autobiographi-

cal notes," in Marcel Clavel, Fenimore Copper and His
Critics (Aix-en—Provence: Universitaire de Provence,
1938), p. 393.

 

34Justin Winsor, ed., The Memorial History pp
Boston, III (Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1882),
p. 159.

 

35William Tudor, The Life p£_James Otis (Boston:
Wells and Lilly, 1823), pp. 221-23.

 

361bid., p. 427.

37Handbook of the Massachusetts Historical

Society 1791-1948 (Easton: Massachusetts Historical
Society, 1949), p. 6.

 

 

38Snow, History pg Boston, p. 112.

39Massachusetts Historical Society, Collections,
III, p. 244.

 

40See the discussions and the maps themselves
reprinted in the Introductory chapters, vols. II and III
of Winsor, The Memorial History pg Boston.

85

41See the Preface written for the 1832 English
edition of Lionel Lincoln. This is reprinted in Arvid
Shulenberger, CooperTs Theory pg Fiction (Lawrence:
University of Kansas Publications, 1955), p. 27.

 

 

42Winsor, History p: Boston, III, p. 106.

43Ibid., p. 262.

44Lucius R. Paige, History pg Cambridge, Massachu—
setts (Boston: H. O. Houghton and Company, 1877), p. 529.

 

45Ibid., p. 532; Winsor, History pg Boston, III,

p. 551.
46 . .
Winsor, History of Boston, II, p. 366.

47Another kind of false note should be mentioned
here. Cooper's Introduction to Lionel Lincoln begins,
"In this tale there are one or two slight anachronisms;
. . . " (11). One such anachronism is his reference to
Washington's Cambridge headquarters as "Cragie's house"
(413), when it was actually the confiscated home of a
Tory, John Vassall. See Paige, History p£_Cambridge,
p. 675, and Winsor, History p: Boston, III, p. 113.
Dr. Andrew Craigie, apothecary-general of the Revolutionary
army, did not acquire the house until 1791. See Winsor,
History pg Boston, III, p. 113. After that time it was
called the Craigie House. Whether this instance is one
of those Cooper had in mind when writing that cautionary
sentence is uncertain, since he says, "They relate rather
to persons than to things" (11), but it is, at any rate,
an anachronism.

 

 

48Winsor, History pg Boston, III, p. 64.

49Tudor, James Otis, pp. 461-62.

 

50Unpublished letter from William Branford Shu—
brick, Boston, Massachusetts, February 22, 1824, in the
Collection of American Literature, The Beinecke Rare
Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven,
Connecticut.

86

51David Humphreys, eh Essa on the Life pg phe
Honourable Major General Putnam, WithfaH_Appendix Contain-
ifig an Historical and Tpppgraphical Sketch p: Bunker Hill
Battle, by S. Swett (Boston: Samuel Avery, 1818), p. 187.

 

 

 

521bid., p. 194.

53Ibid., p. 209.

54Ibid., p. 198.

551bid., p. 199.

S6Ibid., p. 200.

57Ibid., p. 198.

58Harold Murdock, Bunker Hill: Notes and Queries
on a Famous Battle (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company,
I927), pp. 137- 2, discusses the myth that the Welch
Fusiliers suffered terrible losses at Bunker Hill,
noting that COOper, like many others, believed that
story. In actual fact, the regiment was not even in
the battle.

 

 

 

59Swett, in Humphreys, eh Essay pp the Life, p. 225.

6OIbid., p. 247.

61Swett relates another incident during the battle
of Bunker Hill in which an English officer, Major Small,
is saved from American bullets by General Putnam, with
whom Small had served in the French and Indian Wars.
Putnam beats up the American guns with his sword and begs
the soldiers to "spare that officer." See Swett, p. 242.
In Cooper's account of the British return march after
Lexington and Concord, Lionel's life is spared by Ralph's
identical action and his cry of "Spare him" (151).
Although the anecdote is a common one (Swett himself says
that Small tried to save Joseph Warren's life in the same
manner but failed) which could have been obtained else-
where, Swett could easily have been the source for it as
he was for so much other material.

87

62David Humphreys' he Essay ph phe Life p£ the
Honourable Major General Putnam was first published—TH
1788, but beginning in 1818, was published in a single
volume with Swett as an appendix. This apparently is
the edition Shubrick sent to Cooper and the one I am
uSing.

 

63Humphreys, he Essay ph the Life, pp. 252—53.

64Ibid., p. 289.
65 . .
Swett, in Humphreys, eh Essay pp the Life,
p. 185.
66

Henry Dearborn, "An Account of the Battle of
Bunker Hill," Portfolio, V (March, 1818), 183.

 

67Ibid., 180.

68Ibid., 180-81.

69"Extract of a letter from General Burgoyne to a
noble Lord, dated Boston June 25 1775," The Analectic
Magazine, XI (March, 1818), 264-66.

7OIbid., 265.

7J'Ibid. I found that in the version of the
letter given in The Analectic Magazine, spelling has
been modernized and abbreviated words given in full;
earlier versions read slightly differently. For instance,
in the letter as quoted in Ezra Stiles' diary, the word
"arm" is used instead of "army." For the sake of
accuracy, apparently, Cooper preferred the older spelling.
See Ezra Stiles, The Literary Diary pg Ezra Stiles, ed. by

Franklin Bowditch Dexter, I473 vols.; New York: Charles
Scribner's Sons, 1901), p. 638.

 

 

 

72"Extract of a Letter from General Burgoyne.
. . . , " The Analectic Magazine, XI (March, 1818), 265-66.

 

73Ibid., 265.

74Ibid.

88

75James Thacher, h_Military Journal During the
American Revolutionary War . . .4TBoston: Richardson and
Lord, 1823).

 

 

76Ibid., pp. 15—16.

77Ibid., p. 16.

78Ibid., p. 46.

79Ibid., pp. 494-95. See also note 61 above.

801bid., p. 491.

81Ibid., p. 564.

82Alexander Garden, Anecdotes of the Revolutionapy

Charleston: printed for the authSF by A. E. Miller,
822).

 

 

F‘E
m
H

83Thomas Gage, "A Circumstantial Account of an
Attack That Happened on the 19th April, 1775,” in
Massachusetts Historical Society, Collections, Second
Series, II (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society,
1814), pp. 224-27.

 

84Henry De Berniere, Narrative of Occurrences,
1775, in Massachusetts Historical Society, Collections,
Second Series, IV (Boston: Massachusetts Historical
Society, 1816). PP. 204-19.

 

 

 

85Gage, in Massachusetts Historical Society,
Collections, Second Series, II, p. 224.

 

86One historian, Allen French, thinks Cooper
went too far with this scene, so that he violates fact:
"COOper, imagining the scene in his 'Lionel Lincoln,‘
has overdone the din and clatter, for houses were
scattered, villages were few, and the church bells (as
Gordon warns his correspondent in England) 'are only
small-sized bells, (one in a Parish) just sufficient to
notify to the people the time for attending worship.'"
See Allen French, She Spy of Concord and Lexington
(Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1925 , pp. 103-04.

 

89

87Gage, in Massachusetts Historical Society,

Collections, Second Series, II, p. 226.

 

88A Narrative of the Excursions and Ravages of the

King's Tropps Under the Command of General Gage, On the
Nineteenth of April, 1775 (New York: New York Times and

Arno Press, 1968). Originally published in 1775.

 

 

 

 

 

 

89Robert Prescott, A Letter From a Veteran to the

Officers of the Army Encamped at Boston (New York: ”Hugh
Gaine, 1774), p. 15.

 

 

90Mercy Warren, History of the Rise, Progress and

Termination of the American Revolution (Boston: Printed
by Manning afid Loring, for E. Larkin, 1805).

 

 

 

91Charles Stedman, The History pg the Origin,
Prpgress, and Termination p: the American War (2 vols;
London: Printed for the author, 1794).

 

 

 

 

92William Carter, 5 Genuine Detail pg the Several
Engagements, Positions, and Movements of the Royel and
American Armies; and a Plan of the Works on Bunker' s Hill,
at the Time It was Abandoned hy His Majesty' s Forces, on
the Seventeenth of March, 1776 (London: Printed for the
author, and sold by him, 1784).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

93Much of this information about Cooper's use of
models and sources in the years 1820-1827 is drawn from
James S. Diemer, "The European Novels of James Fenimore
Cooper: A Study in the Evolution of Cooper's Social Cri-
ticism, 1820-1833"

94Ibid., p. 32.

951bid., pp. 42-43.

96Ibid., p. 60.

97Ibid., p. 63.

981bid., p. 65.

90

99Sir Walter Scott, Waverley, New Abbotsford ed.,
(2 vols; Boston: Dana Estes & Company, 1900).

100I am speaking here of the novel's content and
purpose up to, but not including, its badly mistaken
ending, which, even if Cooper did not intend it so,
taints the American cause with madness and foolishness.

CHAPTER III
PLOT AND THEME--INTERDEPENDENCE

AND ITS RESULTS

Whether by accident or by design, the narrative

of Lionel Lincoln constantly presents the reader with

 

pairs. For instance, there are a pair of heroines with
two opposing political loyalties, an old man whose
schizophrenic personality divides into two distinct
halves, and, on a broader scale, two plots and a pair of
major themes. The novel is tightly and carefully plotted
and Cooper no doubt intended that the themes would be
successfully integrated into the plots. In three cases
out of four, his intention becomes reality: the
appearance/reality theme works well in conjunction with
both the action and family mystery plots and the patriotic
theme is successfully supported by the action plot. But
the exception, the attempt to combine the patriotic theme
with the family mystery plot, fails so destructively that
it causes the entire novel's undoing. Prior to the disf
cussion of how Cooper combines these paired themes and

plots, a brief description of each one singly is in order.

91

92

The most basic plot, the one which touches all
the characters, deals with the action of the opening of
the American Revolution. The reader feels the pull of
history here and it gives substance to the characters
and events that Cooper himself invents. The action of
1775—1776 has an inherent structure which Cooper adopts;
it divides into three parts. The first part reveals the
growing antagonism between the British and the colonists,
an antagonism, stemming from British ignorance of the
colonial nature and principles, which forces the two
sides farther and farther apart. The tension mounts
until, "with an effect not unlike the sudden rising of
the curtain at the opening of some interesting drama"
(124), the events at Lexington and Concord occur before
our eyes. Our attention is riveted on those events by
the use of the main character first as observor, then
as participant in them. With Lionel, we are shocked at
the first bloodshed and the supercilious attitude of the
British. Then at Concord, we see that attitude falter
and change to apprehension as "both officers and men
seemed to recollect that they had six leagues to march
through a country that hardly contained a friend" (142).
Fear increases to panic, the tempo quickens, and Lionel
plunges into the fighting as the retreat to Boston
begins. With the arrival of Lord Percy and his rein-

forcements we suspect that the British will be saved,

93

but still Cooper holds us on the line of march by
describing the desperate fighting of the exhausted
British, the fury of the Americans, and the narrow
escape from death of Lionel himself. The first "act"
of the Revolutionary drama ends with the weary British,
including the "solitary horseman" (153) Polwarth,
straggling into Charlestown.

The second "act" consists of the preparations on
both sides for another encounter and a lengthy treatment
of the encounter--the battle for Bunker Hill. Meanwhile,
Lionel's sympathy for the patriots appears to be increas—
ing as his guide Ralph reveals to him their honest commit-
ment to freedom and as he sees the wrongness of British
attitudes and actions. Yet, according to Cooper, the
majority of the British, though shaken by their near
defeat, quickly regain confidence and still feel that
in a "real" battle their superiority to these countryfolk
will be easily proved. The colonists, in the flush of
their first triumph, also prepare for such a test.

Cooper again uses the technique of main character as
observor/participant to involve us deeply in the action.
First, with Lionel on Copp's Hill, we see the pageant
of war: the splendor of the British uniforms, the
deserted village of Charlestown, the hundreds of spec-
tators straining for a glimpse of the little party of

Americans on Bunker Hill. The British confidently make

94

their slow stylized attack. Then suddenly, there is the
impact of a series of bloody repulses, and the Americans'
unexpected cleverness and valor. Just as on the return
march from Concord, the British are losing the battle
when Lionel joins the reinforcements to finally drive
the Americans from the hill. At the moment of British
success, Lionel is wounded and falls unconscious beside
the body of the patriot hero Joseph Warren. That scene
marks the end of the second section.

For the convenience of the plot, Lionel remains
unconscious from June seventeenth, 1775, until the
following February when the third section or "act"
begins. This is the denouement; there is little histor-
ical action (the family mystery plot takes precedence).
We await the moment when the British realize that since
the Americans have fortified Dorchester Heights, Boston
is untenable and they must abandon it. The question of
where Lionel's loyalty lies is then decided for him by
the resolution of the family mystery plot, and all the
characters take their leave. The action plot, with the
notable exception of the absence of the political choice
we expected of Lionel, is resolved satisfactorily.

Despite the flaw just mentioned, the action plot
was a wise choice for Cooper, and is a success. As
noted in the introductory chapter, since the novel‘s

publication critics have praised Cooper‘s handling of

95

the historical action. We know the events and their out-
come, of course, yet Cooper gives us such a sense of
first-hand observation and participation that we cannot
help but enjoy reliving them. The factual accuracy
obtained by the use of sources combines with Cooper's
narrative power to make the account both realistic and
exciting. Even in 1972, the well-worn tale, when told

by COOper, makes good reading.

The other plot, concerning the family mystery,
is complicated; it is not easy to follow nor does it
possess the balanced dramatic structure of the action
plot. Basically, its structure can be described as a
slow unraveling, with many misapprehensions and false
turns, of a past event and its repercussions in the
present. Once the truth of the past is established and
recognized, it expends itself in a short scene of madness
and murder. Then like a spent curse, it expires. There
is almost no direct telling or showing in this plot; the
reader must depend on clues, hints, and double entendres
in speeches to determine the plot's direction. Cooper‘s
method of revealing this plot is so indirect and so
dependent on innuendo that the unsuspicious reader may
find himself surprised and horrified at its resolution.

The substance of the family mystery plot is
Lionel Lincoln's search for information about why his

father, now supposedly in an asylum, went mad. For

96

this purpose, Lionel again accepts Ralph as a guide,
since he seems to have proved his worthiness by his
accurate statements about the impending revolution.
Action is minimal in this plot until late in the book
when Lionel leaves Boston and his new bride because of
Ralph's influence, is captured by the rebels, and then
with Ralph's aid, escapes them. In a melodramatic scene,
Ralph then expounds his version of the family history as
he, Lionel, and Cecil, who has been bravely following
her husband, stand at Lionel's mother's grave in Cam-
bridge. After once more narrowly escaping capture by
the Americans, the three return together to Boston.
There they hear another version of the past, this time
from Abigail Pray. Both Ralph's version of the story
and his guise as a patriot are found to be false. Ralph‘s
claim that Lionel's mother was dishonored is shown by
Abigail to be a lie concocted by Mrs. Lechmere to force
Sir Lionel to marry her daughter. Her scheme had back-
fired, leaving Sir Lionel mad from grief. Ralph is then
revealed as the raving Sir Lionel, and in short order
is murdered by his keeper. Lionel, having seen all this
and learned the family secret, can only take his bride
and leave Boston and the scenes of these dreadful acts
forever.

A subtle, intricate plot, the comprehension of

which depends primarily on the reader's deciphering false

97

hints from true, thus ends in a rush of violent actions
and revelations. And if the reader, like Lionel, has not
been made suspicious by the double entendres about
"freedom" in Ralph's speeches, if he has seen Ralph as

an honest patriot and guide to truth and Mrs. Lechmere

as a proud old woman only, he is shocked rather than
surprised at this resolution.

The first of the two themes which Cooper attempted
to integrate into this pair of plots has already been
mentioned in another context. In the introductory chap-
ter, I noted the growth of literary nationalism after the
War of 1812. Some critics see The §py as evidence of the
influence on Cooper of the demand for a national liter-
ature, and as his attempt to respond to that demand.
Patriotism lay behind The §py, as Cooper stated both
in his rather humorous preface to the first edition and
in the serious dedication to James Aitchison, to whose
notice Cooper offers "a work which has been chiefly
1

written with a view to induce love to my own [country]."

Patriotism is also a moving force behind Lionel Lincoln

 

and one of its themes. Evidence of this fact abounds
in the novel. The preface to the first edition is a
running satire on the resources available to an American
storyteller, from the "Bread-and—Cheese Lunch" lore to I
the "deep, natural poetry of Bryant" to the jokes of

Joe Miller (8-9), although Cooper assures us that his

98

private source happens to be none of these. The intro-
duction, in a more serious vein, reveals the actual basis
of much of the story: the "exhibition of local publi-
cations" from Boston, the "Cradle of Liberty" (12). The
dedication to William Jay, with its reference to the
"exalted services" to the country of his father John Jay,
one of the early statesmen for whom Cooper always showed
the deepest respect,2 further confirms the solidly
American spirit in which the book was undertaken. Later,
however, for the Bentley edition of 1832, Cooper wrote
another preface which took into account the novel's
initial failure. The preface concerns itself with the
difficulty of writing about America. Since there is
"neither a dark, nor even an obscure, period in the
American annals: all is not only known, but so well

and generally known, . . . nothing is left for the imagi-

nation to embellish."3

Cooper believed that this fact,
that American history was so familiar as to exclude any

possibilities for romance, lay behind Lionel Lincoln's

 

failure, a failure which he candidly admits: "The author
has had these truths forced upon him by experience, and

in no instance more obviously than in the difficulties he
encountered in writing this his only historical tale, and

its reception by the world."4

This argument, it should
be noted, had been offered often before by those who

looked pessimistically at American literary prospects:

99

"We are too well acquainted with what has been, and is,
among us, to trust them to the imagination."5

But Cooper's doubts about the possibility of an
American historical novel, as he chose to call Lionel
Lincoln, came some seven years after the novel's first
publication. In 1824, Cooper felt that he was beginning
the first of a series of "Legends of the Thirteen
Republics," each to celebrate its own state's role in
the birth of the nation.

The underlying patriotic theme should be inte-
grated with and reinforced by the two plots. And in the
action plot, this does occur. Through its three "acts,"
we witness the steady decline of British power and confi-
dence and the concomitant growth of those two qualities
in the colonists. There is a sense of the old order
falling away and a new one rising to replace it. The
plot structure, from the opening of hostilities at Lex—
ington to the climax at Bunker Hill and the quiet achieve-
ment of the Evacuation, confirms this essential movement.
But history is a complex matter, and Cooper realizes he
cannot portray the first year of the Revolution as a
simple displacement of one power by another. Each side
has its valid arguments, its heroes and villains, its
moments of glory. Cooper possesses sympathy and under-
standing for both sides and must show the varied facets

of both.

100

This attempt to reveal the flaws and virtues of
both sides lifts the novel above the level of a pageant
of patriotic cant to a genuinely human experience.
Ernest E. Leisy sums up the effect of Cooper's fairness
this way: "As in TEe §py, [Cooper's] sympathy with the
losing side equalized the contest and made it a worthy

struggle."6

A few concrete examples should illustrate
C00per's balanced viewpoint. Among the patriot leaders,
the unselfish gentlemanly bravery of a Joseph warren
is contrasted to the boorishness and, as the reader knows,
eventual treachery of a Charles Lee. Among the British,
Major Pitcairn is seen as the rash precipitator of the
Lexington massacre, but also as a consistently brave
soldier who falls in the arms of his own son at Bunker
Hill. The foolishness of a British soldier's contempt
for all the colonists is balanced by the foolishness of
a patriot soldier who is flattered by the jargon of
liberty into letting a prisoner escape. Through such
checks and balances as these Cooper infuses the Americans'
steady forward movement toward success with complexities
which humanize it. Patriotism is present in the thrust
of the plot, but COOper never allows it to eclipse other
human feelings--and failings.

The melding of the patriotic theme with the
action plot is a success then. However, when this theme

comes in contact with the family mystery plot, some

101

peculiar implications result. As indicated in the intro-
ductory chapter, critics have been quick and consistent
in pointing to the collision between theme and plot as

a primary reason for the book's failure. The nature of
this collision and the resulting implications need to be
explored. In the action plot, Lionel is alternately
witness and participant but always, Cooper implies, seek-
ing the right side for himself: loyalty to the country
of his birth or to that of his "habit and association."
The reader believes that what Lionel has seen will allow
him to make a fair and reasonable judgment. And since

we feel the underlying patriotism of the novel, we assume
Lionel's judgment will be on the side of the Americans.
When that choice is taken out of Lionel's control and he
remains allied to the British through force of circum-
stance, we are disappointed. Nonetheless the action plot
has enough satisfying elements--for instance, the belated
British recognition of American strength and capability—-
for us to continue to feel the impact of the patriotic
theme.

In the family mystery plot, Lionel is also a
seeker, this time attempting to discover the truth about
his father. At the plot's resolution in chapter XXXIII,
Lionel finds that Ralph, Cooper‘s chief spokesman for the
patriot cause, is actually his mad father Sir Lionel,

"whose love of freedom is embarrassingly literal."7

102

He also discovers that Job, the homeSpun representative
of the rebels, is Sir Lionel's illegitimate son and his
own half-brother. These two die, but the secret is out
and the mystery resolved. It is these revelations which
decide Lionel's political stance for him: the American
side is tainted with murder and madness, and of course
he must abandon it. So Lionel's final "choice" of
allegiance is purely personal, based on highly unusual
circumstances; it cannot represent any other man's
judgment, and it does not reinforce the theme in any way.
But worse than that fact is the actual damage done to the
patriotic theme by one implication of the family mystery
plot's resolution. As an early reviewer crassly put it,
"we . . . are thence instructed that the separation of
the colonies from the mother country was effected princi-
pally through the agency of a mad old gentleman, called
Ralph, (after the Ravens we suppose, for he is a deuce
of a croaker,) and an idiot lad called Job Pray. . . . "8
Such a destructive implication, of course, makes a mockery
of the patriotic theme.

Cooper undoubtedly did not see the shadow cast
on the Revolution by the resolution of his plot. Perhaps
he felt this was only another instance of a balance:
inevitably a good cause will have some men of doubtful

motive and character associated with it. But Ralph has

103

become too strong and vivid a character to be so easily
dismissed. To the reader, he is truly the wise old
patriot and his transformation into a madman strains
and shocks credulity.

Critic George Dekker sees this plot as the error
which "shatters" the novel,9 and his estimate best sums

up the effects of its resolution:

Lionel Lincoln might have survived a merely feeble
ending, . . . but this ending shatters the novel so
totally that it cannot be regarded as a complete
novel, imperfect but whole. This is not to suggest
that the ending was the result of a last—minute
inspiration: on the contrary, Cooper seems to have
planned the denouement very carefully in advance--
and that is why the collapse is so terrific. The
loss to American literature is a major one, nothing
less than the loss of its only potentially great
historical novel about the War of Independence.10

 

 

Without doubt, with the carefully planned
resolution of the family mystery plot, Cooper unwittingly
undercut much of the patriotic feeling which the action
plot so successfully nurtured. The patriotic theme which
should have infused both plots is instead aroused by the
one and embarrassed by the other.

But an even more fundamental theme, one which
11

Paul Stein in his unpublished doctoral dissertation

and Donald A. Ringe in James Fenimore Cogper12 among

 

others have suggested as a constant in virtually all of
C00per's novels, ie integrated into both the action and

family mystery plots. This is the conflict between

104

appearance and reality, between apparent surface meaning
and the deeper truth it masks. Some explanation of the
nature of this theme is necessary. Briefly, Stein argues
that Cooper's belief in an ultimate truth and order in
the universe, which can be revealed by stripping away

the mask of appearances, governs the structure of his

fiction. The idea "that truth is real and ascertainable

is the kernel out of which all of Cooper's plots develop."l3

Thus the essential movement in a Cooper novel will be "a

progression from ambiguity toward clarity, from confusion

toward understanding, from ignorance toward knowledge."l4

Frequently, the literary device for this movement will be
the problem of defining a character's identity. This
standard novelistic device was well-suited to Cooper's
needs, hence he used it often. Stein sees the formula

of defining identity being used repeatedly in the novels

written before 1833:

This is particularly apparent in Cooper's earlier
novels, in which there is generally some central
truth or ordered relationship which needs to be
revealed. In its simplest form this quest for truth
is expressed through the unveiling of disguises, the
straightening out of mistaken identities, the exposure
of the face behind the mask of appearance. Here
Cooper followed squarely the path of traditional plot
devices he found in the novels he read. But what
marks Cooper's contribution to the genre is his
matching of device to theme so that the development:
of the narrative is in itself an illustration of

the motivating concept behind the author‘s creative
effort. In Cooper, the "embellishment" or device
does not exist for its own sake, but reflects the
author's "idea." The disclosure of the actual

105

identity behind the pose, therefore, was for Cooper

a fictional metaphor for the revelation of truth

which man must experience in order to understand

his moral and social situation.15
Stein, then, sees the appearance/reality theme as basic
both to the narrative structure of the novels and to
Cooper's deepest beliefs. The manner in which the theme
was integrated into his novels altered after 1833; before
that, however, "the dominant structural configuration of
the novels was determined by Cooper's fascination with
the patterns of deception which obscure the recognition

"16

of reality. Stein does not examine Lionel Lincoln in

 

his study, but it too amply supports his thesis that the
theme of appearance and reality was central to Cooper's
work.

The action plot, as I have stated, deals with the
transference of political power from the British to the
Americans. If, in seeking the reason w y the shift
occurred, we accept George Dekker's statement that
Cooper saw the underlying problem as "one of imperial
prejudice and incomprehension,"l7 one application of
Stein's thesis becomes clear. The mainspring of this
plot is the inability of the British--the King, his
ministers and even his soldiers--to understand the real.
nature of the colonists and their grievances. Their
understanding is clouded by a number of feelings: an

ethnocentric pride in the superiority of all things

106

British, loyalty, and the rhetoric of contempt habitually
used in dealing with all the colonists. Bound tightly

by these feelings and attitudes, the British can only be
brought to see the truth that the colonists "are men, and
the English are no more," (48) through force of arms.
Looking more specifically at the action plot, one sees
how Cooper uses the movement from misapprehension to

true understanding.

When Lionel arrives in Boston, it is Saturday
evening. According to the colonists' tradition, the
Sabbath extends from Saturday night through Sunday night
and the whole period should be one of solemnity. But the
British soldiers, unaware of this custom, use the night
for revelry in the tavern, thus earning the anger of
the colonists for their "blasphemy." Job Pray expresses
that anger as he glowers at the Britons‘ favorite tavern:

"'Tis the British Coffee House," said Job, shaking
his head; "yes, anybody might know by the noise they
make in‘t on Saturday night! See! it's filled now
with Lord Boot's officers, flaring afore the windows,
just like so many red devils; but to-morrow, when
the Old South bell rings, they'll forget their Lord
and Maker, every sinner among them!" (37)

We soon learn that British ignorance extends to
other matters than the colonists) religious customs;
Polwarth's summation may be taken as typical of his

comrades as well: "Jonathan is an enigma to me" (65).

The colonists' stubborn adherence to principle-—"the

107

women abjure tea, and the men abandon their fisheries!"
(65)--mystifies them. But bewildered as the British

are by the colonists' attitude, they remain certain of
one fact: the colonists will not fight. Polwarth scoffs
heartily at Lionel's suggestion that the colonists might
attempt to besiege them: "No, no, Leo, their minute-men,
and their long-tailed rabble, would hardly think of
besieging four thousand British soldiers with a fleet

to back them" (66). It is this false judgment, that

the colonists' lack of sophistication indicates their
cowardice, which propels the action forward.

Even Lionel, who has genuine affection for the
colonists, misjudges them. For instance, after witness-
ing the quiet orderliness of a political caucus, he
assumes that such reasonable men cannot possibly be on
the verge of rebellion. Thus Ralph is right when he
says that Lionel mistakenly "rates his sober and earnest
countrymen on a level with the peasants of Europe" (97).
Lionel, the soldiers, and the government they represent
will only discover the truth via "the last, and dreadful
argument of force" (97).

Cooper continues to press his point that prejudice
and ignorance are pushing the two sides toward confron-
tation. Other speakers illustrate it, such as M‘Fuse,n

who patronizingly compares the colonists to boys playing

108

at war (104), and an ensign, who states the fatal mis-

judgment of the British in the most blatant terms:
. . . I will acknowledge that I can see no suf-
ficient reason why British troops should put on
coats of darkness to march against a parcel of
guessing, canting countrymen, who would run at
the sight of their uniforms under a bright sun.
Had I my will, the tar above us, there, should
blaze a mile high, to bring down the heroes from
Connecticut River. The dogs would cow before
two full companies of grenadiers. (123)

This attitude sustains the British through the
Lexington affair; Lionel alone sees the serious impli-
cations of that day. Polwarth exemplifies the continuing
incomprehension of the British, which is at once comic
and tragic,18 when he argues that "'Tis morally impossible
that a people who eat their pudding before the meats,
after the fashion of these colonists, can ever make good
soldiers, because the appetite is appeased before the
introduction of the succulent nutriment. . . . “ (139).
Polwarth's confusion of appearance and reality is put
in his own idiosyncratic terms, but the basic error is
common to all the British.

With the events at Concord, reality at last
begins to intrude upon the British. Cooper describes
their increasing weariness as the Americans‘ unorthodox
attacks continue "with redoubled fury" (147) on the

march back. Casualties multiply as the British plod

onward; the truth comes hard. COOper emphasizes the

109

changed situation of the British in the way he describes
their final effort: "The sun was sinking over the land,
and the situation of the detachment had become nearly
desperate, when Percy abandoned the idea of reaching
the Neck, across which he had proudly marched that
morning from Boston, and strained every nerve to get the
remainder of his command within the peninsula of Charles-
town" (152).

This is only the first stage in revealing to the
British the truth that the colonists will indeed fight
for their principles. The fact that the British are not
yet ready to discard their false opinions is specifi-
cally illustrated in an exchange between a guard at

Province House and Lionel, who begins by commenting:

"Your experience did not deceive you, my old
comrade," said Lionel, lingering a moment to
address him; "we have had a warm day."

"So it is reported in the barracks, your honor,"
returned the soldier; "our company was not ordered
out, and we are to stand double duty. I hope to God
the next time there is anything to do, the grenadiers
of the ___th may not be left behind--it would have
been for the credit of the army had they been in the
field to-day."

"Why do you think so, my veteran? The men who
were out are thought to have behaved well; but it was
impossible to make head against a multitude in arms."

"It is not my place, your honor, to say this man
did well, and that man behaved amiss," returned the
proud old soldier; "but when I hear of two thousand
British troops turning their backs, or quickening
their march, before all the rabble this country can
muster, I want the flank companies of the ___th to
be at hand, if it should be only that I may say I
have witnessed the disgraceful sight with my own
eyes."

110

"There is no disgrace where there is no miscon-
duct," said Lionel.

"There must have been misconduct somewhere, your
honor, or such a thing could not have happened;
consider, your honor, the very flower of the enemy!
Something must have been wrong; and although I could
see the latter part of the business from the hills,
I can hardly believe it to be true." As he concluded,
he shook his head, and continued his steady pace
along his allotted ground, as if unwilling to pursue
the humiliating subject any further. Lionel passed
slowly on, musing on that deep-rooted prejudice,
which had even taught this humble menial of the
crown to regard with contempt a whole nation,
because they were believed to be dependents.
(168-169)

Cooper could hardly have made the theme clearer.
Although Lionel is convinced of the colonists' effec-
tiveness during the return march from Concord, the rest
of the British force feels that the Americans' tactics
are savage and unfair, and that in a "real" battle they
would be soundly defeated. In his description of the
British preparations to storm Bunker Hill, Cooper notes
their impressive correctness: the accuracy of the troop
formations, the flying standards, the martial music.
Indeed, says Cooper, "The advance of the British line,
so beautiful and slow, resembled rather the ordered
steadiness of a drill, than an approach to a deadly
struggle" (226). What better illustration of the
importance of appearance to the British mind?

Appearance deceives again, of course. The

clusters of Americans behind their makeshift defenses

of rail fences covered with mown grass nearly defeat the

111

precise formations. Truth has at last begun to penetrate
the British consciousness; they are now forced to see the
colonists as men committed to a principle, ready to fight,
and capable of fighting well. Polwarth loses a leg to
the rebels who would not fight and the once-unimaginable
siege takes place. But recognition of the Americans as
equals does not come to all the British. At a dinner
party at Province House, while some of the leaders, such
as Clinton who saved the British at Bunker Hill by bring-
ing up the reinforcements, worry over what the Americans
will do next, others remain firm in their blindness and
prejudice. In reply to a remark by Clinton on the
danger of the Americans using the islands in Boston
Harbor to molest British shipping, Admiral Graves and
General Howe answer with scorn:
[Graves] "Get upon the islands! drive the
fleet from their anchors!" exclaimed the veteran
sailor, in undisguised amazement. "I shall account
it a happy day for England, when Washington and his
rabble trust themselves within reach of our shot!"
[Howe] "God grant us a chance at the rascals
with the bayonet in the open field," cried Howe,
"and an end of these winter-quarters! I say
winter-quarters, for I trust no gentleman can
consider this army as besieged by a mob of armed
peasants!" (380)
When the Americans fortify Dorchester Heights in
March, even those boasting leaders must act with caution,

since they have learned to estimate the Americans' fight-

ing skills more realistically. The text explains:

112

But the fatal experience of Breed's had taught a
lesson that was still remembered. The same
leaders were to be the principal actors in the
coming scene, and it was necessary to use the
remnants of many of the very regiments which had
bled to freely on the former occasion. The half-
trained husbandmen of the colonies were no longer
despised; and the bold operations of the past winter
had taught the English generals that, as subordi-
nation increased among their foes, their movements
were conducted with a more vigorous direction of
their numbers. The day was accordingly wasted in
preparations. (454-55)

Due to a sudden storm, however, the British do not get the

opportunity for another battle, and evacuation is neces-

sary.

It is clear, from the examples given, that COOper
emphasized the large role that the prejudice and the
patronizing attitudes of Englishmen of all ranks played
in the events of the first year of the Revolution. The
British made the mistake of assuming that appearance and
reality were the same, that a uniformed soldier was auto-
matically superior to a farmer with a gun, that a colonist
was by nature a coward. Cooper consistently portrays
British misunderstanding and ignorance, and intimates
its final cost: the loss to King George of "the brightest
jewel in his crown" (58).

The theme of appearance and reality plays an
equally important part in the family mystery plot.

Here, however, COOper employs its more conventional

apparatus: "the unveiling of disguises, the straighten—

ing out of mistaken identities, the exposure of the

113

face behind the mask of appearance."19 Much of this
material will be discussed in the following chapter on
characterization, so only the pertinent points will be
noted here.

In the action plot Lionel seeks to define his
political identity as a British or an American partisan:
here he must seek to define that part of his identity
concerned with his family. He must discover the truth
about his father, his mother, his family history. In
seeking his political identity, his guide is Ralph, who
proves to be a false guide with a misconception of
liberty. In this plot too, his guide is Ralph who
proves to be even more disastrously false. His version
of the past is false, his true identity that of a madman.

The cause of his madness, we find, is deception, that is,

 

he went mad upon being told that his wife was unfaithful
to him, a deliberate lie concocted by Mrs. Lechmere to
force him to marry her daughter. Mrs. Lechmere is first
seen as a somewhat cold but basically good woman, proud
of her heritage and anxious for the happiness of her
granddaughter. This false appearance is stripped away
to reveal a woman "so worldly, so designing" (314), that
she does not know good from evil, only the success or
failure of her schemes. Abigail Pray is not merely a
poor old woman, but the willing collaborator in the

marriage scheme. Even Job Pray is not just a humbly-born

114

idiot, but the illegitimate son of Sir Lionel Lincoln.
The family plot is the slow unraveling of this melange
of identities; only when each character is shown as he
really is, is the mystery of the past solved.

Cooper's point in making this plot so complex and
its resolution so violent (chapter XXXIII reeks of murder,
madness, and death) is that deception always brings dis-
order. The false identities the characters adopt obscure
the truth and, hence, bring chaos and destruction. Only
when all deception is swept away and truth allowed to
come out can order return. Lionel, although he has wit-
nessed some horrifying events, is now in possession of
the truth and thus can lead a happy, ordered life. His
unhealthy melancholic symptoms were associated with his
not knowing the truth; they disappear once he learns it.
If we accept Stein's thesis that Cooper believed deeply
in a truth and an order in the universe, which could be
seen once the deceit and disorder of appearance were

stripped away, the ending of Lionel Lincoln is more

 

logical and understandable.

One final comment is necessary on the use of the
appearance/reality theme in the two plots. Stein postu-
lates that Cooper believed the perception of truth could
be obscured in two ways:

On the one hand, deliberate deception through the

use of disguises or the playing of false roles in
society often blunted the distinction between

115

appearance and reality. On the other, limitations
imposed by sectarianism, ignorance, or self-interest
acted to narrow the field of vision and to prevent
the whole reality from being seen.20
The family mystery plot, especially in its use of the
characters of Ralph/Sir Lionel and Mrs. Lechmere illus-
trates deliberate deception and the continuous assumption
of false identities. Truth kept hidden brings disorder;
its revelation allows order to return. The action plot
illustrates how reality is obscured through ignorance,
as the British persist in their misapprehensions of the
colonists. They come to realize the truth only after
great bloodshed and loss. Both plots deal with the slow
and costly discovery of truth, the theme which shapes the

structure of the novel through the plots and expresses

one of Cooper's most essential beliefs.

NOTES--CHAPTER I I I

1James Fenimore Cooper, The Sp , ed. James H.
Pickering (New Haven: College and University Press,
1971): P. 29.

2John Jay is the subject of a highly complimentary
"letter" in Notions e£_the Americans, written four years
later. The only other American leader who receives com-
parable treatment is George Washington. See James Feni-
more Cooper, Notions ef the Americans, I (New York:
Frederick Ungar Publishing Company, 1963), pp. 75-89.

 

 

3Reprinted in Arvid Shulenberger, Cooper'e Theory
ef Fiction (Lawrence: University of Kansas Publications,
1955), p. 26.

41bid.

5William Ellery Channing, "Reflections on the
Literary Delinquency of America," North American Review, 2
(1815), 35.

6Ernest E. Leisy, The American Historical Novel
(Norman: The University of Oklahoma Press, 1950), p. 70.

7James Grossman, James Fenimore Cooper (New York:
William Sloane Associates, 1949), p. 42.

8Marcel Clavel, Fenimore Cooper and His Critics
(Aix-en-Provence: Universitaire de Provence, 1938),
pp. 275-76.

9George Dekker, James Fenimore Cooper the Novelist
(London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1967), p. 41.

loIbid.

116

117

11Paul Stein, "In Defense of Truth: Structure
and Theme in James Fenimore Cooper's Novels," Diss. Case
Western Reserve University 1968. The changes in Cooper's
treatment of his themes are discussed further in Paul
Stein, "Cooper's Later Fiction: The Theme of ‘Becoming,'"
The South Atlantic Quarterly, 70 (Winter, 1971), 77—87.

 

12Donald A. Ringe, James Fenimore COOper (New
York: Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1962).

 

l3Stein, "Defense of Truth," p. 23.

14Ibid.

lsIbid., p. 24.

16Ibid., p. 50.

l7Dekker, Cooper the Novelist, p. 37.

 

lBIbid., p. 38.

19Stein, "Defense of Truth," p. 24.

201bid., p. 56.

CHAPTER IV

CHARACTERIZATION

Even in Cooper's best novels, criticism has been
levelled at the upper-class characters. Certainly the
genteel young men who seem to have more water than blood
in their veins, and the polite young ladies who have been
dismissed with the phrase "All sappy as maples and flat
as a prairie,"l are easy and tempting targets. Their
language, elaborate to the point of being unspeakable,
their overwhelming concern with honor, and their tendency
to be stiff and unbending when a situation calls for
flexibility and quick action can irritate the reader so
that he hastily turns to the less genteel characters
for a breath of fresh air. In The gpy, for example, when
the vacillations of Mr. Wharton, the alternate blushes
and pallors of his daughters and the dignity of his
son become unbearable, there is always the down-to-earth
humanity of Harvey Birch or the hard-drinking Irish
humor of Betty Flanagan. The relief with which a reader
turns away from the upper-class characters does not

seem to augur well for Lionel Lincoln, which has fewer

 

118

119

lower-class characters than Tge Spy, none of whom serve
the welcome comic purposes of a Caesar or a Betty. In
the earlier novels, the heroes whom Cooper succeeds in
making genuinely human are lower-class, e.g. Harvey and
Natty Bumppo, but now it is one of the genteel men who
must come alive; Lionel must be as real, active, and
credible as the former two if the novel is to hold the
reader's attention. Lionel, then, is the first of the
problems to be considered in looking at characterization

in Lionel Lincoln.

 

The character of Lionel reflects the two roles he
must play in the novel; these in turn reflect the double
plot. In the action plot, Lionel is the man-in-the-
middle, trapped in Boston at the crucial moment when the
American Revolution is about to erupt. Tied by birth
to America and by habit and education to Britain, he
apparently will be forced to make a choice--a choice
which will become a comment on the Revolution. Lionel's
other role is that of the romantic hero in the family
mystery plot. In this role, the character's usually
genial temperament is marred by a strain of morbid
sensibility which manifests itself in many ways: the
shadow of melancholy which frequently darkens his face,
his strong inexplicable attractions to strangers, and
his mysterious search for a long-hidden secret. The

roles are closely intertwined, but Lionel fulfills

120

primarily the first role until he is seriously wounded at
the Battle of Bunker Hill; at this point (chapter XVII)
the second role takes over and dominates the rest of the
book.

Cooper sets up both of Lionel's roles with certain
obvious initial clues. Lionel reveals his political
conflicts in his first conversation with Ralph (17);
the reader senses the coming struggle. As soon as
Lionel sets foot on his native soil, the problems his
double allegiance will cause are foreshadowed again. He
stops the beating of the defenseless Job Pray by drunken
British soldiers, highly indignant at their brutality.
But although he has taken the Bostonian's part, he will
not brook any insults to the British army. Instead, ties
of honor and loyalty bring him to its defense: "I know
my comrades but indifferently well, if their conduct
to-night be any specimen of their ordinary demeanor.

. . . " (25) Thus Cooper at once establishes Lionel's
political conflicts in his speech, in his actions and,
finally, through one intentional reminder of a literary
ancestor of his. During his first conversation with

Mrs. Lechmere, she introduces the subject of the tensions
in America by saying that they remind her of the
"rebellion of '45" (48). To any novel reader of the
1820's, that remark would have been a broad hint about

Lionel's character. It would bring to mind the hero of

121

Sir Walter Scott's Waverley, who during the Scottish
uprising "wavered" between the cause of the Hanoverian
succession and that of the Stuart. With that reminder,
the reader begins to understand that Lionel will be
struggling to resolve REE conflicting political loyalties
throughout the novel.

If Lionel's indecision is reminiscent of Edward
Waverley's, the reader may also recall a word frequently
used by Scott to describe Waverley's disposition:
"romantic." Lionel is first seen standing on the ship's
deck, his military cloak "thrown carelessly across his
form" (16), with "an air of ease and high fashion" (16)
about him, yet his expression seems at times "melancholy
if not sad" (16). He stares at the opposite shore,
"absorbed in his own musings" (17), then suddenly rouses
himself. Later, when he takes leave of the aged stranger,
there is another flash of the unusual in his uncon-
ventional parting speech: "I know not why, but you have
obtained a command of my feelings that no other being
ever yet possessed; and yet--'tis a mystery, 'tis like a
dream! I feel that I not only venerate, but love you!"
(20-21). Again, on his way to the Lechmere house,

Lionel finds himself "yielding to the secret and powerful
interest" (32) in the old stranger and following him into

a darkened warehouse. Lionel's speech, action, his

122

very countenance, then, suggest a strong streak of
romanticism, romanticism which is necessary to the
family mystery plot.

By the end of the third chapter, Cooper has
established Lionel's basic motivations: he is a man
with conflicting political allegiances which we expect
will be explored more fully and lead to the necessity
of a choice, and a man with a streak of romanticism,
which may influence that choice, as it did Waverley‘s.

A successful character cannot be built on only
two motivations, however, and Cooper is careful to round
out Lionel by giving him other qualities. Although he
has self-assertiveness and possesses the habit of
command, whether over his valet Meriton or an unruly
mob of soldiers, he can also show sensitivity towards
people. He understands and appreciates the gratitude
expressed in Job's clumsy refusal to take his offer of
money without scoffing at the boy's awkwardness.
Although his rank and ancestry could easily give rise
to aristocratic arrogance, Lionel has none; his aunt
tries to dwell on the size and magnitude of the Lincoln
estates, but Lionel only replies briefly and “care-
lessly" (42). Here Cooper is also insuring that Lionel
has neither of the two British traits portrayed as

objectionable in Precaution: lack of humility and

 

devotion to aristocracy.2 He is, in short, building

123

the character by implying the traits Lionel does gee_have
as well as the ones he has. Finally Cooper is careful

to give Lionel an appealing touch of youth; he is young
enough to be restive after a long draught of his aunt's
genealogical conversation and to welcome lighter
exchanges with two lovely women. Thus Cooper adds other
dimensions to Lionel; he is not to be merely a romantic
wavering hero, but a well-rounded character in his own
right.

With Lionel's character and motivations estab-
lished, Cooper increases his stresses and conflicts.
The pressure of events beyond Lionel's control becomes
pressure within, pressure concerning his choice of
loyalties and the mystery of his family. The emphasis
in the first part of the book is laid on the former.
Lionel is first an active and rational seeker of the
truth in the political conflict. And although he may
be led to that truth by romantic means, such as accept—
ing guidance from a mysterious stranger, the reader
expects that Lionel will make his final choice in such
an important matter on a rational basis.

The increased political conflict begins when
Lionel returns to his room one stormy night to find the
aged stranger, Ralph, reading his letters. His anger
is at once dissipated by Ralph's reference to the

family secret and his romantic streak is intrigued by

124

Ralph's hints about it. "Deeply affected" (86) by
Ralph's melancholy voice, Lionel finds himself entering
into conversation "with an air of powerful interest that
he could not control" (86). His British loyalty still
argues with Ralph, yet he follows him to an unknown
destination. While loyalty to Britain governs his
words, other motives influence his thoughts as he
follows Ralph through the storm:
Lionel mused on the singular and indefinable interest
that he took in the movements of his companion, which
could draw him at a time like this from the shelter
of Mrs. Lechmere's roof, to wander he knew not
whither, and on an errand which might even be
dangerous to his person. Still he followed, unhesi-
tatingly; for with these passing thoughts were
blended the recollection of the many recent and
interesting communications he had held with the old
man during their long and close association in the
ship; nor was he wanting in a natural interest for
all that involved the safety and happiness of the
place of his birth. (90)
Lionel is introduced to the American side of the
controversy, then, by Ralph, the guide and agent who
will help him towards a decision. Their first stop is
the Liberty Tree. Its folk legend makes little impression
on Lionel, as is predictable given his status and edu-
cation. The caucus or political meeting, and especially
its unknown leader, affect him more. Despite the dislike
which Lionel as an English officer naturally feels at the

patriots' resolutions, "he could not conceal from himself

the favorable impression made by the open, fearless,

125

and engaging countenance of the stranger" (95). Although
Lionel misunderstands what he sees, wrongly believing
that rebellion cannot begin in such an orderly fashion,
Ralph's guidance has led to the first step in increasing
his political conflict.

The next step seems to be taken when Lionel goes
out on the Lexington expedition. Again, Cooper reminds
the reader of Lionel's double motive: as a British
officer, it is his business "to examine into the state
of the country" (105) but he can also use the occasion
to make more personal inquiries (113). Lionel's state
of mind at this point is revealed as much in what he
does not say as in what he does. He is still consistent
in his refusal to hear any insults to England and her
policies from patriots, but there is a marked difference
between how he and other officers speak of the Americans.
The contempt, shown in such expressions as "a parcel of
guessing, canting countrymen" (123) or "those poor
devils" (108) or "the dogs" (123), common and constant
in the speech of the British, never mars Lionel's speech.
These insults flow freely in the preliminaries to the
march, but Lionel, while he does not defend the colonists,
does not join in. Yet as the appointed events at Lexing-
ton take place, he seems to be moving from his position
of political neutrality. Pitcairn shouts the order to

disperse, shots ring out, and the hero takes center

126

stage: "Great God!" exclaimed Lionel, "what is it ye do?
Ye fire at unoffending men! Is there no law but force?
Beat up their pieces, Polwarth--stop their fire." (131)
These broken sentences, so unlike Lionel's usual
highly formal and correct speech, betray his excitement
and lead the reader to believe that this is a turning
point. Lionel views the action as horrible and unjusti-

fiable, and its aftermath affects him even more deeply:

Every eye was bent inquiringly on the fatal green,
and Lionel beheld, with a feeling allied to anguish,
a few men at a distance, writhing and struggling in
their wounds, while some five or six bodies lay
stretched upon the grass in the appalling quiet
of death. Sickening at the sight, he turned, and
walked away by himself. . . . Unwittingly he
approached the church, nor did he awake from the
deep abstraction into which he had fallen, until he
was aroused by the extraordinary spectacle of Job
Pray. . . . The Changeling pointed earnestly to the
body of a man, who, having been wounded, had crept
for refuge near to the door of the temple, in which
he had so often worshipped that Being to who he had
been thus hurriedly sent to render his last and
great account, and said solemnly--

"You have killed one of God's creatures; and
he'll remember it!"

"I would it were one only," said Lionel; "but
they are many, and none can tell where the carnage
is to cease." (132)

Surely here is a change in Lionel and a definite
movement toward resolution. The pride in loyalty to his
king, the self-assured statements about British power.
and justice, even the neutrality of silence just referred

to are gone, replaced by the sober sorrow of the last

remark. Cooper's plain inference seems to be that

127

Lionel is a native son, who, seeing the truth after the
smoke of battle clears, forsakes a false allegiance for
a true one. The scene moves both Lionel and the reader;
it seems to mark a changing political loyalty.

Yet it is not to be so simple. A moment later
Lionel has reverted to his "wavering" self, even to his
more usual convoluted speech, and is advising that "pru-
dence would tell the peOple to desist from resistance
while yet they may " (133). His conversion is not yet
complete, but Cooper keeps implying that it will occur.
For instance, Lionel alters his behavior during the con-
versation he has with Polwarth on the way to Concord.
Polwarth maintains the position of British superiority
and scoffs at the idea that the patriots might seek
revenge for Lexington. But this time Lionel does not
listen to the contempt in neutral silence; he responds
with sarcasm ,"sharply," "with bitter emphasis" (139)
to Polwarth's statements. When he does fall silent, it
is because he is disgusted and "offended at the super-
cilious manner in which the other expressed these
injurious Opinions of his countrymen" (140). This is
a new attitude; Lionel's feelings have not been described
like this after any of the previous conversations on the
subject.

At Concord, Lionel alone has sensitivity enough

to understand the humiliating position of the old men

128

left in the village. But once more, on the return march,
faced with the unorthodox tactics of the patriots, Lionel
gives way to "habit and education." He has been an
observor; now, "having lost every other sensation in
youthful blood and the pride of arms" (144), he joins

the battle. Finally, after the British troops have
struggled exhaustedly back to Boston, Cooper provides

a summary of Lionel's feelings:

Perhaps no officer in the army of the king felt less
chagrin at the result of this inroad than Major
Lincoln; for, notwithstanding his attachment to

his prince and adopted country, he was keenly sensi-
tive on the subject of the reputation of his real
countrymen: e sentiment that ie honorable to our
nature, and which never deserts any that do not
become disloyal to its purest and noblest impulses.
Even while he regretted the price at which his com-
rades had been taught to appreciate the characters
of those whose long and mild forbearance had been
misconstrued into pusillanimity, he rejoiced that
the eyes of the more aged would now be Opened to

the truth, and that the mouths of the young and
thoughtless were to be forever closed in shame.

(154) (italics mine.)

 

 

 

 

 

By choosing those particular phrases in the above passage,
Cooper does does seem to be implying an imminent change.
At Bunker Hill, as at Lexington, birth and habit
struggle in Lionel, till once more the same choice is
made: "Until this moment the feelings of Lionel had
vacillated between the pride of country and his military
spirit; but, losing all other feelings in the latter

sensation, he now looked fiercely about him, as if he

129

would seek the man who dare exult in the repulse of his
comrades" (231). He fights, is wounded, and, conveniently
for the plot (no historical action took place in the
following eight months), remains ill from that day, June
seventeenth, until the following February.

After Lionel's recovery, attention shifts to the
family mystery plot. With that change of emphasis comes
a corresponding change in Lionel's role and behavior.

The romantic strain in his nature, noted from the first
but held in check so far, becomes dominant. Lionel is
no longer led by reason to seek a political truth, but
governed by emotion in unraveling a morbid family
history.

The change in emphasis begins with Lionel's
sudden, rather surprising, determination to marry Cecil
Dynevor. This is hardly a "grande passion"; up to this
point (chapter XVII) there have been no love scenes and
even here Cooper includes only the most obligatory con-
tact between the two. The new relationship does not add
any dimensions to Lionel's character; he is tender and
preperly protective as expected. What the hasty marriage
does do is to remind the reader of that darker melancholy
side of Lionel, so that there will be no surprise as it
grows stronger. Cooper provides another summary of
Lionel's state of mind as he makes arrangements for the

marriage, noting in Lionel "a touch of that melancholy

130

and morbid humor which has been mentioned as the charac-
teristic of his race" (288-89), and the "evil spirit"
(289) which he thinks he has quelled.

Mentioning that evil spirit introduces its
reappearance; there will be another kind of battle within
Lionel, not of conflicting political loyalties, but of
reason vs. unreason. This struggle begins as Lionel
goes out to see the clergyman. A terrific storm howls
around him; the streets are deserted as he walks thought-
fully along. "His thoughts vacillated between the purpose
of the hour, and the unlooked—for coincidence of circum-
stances that had clothed it in a dress of such romantic
mystery" (291-92). Lionel is a "wavering hero" in more
than one respect.

Later, as he waits for his bride, he looks about
restlessly, feeling that someone is hiding in the empty
chapel and will interfere with the wedding. This
"delusion" (301) keeps recurring, making him so uneasy
that he searches the chapel, and it continues to distract
him as he walks toward the altar with Cecil on his arm.
Scenes such as this have led some critics to praise the
novel as a "penetrating psychological analysis"3 or to
say of Lionel's morbidity that "Cooper is able to delve
into it with much pre-Freudian accuracy."4 These critics
see Lionel as a character subject to delusions which
approach paranoia in this scene--a paranoia which Lionel

"acts out."

131

This interpretation, flattering to Cooper though
it is, seems to me inaccurate. First, in this particular
scene, all of Lionel's delusions do in fact lead up to
the appearance of an enormous unexplained shadow; paranoia
usually has no such visible and clear-cut foundation in
reality. Cooper's constant hints about Lionel's delusion
are there for a purpose, but that purpose is to increase
the reader's apprehension and make the climax more chill-
ing, not to classify the character as a paranoiac.
Secondly, the final resolution of Lionel's conflict is
inconsistent with some of the parts of his character
which have been so carefully delineated. For example,
his morbid temperament is hereditary, but at the end of
the book it is dismissed as "forgotten" (463). It is
unlikely that a hereditary trait could be so easily, if
at all, erased. In the end, it is more accurate to say
that although Cooper created an interesting character in
Lionel Lincoln, he did not create a psychologically
sound or consistent one.

The morbid strain increases its hold on Lionel
in chapter XXIII. At Mrs. Lechmere's deathbed, the
sudden appearance of his guide Ralph seems to cast a
spell on Lionel; he can neither move nor speak, and he
ignores the bride he has taken only a few minutes before.

Ralph's power compels Lionel, a British officer, to

132

leave besieged Boston and follow Ralph into the American
camp, where he is captured.

Later, Lionel realizes that he has been controlled
by "a tempest of passions" (417) and fears what this
means: "There are moments when I think that the curse,
which destroyed the father, has already lighted on the
son!" (418). The "distempered feeling" (420) which he
thought he had vanquished still has a fearful power,
played upon by Ralph.

The Lionel of the last two revelatory scenes
in the cemetery and the warehouse can be described as
"Byronic."5 Upon hearing Ralph's version of his past,
he speaks wildly, Clasps his hands, flings aside his
bride "like a worthless toy" (432), and vows to join
the patriot cause. Upon hearing Abigail's version, he
is "nearly choked by his emotions" (45) and having dis-
covered his father a madman, he "staggered back to the
wall, where he stood motionless, and gasping for breath"
(451), and watches Sir Lionel's death.

However, this Lionel is only a temporary aber-
ration. The morbid strain has driven him to seek the
mystery's solution; once that is found the morbidity
subsides. This solution also decides the question of
Lionel's loyalties for him; the implication is that
Lionel cannot side with a political cause which he

associates with madness. Cooper, no psychologist,

133

assumes that once Lionel and Cecil have "reasoned" (462)
together over the madness and wickedness they have seen,
all its traces will disappear. He removes Lionel from
the direct view of the reader and having returned him

to England, given him marital happiness, can confidently
say that his morbid strain is forgotten (463).

Lionel's conflicts are thus neatly resolved, as
he returns to being the eminently reasonable man he was
at first. As a character, he ought to be satisfying to
the reader-~yet he is not. The reason is that Lionel's
final decisions are not his own, but are made for him by
circumstance. Lionel has been actively seeking the side
of justice in the conflict: asking questions, observing
battles, forming a factual basis for his choice. And as
I have shown, definite movement toward such a choice has
been suggested. Yet in the end, he has no choice; the
American cause has inadvertently been tainted with mad-
ness, and its justice compromised, so he can only return
to England and try to forget everything about it. The
inability to make the independent reasoned decision which
the reader is led to expect of Lionel is what finally
disappoints us. Cooper, by successfully resolving the
plot's complications, sacrifices character and, as shown
in the previous chapter, theme.

One further note on Lionel: although in the

early chapters, he shows little interest in rank and

134

wealth and certainly has none of his aunt's pride in such
attributes, his final rewards are affluence, "a dormant
earldom" (463), and "a peerage in his own right" (463).
This final small inconsistency, along with the ideal
bliss, seems an unsatisfactory, simplified end for a
character once motivated-by such complex conflicts.

The other major character in the novel is called
successively the aged stranger, Ralph, then Sir Lionel
Lincoln. One critic has said that Lionel suffers from
schizophrenia,6 but the term is far more apt when
applied to this character. As the "stranger" and Ralph
he is the wise old patriot, a devoted worker in the cause
of political freedom; as Sir Lionel, he is the mad
baronet to whom freedom means escape from asylum and
keeper.

These two roles run parallel to Lionel's. In
the first part of the book, when Lionel acts on the basis
of reason, his mentor is the sage Ralph; after his ill-
ness, acting on his morbid impulses, his guide becomes
more obviously peculiar until he is revealed as Sir
Lionel. The parallels end in chapter XXXIII when the
son recovers his reason; the father then plunges into
raving lunacy and death.

When the venerable Ralph becomes the maniacal
Sir Lionel, the reader's first reaction is shock; the

transformation seems incredible. But the character is

135

not inconsistent. Upon careful examination of Ralph's
appearance, words, and actions, the reader sees that
Cooper has continuously and skillfully insinuated cracks
in a facade of reason. The blossoming of madness has
been carefully prepared for, as a few examples will
show.

Ralph, as the aged stranger, is introduced to
the reader even before Lionel is. Peculiar contradictions
are apparent in his physical state. His body is bowed
and "attenuated nearly to emaciation" (15), his hair
thin and white, his face deeply wrinkled. He seems to
be very old, at least eighty, yet he moves with "quick,
vigorous steps" (15) and he looks about with "glowing,
rapid glances" (15). Sir Lionel is in fact only fifty
and although physically aged by madness, that madness
has also given him the alert, active cunning betrayed
in his glances and movement.

All of his early speeches, though solemn and
touched with pathos, have a certain mystery to them,
such as an unexplained reference to "a sad, sad pil-
grimage" (20). His actions are even more markedly
peculiar. Unnoticed by Lionel, he forms an immediate
attachment to the idiot Job, grasping his hand and
commending his patriotism; Cooper is hinting at the
kinship between them. Over Job as well as Lionel, he

seems to exert "a sort of irrestible power" (32);

136

he leads Job into the old warehouse and Lionel feels
he must follow. That power can transform even Abigail
Pray from "angry quean" (34) to trembling old woman.

The superficial impression that Cooper creates
then, is that of an old man, worn down by care and sorrow,
who has come to his native land only to die. But at the
same time, that dying man seems vigorous and alert to the
point of exercising a mysterious power over nearly every-
one that he meets.

When Ralph next appears, that air of the super-
natural is emphasized. He is seen only dimly at the foot
of the beacon, wrapped in the fog; he waves his hand
"impatiently" (56)--and "At that instant a bright sunbeam
darted into the vapor, illuminating his person, and melt—
ing the mist into the air. The anxious, haggard, and
severe expression of his countenance changed at the
touch of the ray, and he smiled . . . " (56). In the
conversation which follows, he says he is "a being of
another world" (57) with a clear "View of the world of
spirits" (57). Lionel naturally assumes him to be talk-
ing again of his closeness to death, but he actually
speaking of the world of madness, whose inhabitants
sometimes feel that they have the power to control, not

only people, but the weather. The same double entendre

 

is present when he speaks of slavery. Lionel assumes

he has fallen into the hands of "infidel barbarians" (59)

137

during his travels; instead Ralph is actually referring

to his years of confinement in a madhouse. This technique
of having the speeches imply two meanings succeeds in
unifying the Ralph/Sir Lionel character; if interpreted

as Lionel interprets them, the words are those of an

aging ardent patriot, but if interpreted in another way,
they reflect severe delusion and madness.

Another means of suggesting Ralph's true per-
sonality is through brief but telling descriptive
phrases, which the reader only later sees as indications
of his actual mental state. For instance, in the first
chapter, the moonlight imparts to Ralph's features "a
character of additional wildness" (20). This is the kind
of hint which justifies the later revelations.

For the time being, though, Ralph functions as
the agent who attempts both to get Lionel to resolve his
conflicting loyalties on the side of the Americans and
to find the answer to his family mystery. This role
of guide is defined in chapter VI, in which Ralph leads
him to the first of his encounters with the patriots
and at the same time is acknowledged as the "master"
(85) of the family secret. Ralph then appears to be
Lionel's mentor, the guide who will lead him to the
truth in both matters. Cooper even eeeme to suggest
that in doing so, Ralph is serving as a substitute

father, the figure who usually guides a son. Those

138

very words recur in the conversation which takes place
after Lionel has seen Ralph reading his letters:

"You see nothing there, I am sure, of which a

eeg_can have reason to be ashamed."

"I see much here, Lionel Lincoln, of which a

father would have reason to be proud," returned

the old man. (86) (italics mine.)
The reader tends to assume that Ralph is to be a father-
figure, when in fact Cooper has just revealed their real
relationship.

Yet although the family secret is dangled before
the reader's eyes and implied in Ralph's curious speech
and actions, we cannot help thinking of him as a patriot
leader. He makes accurate and sound judgments about the
political controversy. Lionel may think the temperate
men at the caucus cannot possibly rebel; Ralph sees
that the caucus simply defines the reasoned basis for
rebellion. The British jokingly dismiss the Lexington
expedition as a mere exercise; Ralph knows its purpose
and predicts its result (113).

Since Ralph is so consistently accurate about the
political situation, the reader tends to assume that he
will be equally accurate concerning the Lincoln family
history. His threatening of Abigail Pray and Mrs. Lech-
mere, cruel though it is, cannot be objected to since
they are both obviously guilty. His conduct seems

justifiable; once more he is acting on the side of

139

right exposing wrong, not as a madman taking revenge.
Through much of the book then, Ralph's mysterious
appearances and disappearances, his abrupt decisions,
his inexplicable remarks are judged by the reader as
merely the eccentricities of an old man whose real wisdom
is indubitable.
When the revelation comes, it comes quickly. The
hints grow very broad: Ralph speaks of the capture of
the stranger (in reality his keeper) in an odd rather
chilling way:
"Is he not the deadly, obstinate enemy of liberty?
And think you these countrymen of ours so dull as
to suffer one like him to go at large in their very
camp? No, no," he muttered, with a low, but exult-
ing laugh; "like a fool has he tempted his fate,
and like a dog shall he meet it." (415)

The double meaning, in this case Ralph's conception of

liberty, is becoming plainer.

As finally revealed by Cooper, the character of
Ralph, who has been a unique and original sage, is that
of a very conventional madman. His behavior is compared
to an animal's: he crouches "more like a tiger than a
man" (451) and turns upon his keeper "with the undaunted
fury that a lion, at bay, would turn upon its foe" (452).
He has the superhuman strength that maniacs sometimes
possess and nearly throttles his keeper with "fingers of

iron" (452), he raves that vengeance is holy and that his

140

keeper is a "damned dog" (452), he has "glowing eyeballs"
(452) and, of course, he laughs.

Dissatisfaction with this character is not caused
by the sudden revelation of madness, which the careful
reader can see has been inherent throughout. But Ralph,
more than any other character, has been associated with
the patriot cause. He has actively fought for it, has
been its prime defender and spokesman, has introduced
Lionel to its rationale. If he is insane, what does
that say about the American Revolution? The reader is
dissatisfied with Ralph because he makes a mockery of
the novel's theme, no matter how unique, consistent, or
well-drawn he is.

Ralph's companion and illegitimate son, the idiot
Job Pray, serves many purposes for Cooper. Since he is
regarded as harmless, he can cross the British-American
lines at will and serve as errand boy and unknowing
bearer of information. But since he is in fact twenty-
seven years old and physically capable, he can fight and
kill at Lexington and Bunker Hill. As both harmless
idiot and fighting patriot, he thus can keep the plot
moving. He is free from the responsibility of acting
sensibly, so he can say and do almost anything, and
appear in strange places at odd times without exciting

much surprise.

141

As a character, Job seems to be derived in large
part from conventional and sentimental notions of the
"idiot boy," although COOper adds some original touches
such as Job's New England dialect. Job has two attributes
which appear frequently enough in literary portraits of
fools to be considered conventions. One such convention
is the speaking of wisdom or truth by the fool, which is
ignored or disdained by "wiser" men. After Lexington,
for example, Job, upon looking at one of the dead says,
"Do you think . . . that the king can kill men in the
Bay Colony as he can in London? They'll take this up
in old Funnel, and 'twill ring again, from the North-End
to the Neck" (132). Job is right though Lionel does not
believe it. Again when Job announces, "Nab says Job is
the son of a great lord, too!" (209), Lionel replies
with disdain, "Then Nab is as great a fool as her child"
(209). Secondly, the fool, like the madman, has his own
kind of cunning. On the night when the American forces
secretly fortify Bunker Hill, it is imperative that the
British not discover them. Lionel, walking about in the
graveyard on Copp's Hill, hears the distant sounds like
"the low hum of a hundred voices" (207) and is suspicious.
Job suggests that it is only the sounds of spirits speak-
ing to each other. Then Lionel thinks he hears "a noise
as if heavy weights were falling to the earth" (208)

which is the sound of the Americans laying out their

142

defenses. Job replies, "'tis the clods on the coffins:
the dead are going into their graves ag'in, and 'tis
time that we should leave them their own grounds" (208).
The combination of his words, his unusually solemn manner,
the place, and the late hour cause Lionel to run from the
spot in horror. Job thus cleverly averts discovery of
the Americans' scheme by playing on the romantic strain
in Lionel's temperament.

Job's cunning does not always operate. More
often he lacks any sense of discretion; that deficiency,

as the headnote to chapter III from King Lear intimates,

 

will make him a victim. Job is first seen, in fact,

being beaten by British soldiers for his lack of loyalty.
During the first part of the book, when his foolhardy
speeches endanger him, he is saved either by Lionel or

by his own seeming indestructibility. He can be thrown
down the slope of Beacon Hill by a mob he has angered
with his taunts, but spring to his feet, wave his hat,
repeat the taunts and escape unscathed (228). He acts
the comic, invulnerable fool. But like the two characters
previously described, Job also changes after Lionel's
recovery. As COOper implies with that headnote and

first scene, Job's final role is that of victim: of.
men's desire for revenge, of smallpox, of cold and hunger,
of the siege itself. The Job of the novel's first part

could be irritating, sullen, cunning or comic; now, he

143

can still taunt the British leaders at the door of their
chapel, but his brave speech is mitigated by his "piteous
and suffering look" (271) and his speech: "See, Job's
numb with cold! Nab and Job can't get wood now; the king
keeps men to fight for it. Let Job warm his flesh a
little; his body is cold as the dead!" (271).

Cooper intensifies the pathos. The starving Job
clings to his patriotism as he remembers the last thing
he ate, a discarded bone, and says, "I wonder if the king
knows how sweet bones are?" (372). Sentiment surrounds
Job's demise; his last words are "Job is going where the
Lord has hid his reason . . . his prayers won't be
foolish any longer" (446). The sentiment and pathos now
stressed in Job's character fit in perfectly with the
gothic, melodramatic tone of the last scenes, and the
reference to his finding his reason ties in with the
novel's final revelations: that is, Job and Sir Lionel
will only regain their reason through death, while Lionel
will recover his through the solution of the mystery.

At the last instant, Job the fool speaks the truth once
more.

As he did in The Spy, Cooper includes a pair of
girls to provide romantic interest and to help illustrate
the theme. Their political positions, however, are
slightly less extreme than those of Sarah and Frances

Wharton. Cecil Dynevor seems to be wavering like Lionel

144

himself, for she too is a Tory by "habit and education."
Her cousin Agnes Danforth is an ardent patriot. The major
difference between the two pairs is that while the Whartons
are outspoken enough to reveal their politics, they
actually g2 very little: blushing, fainting, crying,

and in Sarah's case, going mad from disappointment.

But these females are not so limited. Agnes is charac-
terized by liveliness and wit, as well as by patriotic
enthusiasm. She can actually tease her lover, Polwarth,
without excessive blushing and simpering, she can perceive
the cold and selfish traits of Mrs. Lechmere. And after
the wedding, with the bridegroom gone, the bride hysteri-
cal and her aunt dead (a situation which should reduce

a genteel heroine to tears and fainting fits), she can
regain her composure, govern the servants, and make
necessary funeral arrangements with Polwarth.

Cecil Dynevor, during the first part of the novel,
is more conventional. She is beautiful, having a "light,
rounded, and exquisitely proportioned female form" (45)
and both "womanly grace" and "feminine delicacy" (45).
COOper also notes that not only does she have a soft
melodious voice, but her pronunciation is "quite as
exact as if the speaker had acquired the sounds in the
English court" (46). (Agnes apparently has a New England
accent, a "slight vernacular peculiarity" (46) which

offends Lionel's ear--and Cooper's.) She behaves with

145

more prepriety than Agnes, for instance she is totally
affectionate and dutiful toward her grandmother and
properly blind to the flaws in that woman's character.
Her behavior in this part of the book is predictable for
a genteel heroine; her growing love for Lionel is held

in check by the required reserve, yet betrayed by sudden
blushes. At his disappearance, of course, she falls into
a state of insensibility.

Then she too departs from convention. Disappoint-
ment does not drive her mad; she has the courage to begin
a long and dangerous search for Lionel, first visiting
the warehouse and quelling the mob of soldiers who are
threatening Job. She then has an interview with General
Howe eTehe, and must announce herself as "A wife, who
seeks her husband" (383). This is a most mortifying
situation for a genteel heroine, but though Cecil is
embarrassed, she presses Howe for c00peration. Finally
she goes into the armed camp of the Americans. These
actions seem natural for a modern heroine, but considering
that Cecil is a well-bred lady of the eighteenth century
and, further, that she is a character in an early Cooper
novel, her behavior is unexpectedly brave. Both Cecil
and Agnes can act when the need arises; as a result,‘
they are more appealing than the limp heroines of The Spy,

Unfortunately, one thing strongly works against

belief in the reality and strength of the girls: their

146

language. Their speech is so decorous, polite, and
formal that it is difficult to believe that any human
being ever spoke in such terms. A good deal of Agnes'
wit is lost through the convolutions of her conversation
and Cecil is imprisoned by the propriety of her speech
even when she is acting unconventionally. One example
will suffice. After hearing a half-human terrifying cry
above her head, Agnes, in great distress, cries out,

I'Oh, I feared--I feared these hasty nuptials!" (326).

In this novel, Cooper has greatly improved on his initial
pair of heroines, allowing these two a surprising range
of behavior. But his step forward in characterizing
young women is nearly obscured by his continued insistence
on the most ironclad proprieties of language.

A pair of older women also play important parts
in the novel. One is Job's mother, Abigail Pray who
long ago shared in the scheme to drive Sir Lionel mad.
Her character is straightforward and consistent through-
out. She is always motivated by one of two feelings:
her love for Job, her sole possession, or her guilt,
which at length induces her to reveal the truth. The
other woman is Mrs. Lechmere who, far more than Lionel,
is a "study of ancestral sin."7 She is more intelligent
than Abigail, hence the memory of her sin can prey on

her in more complex ways.

147

Two important parts of her character are implied
when she is first introduced. She is sitting in "formal
propriety" (40) in a richly ornamented room, and only at
the sight of Lionel does her "hard, severe eye" (40)
soften. Her manner is distant, her brow rigid, and her
conversation almost wholly concerned with rank and pride
of family. The total impression is one of a cold, proud,
unbending woman. Yet soon after, another facet is implied.
She speaks of Sir Lionel with the greatest difficulty,
her lip trembling and her voice choked, and at the
mention of Abigail Pray, her teacup crashes to the floor
and she nearly faints (44—52). At this point the reader
cannot know what is causing her behavior; he can only
see that her explanation that she has drunk too much tea
is insufficient. This impression is confirmed by her
mysterious interview with Abigail (chapter XII) in which
her "guarded and severe formality" (172) alternates with
her obvious anxiety and her horror-struck reactions to
Ralph (173). The conversation and description of her
behavior which follows that scene is an intense and
believable analysis of a guilty yet proud woman. Terri-
fied yet forced by her pride to try and keep control,
she sternly attempts to "look down" (174) Ralph's charges
against her. Finally when he says he knows all, guilt

and fear overcome pride and she collapses (175).

148

Mrs. Lechmere is a most convincing character; beneath the
cold reserve is a woman tormented by secrets and memories.
Her struggle, as the guilt beneath the surface
slowly rises to conquer her exterior calm, is intensified
in the proposal scene. She slips into the past, confusing
Lionel and Cecil with Sir Lionel and her daughter Agnes.
The horror of what she has done claims her for a moment;
her look becomes wild and she cries out. But her pride
wins this time: "Mrs. Lechmere drank freely from the
glass, and in another minute her agitation subsided, her
features settling into their rigid composure, and her eye
resuming its hard expression, as though nothing had
occurred to disturb her usual cold and worldly look"
(284). The resolution of the struggle within her per-
sonality is reached, fittingly, at her deathbed scene.
She still thinks to elude the inexorable results of her
guilt, even to elude death itself. In the face of her
doctor's verdict that death is imminent, she tries to
turn to the pride of family that has sustained her in the
past: "Come hither, my son; let us speak of Ravenscliffe,
the proud seat of our ancestors; and of those days we
are yet to pass under its hospitable roofs" (319).
Lionel can only turn away from that vain appeal, but she

continues to deny death:

149

Who says that I am dying? I am but seventy! and
'tis only yesterday I was a child--a pure,.an uncon-
taminated child! He lies--he lies! I have no
mortification--I am strong, and have years to live
and repent in. (321)
Finally, clutching Lionel's hand, comforted by the false
security it gives, she dies. The character manages to
triumph over the melodramatic trappings of the scene.
Cooper has stressed the two wellsprings of her behavior,
pride and guilt, and the reader sees them battling even
in her last moments; her torment is believable. Her
struggle is also illustrated by the bits of physical
description; she keeps trying to raise herself from the
pillows and clutches wildly at the empty air, as if
trying to grasp life itself. Furthermore, her speech
loses all the formality associated with the worldly side
of her nature and she lapses into broken sentences and
phrases, gasped out with effort. Mrs. Lechmere is one
of the most realistic yet highly dramatic characters
in the book.

All the characters discussed so far serve serious
purposes; even the touch of humor which lightens Job
early in the novel soon disappears. There is some comic
relief, however, and much of it is provided by Captain
Peter Polwarth, a character who has been highly praised.8
COOper apparently intends him as a kind of updated Fal-
staff; his introduction is preceded by a chapter headnote

from Kihg Henry T!: "A good portly man, i'faith, and a

 

150

corpulent" (54). He is the jolly fat man whose speech
and actions are governed by food. A true gourmand, he
takes food very seriously and from that seriousness
grow some genuinely comic scenes. Here is the captain
praising his love:
She is a woman of great qualifications, Major Lin-
coln. . . . In figure she may be said to be done to
a turn. When she is grave, she walks with the
stateliness of a show-beef; when she runs, 'tis with
the activity of a turkey; and when at rest, I can
only compare her to a dish of venison--savory, deli-
cate, and what one can never get enough of. (62)
Polwarth has a serious side. He is a soldier
in His Majesty's army, with a typical British contempt
for the colonists. He equates them with English peasants
and therefore expects them to gather in mobs, so his
usual soldierly method of solving their problems can be
employed: "then in we came at a hand gallop, you know,
flourished our swords, and scattered the ragged devils to
the four winds" (65). The Americans' stubborn refusal
to behave like those peasants puzzles him, yet he
bristles at Lionel's suggestion that the stubbornness
may lead to a siege. The "long-tailed rabble" (66)
would never think of besieging four thousand British
soldiers. Even the Lexington debacle does not change
his mind. Thus although Polwarth is primarily a comic

character, Cooper also makes him a spokesman for British

attitudes. He shows that even the most good-hearted

151

and good-natured Britons are guilty of supercilious con-
tempt for, and total misunderstanding of, the patriots.

Like some of the other characters, Polwarth
undergoes changes when the action of the novel resumes.
in February 1776. Cooper makes his physical and mental
changes sharply ironic. Polwarth has lost a leg; in
his supremely confident conversation before Lexington,
he had orated on the uselessness of legs, "unless it be
to have the gout" (125). Furthermore, he lost it at
Bunker Hill, to the "mob of base-born hinds" (147) who
would never fight. And he has lost weight since the
unthinkable possibility--an American siege with its
accompanying lack of food--has become a reality. His
contempt for the Yankees and their prowess has turned
into respect. The experience of the past few months has
noticeably subdued him.

It is this altered Polwarth who orders Mrs. Lech-
mere's funeral and then goes in search of vengeance for
Job's killing of M'Fuse. The Polwarth of the first part
of the book, concerned only with eating and exerting
himself as little as possible, could not have done
either of these. Cooper unifies the character by
retaining Polwarth's good nature and the food metaphors
in his speech, but Polwarth himself has definitely

changed.

152

Polwarth's character culminates in the magnificent
scene in the old warehouse (chapter XXVII). At first
he believes that Job has stolen and eaten his provisions
and his is furious. But finding instead that Job and
Abigail are starving, he is "aghast with horror" (372)
and forces Job to tell him where the hidden provisions
are. He prepares to cook the food, but one last crisis
occurs: there is no wood for the fire. With a flourish,
Polwarth unstraps his wooden leg:

Split it into ten thousand fragments; 'tis seasoned
and ready for the fire. The best of them, they of
flesh I mean, are but useless incumbrances after
all! A cook wants hands, eyes, nose, and palate,
but I see no use for a leg! (374)

Around the obsession with food then, Cooper
creates a lively consistent character, who moves from
being primarily comic to being more sympathetic, but
still humorous. Here for once language does not limit
but contributes to characterization. Polwarth has his
food metaphors, his own idioms and speech rhythms which
help in creating his character.

Two other characters deserve brief mention.

The captain of grenadiers, Dennis M'Fuse is the standard
comic Irishman, always prepared for a disquisition, in.
dialect, on the potato. But he too feels the same con-
tempt for the Americans that Polwarth does. In fact,

M'Fuse's attitude is even more extreme. Before Lexington,

153

he thinks victory over the Americans would be so easy
that it would disgrace the British; they should allow
the Americans time to prepare so that their defeat will
bring honor. Cooper employs the same sort of bald
irony with M'Fuse's death as he did with Polwarth's leg.
M'Fuse is shot down on Bunker Hill by the idiot Job,
proving, though belatedly, to M'Fuse that it takes no
particular time, training, or intellect to kill a man.
M'Fuse's opposite number is Seth Sage, the Boston
landlord. He is Cooper's idea of a Yankee: tall, thin,
and gawky, with "an unusual proportion of sinew and bone"
(103), small black eyes expressing intelligence and
shrewdness, and a face which was "meager, sallow, and
rigidly demure" (103). He shows the Yankee traits of
thrift and caution; he sends his family out of Boston
but stays on to protect his property and collect his
rent. His caution and cunning are demonstrated in his
speech, which has its own individual idiom and pattern.
He always speaks of "the people" and what they "pretty
much think"; when asked his political opinion prior to
Lexington, he "rather concludes" (104) that "the people
are pretty much engaged" (104) and "have pretty much
determined to do what they think best" (104). He also.
has a complete lack of humor which Cooper plays upon to

add to the comedy.

154

Cooper employs an interesting technique with the
figures who are minor in importance in this novel but
of major importance in history. He uncovered details
about the appearance, habits, and personal eccentricities
of the leaders on both sides from historical sources,
as discussed in chapter II. He built these details into
lively if limited characters; he succeeds in animating
figures from history.

Since most of the story takes place among the
British, we see more of their leaders than those of the
opposing side, but Cooper does resurrect two patriots.
One is Joseph Warren, whose fame is sorely diminished
now, but who was revered as a major hero into COOper's
time. By portraying Warren as the unnamed, silent but
obviously powerful and respected leader of the caucus,
C00per was apparently trying to invest him with the same
cloak of grandeur that he used so successfully with
Washington (Mr. Harper) in The Spy; from Warren's words
and his "open, fearless, and engaging countenance" (95)
should grow that same aura of greatness. Warren appears
prior to Lexington and again just before Bunker Hill,
each time on some secret but noble errand. These
appearances are intended to confirm the idea that he
is a good man engaged in a just cause. But Warren's
portrait does not have the same impact as Washington's,

for two reasons. First, Warren's name does not call up

155

the same intense patriotic associations, hence there is
far less surprise and pleasure in recognizing the identity
of this stranger. Secondly, Warren's death midway through
the novel eliminates any possibility of his continuing
influence on Lionel or of an impressive reappearance
like Washington's. The reader can only note with
momentary sadness and then dismiss, "the form of the
graceful stranger, stretched lifeless on the parched
grass, which had greedily drank his blood" (235).

The other patriot leader Cooper brings to life is
Charles Lee, whose career in the American army ended so
ingloriously but who, during this early stage of the
Revolution, was well-respected despite his eccentricities.
Cooper based his portrait of Lee on those eccentricities:
the profanity, the love of dogs, his loose attitude toward
women, his temper, and general lack of manners. The
Charles Lee whom Cecil meets on her search for Lionel
embodies these traits. Cooper places him, correctly,
in command of the left wing of the army, but also has
him engaged in superintending the fortification of Dor-
chester, which is at best probable. Cecil suspects from
his "haughty, and yet easy air" (406) that he is a figure
of importance, but she is puzzled by his retinue of
dogs, his profanity, and his rude speech about her, in
which he talks alternately to a subaltern and to a mis-

behaving dog:

156

"A lady!“ repeated [Lee], with singular emphasis,
slowly passing his hand over his remarkably aquiline
and prominent features; "if there be a lady in the
case, ease must be indulged. Will you down, Juno!"
Turning his head a little aside, to his nearest aid,
he added, in a voice that was suppressed only by
the action--"Some trull of Howe's sent out as the
newest specimen of loyal modesty! In such a case,
sir, you are quite right to use horses. I only
marvel that you did not take six instead of two.

But how come we on in the trenches? Down, you
hussy, down! Thou shouldst go to court, Juno, and
fawn upon his majesty's ministers, where they
syc0phancy might purchase thee a riband! How come
we on in the trenches?" (406-07)

After another exhibition of ill-temper, he rides
off, but not without calling back one last sarcastic
remark about taking "an especial care of the lady!" (407).
It is a lively portrait yet hardly an admirable one.
Cecil feels a "chill of disappointment" (408) eSpecially
because she thinks she has just seen Washington, and her
companion can only offer a feeble defense of Lee's
peculiarities (408).

It seems strange that Cooper would choose Lee to
picture as the representative of the American leadership.
For the purposes of the plot, Artemas Ward or Israel
Putnam, the commanders of the other wings of the army
would have been just as suitable. Yet Lee did possess
a vivid personality, albeit an unlikeable one, and thus
offered raw material which could easily be worked up
into this kind of caricature.

The capsule portraits of the British leaders are

built upon more slender bases. The character of Lee is

157

based on several personality traits; most of the others
depend on only one or two. The sources, which generally
did not deal much with personality, imposed certain
limits on COOper. General Burgoyne and Admiral Graves
are cases in point. Burgoyne was famous as the well-bred
general who was also a fashionable playwright, and
Cooper constructs his character from those facts. As
food metaphors dominated Polwarth's speech, so theatrical
metaphors govern Burgoyne's. He invites Lionel to witness
the Bunker Hill struggle with him: "But allons; accompany
me to Copp's, as a spectator, since they deny us parts
in the drama; and perhaps we may pick up materials for a
pasquinade, though not for an epic" (219). Burgoyne was
also famed for an arrogant remark he supposedly made on
arriving in Boston, about making "elbow-room" for the
British army; COOper has another character tease him
with his own remark during the siege. Cooper also
assumes that a fashionable playwright would be graceful,
self-possessed, and witty, so Burgoyne is frequently
described with those words. The thumbnail sketch of
Burgoyne then, stems primarily from the fact that he
was a high-born soldier-playwright.

Admiral Graves' portrait depends on the fact
that that he was an old man who had spent most of his
life on the sea in the service of his king. Such a man

would be blunt and unpolished yet of unquestionable

158

loyalty. And so Cooper describes him: "the blunt sea-
man, whose learning was somewhat impaired by hard and
long service" (378), or the "honest old seaman" (379)
who is seen "smacking his lips" (379) after a drink.
Metaphors of the sea dominate his speech; the appearance
of a mysterious lady at Province House prompts him to
exclaim, "A sail! a sail! by George, a sail! under
what colors, friend? king's or rebels'?" (381).

From a few scanty facts then, Cooper creates
living characters; they may be limited in depth and scope,
but they are moving, speaking people who add authenticity
to the novel.

Some other British leaders briefly pass through

the pages of Lionel Lincoln: Pitcairn, the man often

 

blamed for Lexington, is characterized as a stern old
soldier, constantly urging on his men and dying, as he
in fact did, in "the arms of his own child" (234) at
Bunker Hill; Howe, jealous of his leadership and power
and quick to take offense; Clinton, Howe's rival and a
more soldierly general than Burgoyne. They are little
more than caricatures, but they also contribute to the
novel's feeling of historical authenticity.

Thus characterization in Lionel Lincoln is

 

handled in more varied and imaginative ways than COOper
has been given credit for. It is not the novel's

strongest aspect. Serious, destructive flaws certainly

159

mar some of the major portraits; a case in point is the
disappointing resolution of Lionel Lincoln's character.
There are also successes, however, such as Peter Polwarth
and Mrs. Lechmere. The historical figures too, however
brief their portraits or minor their roles, must be
accounted as worthwhile additions to the novel. But
neither these successes in the characterizations, nor

the greater ones in the descriptions of the battle scenes,

can save Lionel Lincoln from being an essentially weak

 

novel.

NOTES--CHAPTER IV

lJames Russell Lowell, "A Fable for Critics,"
Literary Criticism e£_James Russell Lowell, ed. Herbert
F. Smith (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1969),

p. 190.

 

2James S. Diemer, "The European Novels of James
Fenimore COOper: A Study in the Evolution of James Feni-
more Cooper's Social Criticism, 1820-1833," Diss. North-
western University 1950, pp. 45-46.

3Ernest E. Leisy, The American Historical Novel
(Norman: The University of Oklahoma Press, 1950), p. 71.

4George Snell, "The Shaper of American Romance,"
Yale Review, 34 (March, 1945), 488.

 

5Leisy, Historical Novel, p. 71.

6Snell, "American Romance," 488.

71bid.

81bid., 486-87.

160

CHAPTER V

CONCLUSION

Cooper obviously brought to bear on Lionel Lincoln

 

as much or more sheer effort and hard work as on any of

his previous novels. Precaution was an experiment, under-

 

taken on a dare and finished only because of the encour-
agement of family and friends; it was a purely amateur
attempt. The Spy stemmed from an anecdote told by Judge
Jay. The task of telling it was made considerably easier
by its setting in the Neutral Ground of Westchester
County. This had become Cooper's home territory;
depiction of it was thus less difficult. For The
Pioneers, Cooper drew upon his memories of his father

and the Cooperstown of the past. Work on The Pilot was

 

made enjoyable by his relish for and experience with
nautical life. In each of the latter three novels then,
there was some part of the subject matter or background
with which Cooper had a natural affinity; something in
the descriptions, characterizations, or setting came

from his own personal knowledge or experience.

161

162

Lionel Lincoln departs from this pattern; no
such natural affinity existed between Cooper and any of
the material in this novel. It is not simply the fact
that Cooper could not view the people of New England with
sympathy or even detachment, as has been discussed in
the introductory chapter; that fact is important, but
not sufficiently so to cause the total failure of a novel.
But the lack of deeply ingrained familiarity with the
physical setting of New England too becomes significant
when one considers that some of Cooper's best writing
is his free-flowing natural description. This deficiency
on Cooper's part limited the number of panoramas, as

can be seen when Lionel Lincoln is compared to The

 

Pioneers, and it also inhibited the portrayal of wide-
ranging, free movement over a landscape, as in The Spy.
It is perhaps too strong to say that Cooper was writing
about an alien land, but not to say that he was never
totally at ease in New England, and that uneasiness in

turn restricted Lionel Lincoln.

 

Yet ironically, it is in this novel that Cooper
set for himself the goal of the greatest possible authen-
ticity; it will be recalled that he defined Lionel

Lincoln as his "only historical novel." Neither The

 

Spy nor The Pilot were classified as such by him; Lionel
Lincoln differs from them "in being concerned with a

single well-known historical event, centering in a

163

retelling of such known military actions as those at
Lexington, Concord, and Breed's Hill, and involving
eminent known figures as well as his fictional charac-
ters."l This was the occasion then, when an intimate
and long-standing knowledge of an area, its history,
and its people was not merely helpful but necessary.
A historical novel has to stand on just such a firm
basis. I have shown in Chapter II that Cooper spent
a great deal of time and effort in obtaining written
sources for the historical events and in making a
journey to Boston to survey the setting of those events.
By doing so, he intended to gain factual accuracy and a
"feel" for the setting, that is, the kind of comfortable
familiarity with it which he relied on so naturally in
the earlier novels. He succeeded to a surprising degree,
as discussed at length in Chapter II.

But research was not quite enough; it could not
replace the ingrained knowledge and experience which

stand behind The Spy, The Pilot, and The Pioneers and

 

 

which contribute to their strength. It is this lack of
true familiarity with novel's background, the quality
that must be present to get the effect of total authen-

ticity, which makes Lionel Lincoln more wooden than its

 

predecessors or its successors. The woodenness and for-
mality do not stem from the excessive use of sources,

. . 2
as one critic has suggested. The sources are used

164

inventively and successfully; they are simply not enough,

as one journey to Boston was not enough, to make Lionel

Lincoln a novel with the stamp of genuineness upon it.
One thing further should be noted about the

sources. Their importance to Lionel Lincoln has never

 

been fully realized until now. I have tried in Chapter II,
by noting how widely scattered source passages are through-
out the novel, to illustrate how completely they permeate

it. Cooper relied more on sources in Lionel Lincoln than

 

he did in any of his other books. And it is essential

to remark that those sections, like the lengthy one about
the battle for Bunker Hill, which are the most dependent
on sources are also the most exciting and alive. In
part this is due to Cooper's ability to integrate source
with narrative so completely that the division between
the two is nearly seamless. In addition, the liveliness,
the sense of reality in these scenes is due to a very
wise choice of sources. Cooper selected those which had
either the direct, vivid view of the actual observor,
such as the Burgoyne letter or the Thacher diary, or the
relaxed, personal style of one who had long steeped him-
self in his subject and enjoyed it, such as the Swett
account possessed. By employing sources with such char-
acteristics rather than those in rigid, textbook style,
Cooper made his problem easier to solve and achieved a

greater degree of success. The use of sources could

165

have made the novel excessively didactic or uneven and
patchwork-like in style. However, because Cooper chose
and handled his sources so skillfully, the passages
based on them become some of the best parts of Lionel
Lincoln.

If the book were to be judged on the grounds of
the use of sources alone then, Cooper's success is con-
siderable. On the grounds of authenticity, his achieve-
ment is less; that lack of intimate knowledge of New
England seriously damages the effect Cooper was hoping
for. On the grounds of plot, an enormous disparity can
be seen. The action plot, as discussed in Chapter III,
has a visible, balanced structure. It falls roughly
into three "acts": the events leading to Lexington
and Concord, to Bunker Hill, and finally to the Evacu-
ation. The structure is both natural and dramatic, and
it allows the reader to gain a sense of moving through
the first year of the Revolution along with the par-
ticipants. In addition, the action plot is well-integrated
with one of Cooper's primary themes, the conflict between
appearance and reality. In this case, Cooper reveals via
the plot that British prejudice and ignorance of the
colonists was a major force in precipitating the con--
flict.

A good novel should bring its readers to a new

perception or understanding, and Lionel Lincoln seems to

 

166

do this until chapter XXXIII. The reader acquires more
insight into the problems of the colonists and thus
another of COOper's themes, patriotism, is justified

and supported by the action plot. It is exciting, well-
structured and integrated with the novel's themes--again,
up to the climactic thirty-third chapter. At that point,
the action plot converges, or rather, collides, with the
family mystery plot, and the essential reason for the
book's failure becomes clear. The disparity between the
two plots is evident immediately. The structure of the
family mystery plot, as noted in Chapter III, is difficult
to describe: it unravels so slowly as to lie nearly
dormant until chapter XVII, but then suddenly becomes the
primary focus of attention in that chapter through the
novel's end. Such a change of focus is a weakness; the
reader is thrown off balance by the sudden division of
his attention, which was held before by the action plot.
In addition, this plot should complement the appearance/
reality theme just as the other plot does. That theme
in conjunction with the action plot reveals a political
truth; here, the truth about an individual's family
history is ultimately brought to light. But in order
for the final revelations to be credible, the reader
must have been continually picking up on the double

entendres and the subtle cues scattered throughout the

 

novel. Instead, for even the most careful reader, such

167

clues as the other possible meaning of Ralph's speeches
on freedom remain obscure until it is too late: the
book is ended and in his bewilderment, the reader must
try to ascertain how the family mystery plot arrived at
such a point. This too is part of the novel's weakness;
a reader can be surprised at a plot resolution, but he
cannot be totally bewildered and mystified as to how it
has occurred.

_ As shown in Chapter III, the final revelations of
the family mystery plot, Ralph's identity as Sir Lionel
Lincoln, his madness and death, and the new status of
Job Pray as Lionel's half-brother, leave implications
and unpleasant ones at that, for the action plot. The
two plots converge when the family history is being
revealed while the Americans are fortifying Dorchester
Heights. At that point, the revelations of the family
mystery plot proceed to destroy the outcome we have been
led to expect from the action plot: that Lionel will
be converted to the American cause. Instead, he with-
draws abruptly from it since,‘with its major spokesmen
Job and Ralph discredited, the credibility of the cause
itself suffers. In this disappointed expectation and
in the confusion and bewilderment caused by the family
mystery plot's sudden resolution lie the basic reasons,
compounded of course by the weaknesses discussed above,

for the novel's failure. And it does fail in the end.

168

As I said initially, no amount of analysis can alter
that final judgment of the novel. Interest for the
Cooper specialist lies in the way sources are employed,
the renewed use of appearance/reality as both plot
device and major theme‘,and in some of the characteri-
zation. But ultimately, Cooper's decision to abandon

the technique tried in Lionel Lincoln and the whole

 

projected series of the Legends of the Thirteen Republics,
and to return in his next book to more congenial material
was a wise one. He had perhaps learned something of the
limitations of both himself as a novelist and the tastes
of his audience, and acted intelligently on that new
knowledge in returning once more to Leatherstocking and

more familiar ground.

NOTES--CHAPTER V

lArvid Shulenberger, Cooper's Theory 2: Fiction
(Lawrence: University of Kansas Publications, 1955),
p. 25.

21bid., p. 27.

169

LIST OF WORKS CONSULTED

LIST OF WORKS CONSULTED

Cooper's Wbrks

 

Cooper, James Fenimore. Lionel Lincoln; or, The Leaguer
2E Boston. New York: W. A. Townsend and Company,
1859. XII.

 

 

. Notions e: the Americans. 2 vols. New York:
Frederick Ungar Publishing Company, 1963.

 

. The Pilot: A Tale of the Sea. New York:

—“_*——_

W. A. Townsend and Company, 1860. XVIII.

 

. The Pioneers; or, The Sources of the Susque-
hanna. New York: _W. A. Townsend and Company,
1859. XIX.

 

 

 

 

. The Red Rover; h_Tale. New York: W. A. Town-
send and Company, 1859. XXII.

 

. Satanstoe. New York: W. A. Townsend and
Company, 1860. XXIV.

 

. Satanstoe. Ed. Jamest. Pickering. New Haven:
College and University Press, 1971.

 

. The Spy: 5 Tale 2: the Neutral Ground. Ed.
James H. Pickering. New Haven: College and Uni-
versity Press, 1971.

 

Correspondence of James Fenimore- Cooper. Ed. James Feni-
more Cooper. 2 vols. New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1922.

 

 

The Letters and Journals of James Fenimore Co_per. Ed.
James Franklin Beard. 6 vols. Cambridge, Mass.:
The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press,
1960. I, II; 1964. II, IV; 1968. V, VI.

 

 

Books

Boynton, Henry Walcott. James Fenimore Cogper. New York:
Frederick Ungar PublIShing Company, 1966.

 

170

171

Bradford, Alden. Complete and Authentic Histo_y of the
Battle 9; Bunker Hill. Boston: J. N. Bradley
and Company, 1825.

 

 

 

Brown, Rebecca (Warren). Stories 9; General Warren.
Boston: James Loring, 1835.

 

Carter, William. A Genuine Detail of the Several Engage-
ments, POSitions, and Movements of the Royal and
American Armies; and A Plan of the Works on
Bunker' s Hill, at the Time It Was Abandoned hy
His Ma est sForces, on the —Seventeenth of
March, 1776. London: Printed for the author,
and sold by him, 1784.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Clavel, Marcel. Fenimore Cooper and His Critics:
American, British and French CritiCisms of the
Novelist' sEarly Work. Aix-en-Provence:
Imprimerie Universitaire de Provence, 1938.

 

 

 

 

 

Clymer, W. B. Shubrick. James Fenimore Cooper. New York:
Haskell House Publishers Ltd., 1968.

 

Cooper, Susan Fenimore. "Introduction." The Crater.
James Fenimore Cooper. Cambridge, Mass.: The
Riverside Press, 1884. XVI.

 

 

Davie, Donald. The Heyday pg Sir Walter Scott. New
York: Barnes an Noble, Inc., 1961.

Dekker, George. James Fenimore COOper the Novelist.
London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1967.

 

Drake, Samuel Adams. Historic Mansions and Highweys
Around Boston. Rev. ed. Rutland, Vermont:
Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1971.

 

 

. Old Landmarks and Historic Personages of
Boston. DetrOit: Singing Tree Press, 1970.

 

Force, Peter. American Archives. Fourth Series.
Washington: M. St. Clair Clarke and Peter
Force, 1837. I.

 

. American Archives. Fourth Series. Washington:
M. St. Clair Clarke and Peter Force, 1839. II.

 

French, Allen. The Day 9: Concord and Lexington. Boston:
Little, Brown, and Company, 1925.

 

. The First Year 9: the hmerican Revolution.
Cambridge: The RiverSide Press, 1934.

 

 

172

French, Allen. The Siege of Boston. New York: The
MacMillan Company,_1911.

 

Frothingham, Richard. History of the Siege of Boston
and of the Battles of Lexington, Concord, and
Bunker Hill. Boston: Little, Brown, and
Company, 1849.

 

 

 

 

. Life and Times of Joseph Warren. Boston:
Little, Brown, and Company, 1865.

 

 

. The Rise of the Republic of the United States.
Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1881.

 

 

Garden, Alexander. Anecdotes 2: the Revolutionary War.
Charleston: printed for the author by A. E.
Miller, 1822.

 

Grossman, James. James Fenimore COOper. New York:
William Sloane Associates, 1949.

 

Handbook of the Massachusetts Historical Society 1791-
1948. Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society,

1949.

House, Kay Seymour. Cooper' 3 Americans. Columbus, Ohio:
Ohio State University Press, 1965.

 

Humphreys, David. An Essay on the Life of the Honourable
Major General Putnam, _w1th an Appendix Containing
an Historical and Topographical Sketch of Bunker
Hill Battle by S. Swett. Boston: Samuel Avery,
1818.

 

 

 

 

Lamb, Roger. An Original and Authentic Journal of
Occurrences during the Late American War, From
Its Commencement £9 the Year 1783. Dublin:
Printed by Wilkinson and Courtney, 1809.

 

 

 

Leisy, Ernest E. The American Historical Novel. Norman,
Oklahoma: The University of Oklahoma Press,
1950.

Lowell, James Russell. "A Fable for Critics." Literary
Criticism 2: James Russell Lowell. Ed. Herbert
F. Smith. Lincoln, Nebraska: The University of
Nebraska Press, 1969.

 

 

Lounsbury, Thomas R. James Fenimore Cooper. Boston:
Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1884.

 

173

Massachusetts Historical Society. Collections. First
Series. Cambridge: Massachusetts Historical
Society, 1794. III.

 

. Collections. Second Series. Cambridge:
Massachusetts Historical Society, 1814. II.

 

. Collections. Second Series. Cambridge:
Massachusetts Historical Society, 1816. IV.

 

Morse, Jedidiah. Annals of the American Revolution.
Hartford, 1824.

 

Murdock, Harold. Bunker Hill: Notes and Queries 92
Famous Battle. Boston: Houghton Mifflin
Company, 1927.

lm

 

 

A Narrative of the Excursions and Ravages of the King' 3
Troops Under the Command of General Gage, on the
Nineteenth of April, 1775. New York: New Yo—k-
Times and Arno Press, 1968.

 

 

Paige, Lucius R. History of Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Boston: H. O. Houghton and Company, 1877.

Prescott, Robert. A_Letter from §_Veteran to the Officers
of the Army Encamped at Boston. New York: Hugh
Gaine, 177

 

Ringe, Donald A. James Fenimore Cooper. New York:
Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1962.

 

 

Sabine, Lorenzo. The American Loyalists. Boston: Charles
C. Little and James Brown,41847.

Scott, Sir Walter. Waverley. 2 vols. New Abbottsford
ed. Boston: Dana Estes & Company, 1900.

Shaw, Charles. A_Tgpographical and Historical Description
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174

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175

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176

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APPENDICES

APPENDIX A

LETTER FROM WILLIAM BRANFORD SHUBRICK TO
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER, FEBRUARY 22,

1824

APPENDIX A

LETTER FROM WILLIAM BRANFORD SHUBRICK TO
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER, FEBRUARY 22,
1824

Dear Cooper,

I sent you by yesterdays mail Coln Swetts account
of the battle of Bunker Hill, bound in the same cover
with the life of General Putnam. I could not get it
separate without waiting until Coln S. returned to Boston
which will not be probably for some weeks, and I thought
also that you might probably glean something interesting
from the life of the old general. Swetts work is not
thought in Boston to be so correct as that of General
Dearborn, which you have, you can however by comparing
the two accounts doubtless get a pretty correct account
of the affair--I have now to acknowledge the receipt
of two letters from you, you are however yourself the
cause of my being so much in your debt, you know you
always promised to bring me into notice, and I believe
you have now effected it, since the appearance of Pilot --
all my old correspondents, who had been silent for months,
some of them for years, have opened their batteries on me
and I have a pile of unanswered letters before me--I
congratulate you most sincerely on the late happy event
in your family. With the instruction of his excellent
mother and the example of his father, he will doubtless
be through life nothing but a comfort to you, and as an
encouragement to you to pay great attention to his edu-
cation I promise you, if he is a remarkably clever fellow,
to bestow on him one of my daughters, say the fourth pr
fifth. What is the young gentleman to be called, 13 he
to Be James or, Fitz James, or James Fitz James? for
James he must certainly be, at least so says my wife
and you know with me she is authority for every thing--

 

I do not like the "peace establishment bill"
it is complicated illiberal and partial--framed (with the
exception of our other class of officers) for the sole

177

178

benefit of the Port Captains, and although I hope at some
future day to wear anchors on my epaulettes myself, I do
not wish to see all the junior grades of the service
entrenched upon that the favored few may be better pro-
vided for-- I hope you will execute your intention of
writing something about the navy2 but do you not think
that a series of essays in some one of the most reputable
and widely circulated newspapers would have a better
effect than a long treatise? They would be more generally
read and a stile can be used in that kind of writing which
I think takes better with the people, than more studied
and finished composition-- Three of the sloops will
probably be built this next summer and I do not think

my chance of getting one of them so definate as you seem
to think it. I have already written to the SeCretary and
to some of my friends at Washington urging my claims, and
if you still hold your purpose of going to Europe I may
have the pleasure of taking Mrs Cooper, yourself and all
your young folks across the great pond in my chip, I
promise to have the lee scuppers well secured, and to
keep a light rag on the [7. . . ] in heavy weather--

 

The second edition of Pilot is asked for
anxiously in Boston and Mr. Phillips who dined with us
at Rouillard's has reviewed the work, for the next number
of the North American, by request of the editors-- The
mariners cannot get over Marrat but I suppose they dislike
him for the same reason that the yankees did Hiram Doo-
little. The picture is too true-- I have got the "picture"
home, my friends generalIy—t51nk that Stuart has not done
me justice, that is that it is not handsome enough! But
it is unquestionably a very fine painting-- I regret that'
Decatur, has not been able to get a more respectable man
than Steven Little4 (who was sent from this station for
disgraceful conduct) as his friend in the affair that
you mention. It is an evidence how low he himself is
in the estimation of his associates-- How is the busi-
ness likely to terminate?

Mrs Shubrick desires to be most kindly remembered
to you and offers to Mrs Cooper her congratulations on
the birth of her son. She bids me tell you however that
she does not approve of [ . . . ] or any such old fashion
habits-- Each of the Mary's send you a kiss, and St. Paulb
thanks you for your benediction, which when he is duly
ordained he will return four fold.-- My good sister Sally
is much pleased with the expression of your good opinion
of her, and assures you that she fully reciprocates it--
indeed your judgment was never more correct. She is one
of the kindest and best of her sex. Ludlow left this

 

179

last week for Norfolk & you will probably see him as he
goes or returns through New York. Remember me to Ballard,

Chauncey, Hoffman, Kearney or any other of my friends
that you may see.

Yours as ever

W. B. Shubrick

NOTES

This letter is printed with the permission of the
Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and
Manuscript Library, Yale University. In transcribing it,
I have followed the editorial principles of James Franklin
Beard in The Letters and Journals of James Fenimore
Cooper, I (Cambridge: The Belknap-Press of Harvard Uni-
vers1ty Press, 1960), xi-xiv.

 

 

1
Shubrick.

The Pilot was dedicated to William Branford

 

2Apparently Cooper had conceived of the idea of
writing a naval history as early as 1824.

3According to Beard's notes on the C00per letter
to Shubrick of 25-30? January--5 February 1824, this is
possibly John P. Decatur. See Beard, Letters and
Journals, I, p. 112, note 4.

 

4Although the name here appears to be Steven

Little, Beard suggests the man referred to is M. M.
Little. See Beard, Letters and Journals, I, p. 122,
note 5.

 

5St. Paul was the nickname Cooper gave to Paul
Trapier, a nephew of Shubrick's, who had toured the
battlefields with Cooper during his visit to Boston.
See the quotation from the unpublished letter from
Trapier to Cooper of 3 March 1845 in Chapter II, p.

6Henry E. Ballard, Isaac Chauncey, Beekman Ver-
planck Hoffman, Lawrence Kearney. See CoOper's references
to these in his letter to Shubrick in Beard, Letters and
Journals, I, p. 111.

 

180