University of Virginia Library

1. CHAPTER I.

In the course of our relaxations from the labours
of this stupendous work, we the other
day, while lounging, as is our custom, about a
worthy bookseller's shop, were somewhat
amused by the criticisms of a couple of smart
young gentlemen on the new novel called the
Pioneers. This they agreed in pronouncing
absolutely vulgar, a phrase than which none
other ever spoken or written, is so absolutely fatal
to a book, in the beau-monde. The smartest
of the young gentlemen maintained, with an
air of authority, that nearly all the characters of
that work were exceedingly low, the scenes and
incidents vulgar and common-place, and the
whole scope and tenor of it only fit to amuse and
edify the almanac readers, and connoisseurs in
dying speeches. The other not only assented

to this, but added likewise, that the tale was
destitute of interest, and totally wanting in those
high-wrought scenes of guilt or misery, which
give such a zest to the fashionable novels and
plays of the present age.

We confess we were somewhat startled at
these criticisms, especially as they were uttered
by two of the best dressed young fellows we
had seen in a long time, and our coat, to say
the truth, being considerably out of date, as well as
not a little threadbare, we felt our taste and
judgment somewhat overawed upon this occasion.
Retiring to our solitary lodging, we fell
upon attempting to account for this perhaps
fashionable opinion of a work we had read with
a pleasure and interest we felt almost ashamed to
avow in the presence of such well-dressed
judges, and which, till that moment, we had
considered as one of the most agreeable, as
well as natural pictures, of a state of society
peculiar to our country, that we had ever seen.
Our early life, too, had been passed in the midst
of rural scenes and rural society, and we could
bear testimony, on the authority of our own experience,
to the truth and nature of the author's
delineations, not only of character and manners,
but of seasons and scenery. Nay, we had actually

known a Richard Jones, a village doctor,
an emigrant Frenchman, and a Squire Doolittle,
so like those introduced in the Pioneers, that
we could almost swear they were the same.
The gradual opening of the forest; the introduction
of religious worship; the establishment
of courts of justice; the new-year sports and
festivals; and the progress of a new settlement
in all its features, from a state of nature to a
state of society, was so familiar to our recollection,
that the reading of this charming work
seemed actually to present before us the picture
hitherto only preserved in the memory of the
past.

Such being the case, we did not like to hear
those characters with whom we had been accustomed
to associate, and those little incidents and
amusements which we had mingled in and
shared with such a relish, in the days of boyhood,
treated as low and vulgar. Sure we are,
that nature and simplicity are not the soils in
which such weeds are produced, and that the
manners and customs peculiar to a large portion
of the human race, however they may differ
from those of a more artificial, not to say corrupt
society, could not be justly branded with
the imputation of vulgarity.

Reflecting in retirement upon these matters,
we gradually fell into a train of reflections,
which, we believe, will in some measure account
for the condemnation bestowed upon one of our
favourite works, by the two fashionable young
gentlemen before mentioned. With certain
people, perhaps a large portion of those who
read novels, every thing which is not fashionable
is vulgar. A worthy farmer or mechanic, in a
clean white frock, and thick-soled shoes, is vulgar,
and therefore ought not to be introduced into a
genteel novel. The picture of a village group
dancing at a ball with might and main, must
also of necessity be vulgar—because they are not
fashionably dressed, and do not understand the
mysteries of the cotillion, the allemande, the
partridge run, and the pigeon wing. In short,
with this class of readers and critics, every trait
of nature, and every exhibition of manners, or
dress, which does not come up to the standard
of fashionable elegance, is of necessity low and
vulgar. Compared, indeed, with a masquerade,
where all the mysteries of intrigue are practised,
or a fashionable ball, where nakedness stares us
in the face, the country ball may be perfectly
pure and innocent; still it must be low, vulgar,
nay, indecent, because the dancers are

not fashionable people, nor the decorations, the
music, and the steps, such as would be tolerated
by a genuine fashionable reader.

If we trace this vulgar error to its source, we
shall find it, in general, flowing from a false
opinion with regard to what constitutes real
refinement. In the general estimation, refinement,
or gentility, as opposed to vulgarity,
consists not in intellectual, or moral superiority,
but in outward manners and outward splendours,
in station, title, or wealth. This opinion
is the offspring of ignorance and vulgarity
combined; and, accordingly, we shall generally
find, that those who declaim most against a
book as vulgar, are the vulgar themselves, or,
at least, those pretended persons of refinement,
who graduate gentility according to the scale
just mentioned.

This impression, with respect to the indissoluble
connexion between rank and title on one
hand, and refinement and gentility on the other,
is, perhaps, stronger in this country than elsewhere.
The imaginations of our youthful readers
are early prepared by the books which are
generally put into their hands, to estimate the
refinement of persons according to their rank
and precedence, without regarding any other

criterion. This first impression remains unimpaired
by the subsequent results of experience
and observation, because here we seldom or
never have an opportunity of correcting it, by
comparing the phantom of our imagination with
the real being whom we have been accustomed
to regard with such unqualified admiration.
Hence it is, that we are too apt to consider all the
actions of the higher orders of society, such as
kings and nobles, as perfectly genteel, and all
those of the lower degrees of people, as low and
vulgar. For this reason, too, it is absolutely
indispensable, that all the heroes, heroines, and
principal actors in our novels, and other works
of imagination, should be of a certain rank, in
order to escape the charge of vulgarity. Unfortunately
for us, in this republican country,
we have neither kings nor nobility, to render our
literature genteel; and, consequently, the writer,
who, like the author of the Pioneers, confines
himself to the homely characters of this land of
equality, instead of introducing his readers to
levees and drawing-rooms, must remain subject
to the imputation of vulgarity, unless some
other standard can be found by which to regulate
our opinions.

That there is such a standard, and that it is

the only true one, is, we think, quite incontrovertible.
If we come fairly to put the question
to the test, it will be found that the essence of
vulgarity consists, more or less, in its approaches
to what is actually vicious and indecent. It
is, in fact, much more nearly allied to morals
than to manners. Whatever approximates to
vice or indecency, or whatever leads the imagination,
by a natural connexion, to impressions
that are allied to either, is in itself, in a similar
degree, low and vulgar. Thus, when we read
of a King of Prussia getting intoxicated, and
beating his wife or his daughter, whatever
be the rank of the parties, the scene is as intrinsically
vulgar, as if it were laid in the kitchen of
a palace, or the bar of a country tavern. So,
also, when, in a late popular work of the “Great
Unknown,” we are introduced to the court of a
king, and presented with pictures of morals the
most debauched and corrupt; with titled pimps,
and prositute duchesses; with a parent seeking
to compass the purposes of revenge, by placing
his only daughter in the power of a systematic
seducer and voluptuary—not the rank of the
actors, the splendours of a court, nor the false
glitter thrown around the whole by the genius
of the writer, can rescue the picture from the
imputation of vulgar indecency.

There is nothing of all this in the novel of
the Pioneers; neither exhibitions of high-born
or vulgar vice; and we think we may go so far
as to challenge the very best dressed of our
fashionable critics, to point out a scene or a
sentiment in that work, which, by any natural
association, will affect the imagination with
ideas of vulgar sensuality, or encourage a violation
either of decency or morality. The
whole is pure, and unsoiled by any thing of the
kind; and, for ourselves, we are not afraid to
invite a comparison, with regard to this essential
point of vulgarity, between the fireside of
the worthy Judge Temple, and the beer-drinking,
bear-baiting festivity of Kenilworth, or the
gross corruptions of the court of Charles the
Second, on both of which the most polished of
our readers banquet with such a refined gusto.