University of Virginia Library

ADVERTISEMENT.

The story which follows is rather an episode in the
progress of the “Partisan,” than a continuation of that
romance. It has no necessary connexion with the
previous story, nor does it form any portion of that
series originally contemplated by the author, with the
view to an illustration of the several prominent periods
in the history of the revolution in South Carolina;
although it employs similar events, and disposes of
some of the personages first introduced to the reader by
that initial publication. The action of “Mellichampe”
begins, it is true, where the “Partisan” left off; and
the story opens by a resumption of one of the suspended
threads of that narrative. Beyond this, there
is no connexion between the two works; and the
reader will perceive that even this degree of affinity
has been maintained simply to indicate that the stories
belong to the same family, and to prevent the necessity
of breaking ground anew. Much preliminary
narrative has thus been avoided; and I have been
enabled to obey the good old, popular, but seldom-practised
maxim, of plunging at once into the bowels
of my subject. The “Partisan” was projected as a
sort of ground-plan, of sufficient extent to admit of the
subsequent erection of any fabric upon it which the
caprice of the author, or the quantity of his material,
might seem to warrant and encourage.

The two works which I projected to follow the
“Partisan,” and to complete the series, were intended
to comprise events more strictly historical than those
which have been employed in this “Santee legend.”
The reader must not, however, on hearing this, be
less inclined to accept “Mellichampe” as an historical
romance. It is truly and legitimately such. It is
imbued with the facts, and, I believe, so far as I
myself may be admitted as a judge, it portrays truly
the condition, of the time. The events made use of
are all historical; and scarcely a page of the work,
certainly not a chapter of it, is wanting in the evidence
which must support the assertion. The career of
Marion, as here described, during the precise period
occupied by the narrative, is correct to the very letter
of the written history. The story of Barsfield, so far
as it relates to public events, is not less so. The account
which the latter gives of himself to Janet
Berkeley—occurring in the fourteenth chapter of the
second volume—is related of him by tradition, and
bears a close resemblance to the recorded history of
the notorious Colonel Brown, of Augusta, one of the
most malignant and vindictive among the southern loyalists,
and one who is said to have become so solely
from the illegal and unjustifiable means which were
employed by the patriots to make him otherwise.
The whole history is one of curious interest, and, if
studied, of great public value. It shows strikingly the
evils to a whole nation, and through successive years,
of a single act of popular injustice. Certainly, as the
ebullitions of popular justice, shown in the movements
of revolution, are of most terrible effect, and of most

imposing consequence; so the commission of a crime
by the same hands, must, in like degree, revolt the
sensibilities of the freeman, and inspire him with a
hatred which, as it is well founded, and sanctioned by
humanity itself, must be unforgiving and extreme.
The excesses of patriotism, when attaining power,
have been but too frequently productive of a tyranny
more dangerous in its exercise, and more lasting in its
effects, than the despotism which it was invoked to
overthrow.

The death of Gabriel Marion, the nephew of the
general, varies somewhat, in the romance, from the
account given of the same event by history; but the
story is supported by tradition. The pursuit of the
“swamp fox” by Colonel Tarleton—a pursuit dwelt
upon with much satisfaction by our historians, as an
admirable specimen of partisan ingenuity on both
sides, follows closely the several authorities, which it
abridges. The character of Tarleton, and his deeds
at this period, present a singular contrast, in some
respects, to what was known of him before. His
popularity waned with his own party, and his former
enemies began to esteem him more favourably. We
have, in Carolina, several little stories, such as that in
“Mellichampe,” in which his human feelings are allowed
to appear, at brief moments, in opposition to his
wonted practices, and quite at variance with his general
character. Nor do I see that there is any inconsistency
between these several characteristics. The
sensibilities are more active at one moment than at
another; and he whose mood is usually merciless and
unsparing, may now and then be permitted the blessing

of a tear, and the indulgence of a tenderness,
under the influence of an old and hallowed memory,
kept alive and sacred in some little corner of the
heart when all is ossified around it.

The destruction of the mansion-house at “Piney
Grove” by Major Singleton, and the means employed
to effect this object, will be recognised by the readers
of Carolina history, and the lover of female patriotism,
as of true occurrence in every point of view; the
names of persons alone being altered, and a slight variation
made in the locality. Indeed, to sum up all in
brief, the entire materials of “Mellichampe,”—the
leading events,—every general action,—and the main
characteristics, have been taken from the unquestionable
records of history, and—in the regard of the novelist—the
scarcely less credible testimonies of that
venerable and moss-mantled Druid, Tradition. I have
simply forborne to call it an historical romance, as it
contained nothing which made an era in the time—
nothing which, in its character and importance, had a
visible effect upon the progress of the revolution. Let
us now pass to other topics.

It is in bad taste, and of very doubtful policy, for an
author to quarrel with his critics: the laugh is most
usually against him when he does so. I shall not
commit this error, and hope not to incur this penalty;
nor, indeed, have I any good cause to justify me in
the language of complaint. My critics have usually
been indulgent to me far beyond my merits; and I can
see a thousand imperfections in my own books which
they have either failed to discover, or forborne, in tenderness,
to dwell upon. Farther, I may confess—and

I find no shame in doing so—whenever they have
dwelt upon deficiencies and defects, I am persuaded
that, in most cases, they have done so with perfect
justice. In many instances I have availed myself of
their opinions, and subsequent editions of my stories
have always borne testimony to the readiness with
which, whenever this has been the case, I have
adopted their suggestions. Sometimes, it is true, an
occasional personal and unfriendly reference—perhaps
a show of feelings even more equivocal in the
case of some random reviewer—has grazed harshly
upon sensibilities which are not legitimate topics of
critical examination; but even these evidences of unjust
assumption and false position have been more
than counteracted by the considerate indulgence of the
vast majority,—the kindness of the reader having
more than neutralized the asperities of the reviewer.

But while, in general, the opinions of the critic are
acknowledged with respect and held in regard, there
are one or two topics upon which I would willingly
be justified with him. One friendly reviewer—a gentleman
whose praise has usually been of the most
generous and least qualified character—one whose
taste and genius are alike unquestionable, and whose
own achievements in this department give him a perfect
right to be heard on all matters of romance—has
made some few objections to portions of the “Partisan,”
and—with all deference to his good judgment, and
after the most cautious consideration—I am persuaded,
with injustice. He objects to that story, in the first
place, as abrupt and incomplete. That it is unfinished
—that the nice hand has been wanting to smooth down

and subdue its rude outlines into grace and softness in
many parts—I doubt not—I deny not. The work was
too rapidly prepared for that; and the finish of art can
only be claimed by a people with whom art is a leading
object. No other people are well able to pay for
it—no other people are willing to pay for it; and,
under the necessity of haste, the arts in our country
must continue to struggle on, until the wealth of the
people so accumulates as to enable the interior to react
upon the Atlantic cities. When the forests shall
cease to be attractive, we may look for society to become
stationary; and, until that is the case, we shall
look in vain for the perfection of any of the graceful
and refining influences of a nation. But the objection
of my friend was one of more narrowing compass: it
was simply to the story, as a story, that he urged its
want of finish—its incompleteness. This objection is
readily answered by a reference to the plan of the
“Partisan,” as set forth in the preface to that work.
The story was proposed as one of a series, the events
mutually depending upon each other for development,
and the fortunes of the personages in the one
narrative providing the action and the interest of all.
This plan rendered abruptness unavoidable; and nobody
who read the preface, and recognised the right
of an author to lay down his own standards and prescribe
his own plans, could possibly utter these objections.
The design may have been unhappy, and in
that my error may have lain; but, surely, no objection
can possibly lie to the incompleteness or abruptness
of the one and introductory story, if no exception was
taken to the plan at first.

Another, and, perhaps, more serious cause of issue
lies between us. My friend objects to the preponderance
of low and vulgar personages in my narrative.
The question first occurs, “Does the story profess to
belong to a country and to a period of history which
are alike known—and does it misrepresent either?”—
If it does not, the objection will not lie. In all other
respects it is the objection of a romanticist—of one
who is willing to behold in the progress of society
none but its most lofty and elevated attributes,—who
will not look at the materials which make the million,
but who picks out from their number the man who
should rule, not the men who should represent,—who
requires every second person to be a demigod, or
hero, at the least,—and who scorns all conditions, that
only excepted which is the ideal of a pure mind and
delicate imagination. To make a fairy tale, or a tale
in which none but the colours of the rose and rainbow
shall predominate, is a very different, and, let me add,
a far less difficult matter, than to depict life as we
discover it—man in all his phases, as he is modified
by circumstance and moulded by education—and man
as the optimist would have, and as the dreamer about
inane perfectibility delights to paint, him. My object
usually has been to adhere, as closely as possible, to
the features and the attributes of real life, as it is to
be found in the precise scenes, and under the governing
circumstances,—some of them extraordinary and
romantic, because new,—in which my narrative has
followed it. In this pursuit, I feel confident that I
have “nothing extenuated, nor set down aught in
malice.” I certainly feel that, in bringing the vulgar

and the vicious mind into exceeding activity in a story
of the borders, I have done mankind no injustice; and
while I walk the streets of the crowded city, and
where laws are said to exist, and in periods which, by
a strange courtesy, are considered civilized, I am still
less disposed to admit that my delineations of the species
in the wilds of our country, and during the strifes
of foreign and intestine warfare, are drawn in harsh
colours and by a heavy hand. I am persuaded that
vulgarity and crime must always preponderate—dreadfully
preponderate—in the great majority during a
period of war; and no argument would seem necessary
to sustain the assertion, when we look at the insolence
and brutality of crime, as it shows itself
among us in a time of peace. Certainly, if argument
be needed, we shall not have to look far from our
great cities for the evidence in either case.

It is true that the novelist is, or should be, an artist,
and his taste and judgment are alike required to select
from his materials, and choose, for his personages, judicious
lights. An undue preponderance of dark will
not do in a picture, unless to produce some such
pyrotechnic performances as John Martin delights in,
—vast dashes of glare and gloom, alternately shifting,
and an explosion of fireworks in a conspicuous centre.
The discriminating eye will require that the light and
shadow be so distributed that the one shall not be
oppressive nor the other dense. These are general
principles to be observed, not less by the poet than the
painter—not less by the novelist of real life than the
romancer who seeks only for extraordinary material.

But it is not merely as an artist that the historical

novelist is to regulate his performances. He is required
to have regard to those moral objects which
should be in the eye of the painter also—though not to
the same extent,—since both these arts, along with
those of poetry and the drama, are never so legitimately
exercised as when they aim to refine the manners,
soften the heart, and elevate the general standards
of society and man. To paint morally, the historic
novelist must paint truly; and vice was never yet
painted truly, that it did not revolt the mind. One
error of our time is, not to paint it truly. If we tell of
the thousand crimes, we dwell with such emphasis
upon the solitary virtue, that they only serve as a
shadowy foil to its exceeding loveliness and light.
It is curious to perceive how completely this sort of
error has found its way into all our habits, not merely
those of thought and taste, but those of expression.
With what tenderness, nowadays, we speak of every
form of vice! A drunkard, unless he is very poor and
destitute, is seldom or never called a drunkard: he is
only a little excited. A debauchee and gambler is simply
a gay man; and a forger for millions is only guilty
of a sad mistake. We become wonderfully soon reconciled
to vice, when we mince the epithets which we
apply to it: the vice soon ceases to be held such
when we call it by a milder name.

The low characters predominate in the “Partisan,”
and they predominate in all warfare, and in all times
of warfare, foreign and domestic. They predominate
in all imbodied armies that the world has ever known.
War itself is a vice, though sometimes an unavoidable
one. The novelist would not draw truly, according

to the facts, if he did not show that there are but few
men, calculated, by ability and force of character, to
lead the many; and this truth is of universal application.
It belongs to the million always, and will apply
to every existing nation on the surface of the globe.

The question which propriety may ask, having the
good of man for its object, is—“Has the novelist made
vice attractive, commendable, successful, in his story?
Is virtue sacrificed,—are the humanities of life and
society endangered, by the employment of such agents
as the low and vulgar? Is there any thing in the progress
of the vicious to make us sympathize with them
—to make us seek for them?” These are the proper
questions, and they are such as the “Partisan” must
answer for itself. Some of our critics and novelists,
wanting though they may be in most standards of
discrimination, have, nevertheless, sympathies and
tastes in common; and, perhaps, if, instead of naked
vulgarity and barefaced crime, I had robed my villains
in broadcloth, adorned their fingers with costly
gems, provided them liberally with eau-de-Cologne,
and made them sentimental, I should have escaped
all objections of this nature. It is too much the fashion
to conceal the impurities which we should seek to
cleanse, as some people employ the chloride of lime
to sprinkle the nuisance which propriety would instantly
remove.