men, and the numerous lawsuits he instituted against the offending American press. Despite the claim of the hostile critics that Cooper threatened to curtail the freedom of the press, he was awarded damages in a succession of libel suits. But his victories over the press proved Pyrrhic victories in the end, since they cost him as an author the sympathy and esteem of the entire American press, which ultimately came to regard him as an inveterate enemy, dubbing him contemptuously the "Great Persecutor."

Cooper's unpopularity had its inception in a mistake of judgment on his part and the consequent misrepresentation by the press. He forfeited the esteem of his countrymen by his own impetuosity and constitutional inability to remain silent, when attacked, till a suitable opportunity offered to vindicate his course. As a matter of fact, Cooper's offensive conduct originated in a commendable effort on his part to resent certain imputations upon his own country made during his residence abroad. The verdict of the press to the contrary, Cooper was intensely patriotic and could not find it in his nature to endure in silence any reflections. upon his native land. When abroad he was quick, if occasion arose, to break a lance in behalf of America and Americans. When he arrived in England at the height of his fame, the recollection of the second galling defeat of the British arms on American soil still lingered in the minds of the English people, and they did not always exercise precaution when they vented their prejudices against America. It was this occasional unfriendly criticism of Americans that led Cooper to cross the Channel and take up his residence in France. While here he was reluctantly drawn into a warm

controversy about the economy of a republican form of government as opposed to monarchy, which originated in the French Chamber of Deputies. A discussion of finance in connection with American politics grew out of this controversy. Cooper, becoming involved in the discussion, addressed an open letter to the American people which provoked several papers to assail his conduct abroad as an American citizen. The effect of this unfortunate incident was to sour and embitter Cooper and hasten his return to America. He even made a rash promise to himself to abandon writing altogether.

Cooper, somehow, seems not to have kept in close touch with American sentiment and ideas during his foreign residence. It is noteworthy that when he returned to America, soured and embittered in consequence of the hostile criticism by his own countrymen, he found himself out of sympathy and harmony with many institutions and ideals characteristically American. Some changes in American manners and customs had taken place during his absence abroad that did not commend themselves to his judgment or meet his approval. When he moved to his old home at Cooperstown, he became embroiled in an ugly dispute with the citizens of that town as to his possession of a piece of land much used as a public resort. At this unhappy juncture he rushed into print. He gave forceful and vigorous expression to the grievances, real and fancied, he had been nursing, and vindicated his course in an ill-advised "Letter to His Countrymen." Besides ventilating freely his grievances, Cooper took occasion in this letter to administer a rebuke to the administration and to criticise the government in general. This wholesale censure and vituperation invited attack from all quarters, and Cooper soon found himself the victim of re

peated newspaper assaults, which he only stopped by availing himself of the law against libel. But implacable hostility and unrelenting obloquy followed him to his grave.

Cooper was born in 1789, at Burlington, New Jersey, where the Coopers were residing for a short time, till their vast estate in Central New York was ready for occupancy. His father, who had represented New York State in Congress, had acquired large tracts of land on Otsego Lake and, in opening up this vast region of dismal waste and pathless forest, founded the town still called after his rame-Cooperstown. The family moved into that country when James Fenimore was only a year old. Here on the border of a boundless wilderness the lad grew up among the pioneers, and here the prospective writer received his first impressions amid the primitive surroundings of Nature, almost in the primeval forest. After a brief schooling at an academy in Albany and later at Yale, the young collegian marked out for himself a naval career and shipped before the mast in 1806, soon becoming a midshipman. But he afterwards grew tired of the navy, which proved uncongenial to his tastes, and resigned from the service in 1811. Within a year we find him married and settled down to the easy life of a country gentleman on a farm near his paternal estate. Here he lived in apparent contentment, giving all his time and attention to his farm, and showing not the least indication of his latent literary ambition. Indeed, it was not till he was thirty years old that he turned his attention, as if by mere accident, to literature.

Cooper began his literary career under favorable auspices. The beginning, however, seems the result of mere whim and accident. Reading in his home at Angevine a novel descriptive of English society,

he threw the book down in sheer disgust, and remarked to his wife, "I believe I could write a better story myself!" He was challenged to make good his boast, and, inspired by the encouraging words of his wife as the work advanced, he produced at length the two-volume novel "Precaution," which was published in New York, November, 1820. This novel is not a work of any great merit, but it is interesting as being the first heir of Cooper's invention. "Precaution" is a story of English society, and purports to have been written by an Englishman. The conception of the story is conventional enough, and reflects the prevailing literary sentiment and fashion of the times. The title was suggested by the obvious moral of the desirability of precaution in the selection of a husband or wife. Yet, paradoxical as it may appear, the chief incidents of the story,-the misunderstandings and perplexing situations in which the leading characters are placed,-all arise from an excess of precaution, and illustrate forcibly the undesirability of too much precaution. The book did not awaken much interest either in America or in England, where it was subsequently published. In some quarters in England it received favorable notice; nor was its American authorship for a moment suspected. The author had succeeded somewhat in describing scenes he was unfamiliar with and a society with which he was practically unacquainted. Cooper's friends, for this reason, saw in his first novel promise of success under favorable conditions, and urged him to write another story describing a society that he knew.

At the urgent instance of his friends, therefore, Cooper resolved to write another novel, and, in his own phrase, to inflict a second volume upon the world to atone for the first. Acting upon the wise

suggestion of his critics, he turned to his own country this time for his inspiration, and chose a theme from an incident in the American Revolution. The resulting novel was "The Spy," which appeared within fourteen months after "Precaution." "The Spy" is important, not only for its intrinsic merit as a literary production, but also because it revealed a new and unexplored field for American fiction. In this country the book met with an unprecedented sale, and was very favorably received on the other side of the Atlantic. Indeed, it is but truth to say that this novel made Cooper's reputation both at home and abroad. "The Spy" speedily found its way to the Continent through a French version made by the translator of the Waverley novels, and was soon accessible in all the principal tongues of modern Europe. It was everywhere hailed with acclamation and delight, except perhaps in England. In that country it did not arouse quite so much enthusiasm, because the English naturally did not find the same unmixed pleasure in the subject-matter of the story as the readers of other nationalities. Yet, in spite of the historical theme, the tale, from the point of view of mere art, arrested the attention of English readers and compelled their admiration.

Cooper scored a great and instantaneous success in "The Spy." To begin with, he was happy in the choice and conception of his theme, and no less happy in its execution. He was no longer, as in his "Precaution," on foreign ground, delineating strange, unfamiliar scenes and characters. He stood on the soil of his own native country, and knew the land made famous by the heroic struggles of the Revolutionary forces. He had a personal acquaintance, too, with not a few of the men who