ture and truth of his position." "The descriptions of natural scenery, the animated scenes with the Indians, and the rude vigor of the emigrant family, render this one of the most successful of the novelist's productions.

In the same year The Red Rover appeared, a second sea novel, which shared the success of the Pilot, a work which it fully equals in animation and perhaps surpasses in romantic interest.

In 1828 Cooper published Notions of the Ame ricans, by a Travelling Bachelor. It purports to be a book of travels in the United States, and is designed to correct the many erroneous impressions which he found prevalent in English society, regarding his country. It is an able refutation of the slanders of the penny-a-line tourists who had so sorely tried the American temper, and contains a warm-hearted eulogy of the people and institutions of his country.

It was at the time of publication of this work that Halleck coupled a humorous reference to it with his noble tribute to the novelist, in the commencement of his poem of Red Jacket

Cooper, whose name is with his country's woven,
First in her files, her PIONEER of mind-
A wanderer now in other climes, has proven

His love for the young land he left behind;
And throned her in the senate-hall of nations,
Robed like the deluge rainbow, heaven-wrought;
Magnificent as his own mind's creations,

And beautiful as its green world of thought;
And faithful to the Act of Congress, quoted
As law authority, it passed nem. con.:
He writes that we are, as ourselves have voted,
The most enlightened people ever known.
That all our week is happy as a Sunday

In Paris, full of song, and dance, and laugh;
And that, from Orleans to the Bay of Fundy,
There's not a bailiff or an epitaph.

And furthermore-in fifty years, or sooner,
We shall export our poetry and wine;
And our brave fleet, eight frigates and a schooner,
Will sweep the seas from Zembla to the Line.

*

His next novel, published in 1829, was The Wept of Wish-ton- Wish. He was in Paris at the breaking out of the Revolution of 1830, and suggested a plan to La Fayette, with whom he was very intimate, that Henry V. should be recognised as King, and educated as a constitutional monarch, that the peerage should be abolished, and replaced by a senate to be elected by the general vote of the whole nation, the lower house being chosen by the departments-a scheme which combines the stability of an uninterrupted hereditary descent with a proper scope for political progress, two elements that have not as yet been united in the various governmental experiments of that country. This plan was first given to the public some years after in one of the author's volumes of Travels.

His next novel was the Water Witch, a sea tale, in which he has relied for a portion of its interest on the supernatural.

Note to revised edition of the Prairie.

He was one of the most active leaders in the demonstrations of welcome to La Fayette on his visit to the United States in 1824.-Dr. Francis's Reminiscences of Cooper,

Ile, about the same time, undertook the defence of his country from a charge made in the Recue Britannique, that the government of the United States was one of the most expensive and entailed as heavy a burden of taxation on those under its sway, as any in the world. He met this charge by a letter, which was translated into French, and published with a similar production by General Bertrand, whose long residence in America had rendered him familiar with the subject.

These letters, prepared and published at the suggestion of La Fayette, were in turn responded to, and the original slanders reiterated. Cooper, in reply, published a series of letters in the National, a leading daily paper of Paris, the last of which appeared May 2, 1832. In these he triumphantly established his position. It was during this discussion that he published The Bravo, which embodied to some extent the points at issue in the controversy. In the words of Bryant, "his object was to show how institutions, professedly created to prevent violence and wrong, become, when perverted from their natural destination, the instruments of injustice, and how, in every system which makes power the exclusive property of the strong, the weak are sure to be oppressed." The scene of this story is laid in Venice, a new field for his descriptive powers, to which he brings the same vigor and freshness which had characterized his scenes of forest life. The story is dramatic, the characters well contrasted, and in one, the daughter of the jailor, he presented one of the most perfect of his female delineations.

The Bravo was followed in 1832 by The Heidenmauer, and in 1833 by The Headsman of Berne, the scenes and incidents of both of which, as their titles suggest, were drawn from European history, their political purpose being similar to that of the Bravo.

Cooper's controversies in Europe attracted much attention at home, where his course found opponents as well as partisans; and many who, expressing no opinion on the points at issue, were disposed to regard him as having provoked a controversy for the gratification of his taste for discu-sion. It was during this divided state of public opinion that the novelist returned home in 1833. His first publication after his arrival was A Letter to my Countrymen, in which he gave a history of his controversy with a portion of the foreign press, and complained of the course pursued by that of his own country in relation thereto. Passing from this personal topic he censured the general deference to foreign criticism prevalent in the country, and entered with warmth into the discussion of various topics of the party politics of the day. He followed up this production by The Monikins, a political satire, and The American Democrat. "Had a suitable compound offered," he says in the preface to the latter, "the title of this book would have been something like 'AntiCant,' for such a term expresses the intention of the writer better, perhaps, than the one he has actually chosen. The work is written more in the spirit of censure than of praise, for its aim is correction; and virtues bring their own reward, while errors are dangerous."

This little volume embraces almost the entire

range of topics connected with American government and society. It is a vigorous presentation of the author's opinions, and its spirit and independence may be best appreciated by the exhibition of one of its briefest but not least pungent sections.

"THEY SAY."

"They say," is the monarch of this country, in a social sense. No one asks "who says it," so long as it is believed that "they say it." Desig ing men endeavor to persuade the publick, that already "they say," what these designing me wish to be said, and the publick is only too much disposed blindly to join in the ery of "they say."

This is another consequence of the habit of deferring to the control of the publick, over matters in which the publick has no right to interfere.

Every well meaning man, before he yiel s his faculties and intelligence to this sort of dictation, should first ask himself “who" is “they," and on what authority "they say" utters its mandates.

These works, of course, furnished fruitful matter of comment to some of the newspaper editors of the day, who forgot good manners, and personally assailed the author's peculiarities. These asperities were heightened after the appearance of the novels of Homeward Bound and Home as Found, in 1839. In these the author introduced, with his usual force, and more than his usual humor, a portraiture of a newspaper editor. The newspapers, taking this humorous picture of the vices of a portion of their class as a slander on the entire body, retorted by nicknaming the author from a gentleman who forms one of the favored characters of these fictions, "the mild and gentlemanly Mr. Effingham."

The author now commenced his celebrated libel suit against the Commercial Advertiser and other influential journals. He followed up a tedious and vexatious litigation with his customary resolution and perseverance, bringing suit after suit, until the annoyance of which he complained was terminated. He thus sums up the issue of the affair in a sentence of a letter quoted by Mr. Bryant: "I have beaten every man I have sued who has not retracted his libels."

The accuracy of his Naval History of the United States, published in 1839 in two octavo volumes, was one of the matters which entered into this controversy, and in a suit brought on this issue Cooper appeared and defended in person his account of the Battle of Lake Erie with great ability. A lawyer, who was an auditor of its closing sentences, remarked to Mr. Bryant, who also characterizes its opening as "clear, skilful, and persuasive," "I have heard nothing like it since the days of Emmet."

The publication of the Naval History during this stormy period of the author's career, shows that controversy was far from occupying his entire attention. This work, as was to be expected from the author's mastery of the subject in another field of literature, was full of spirit. Its accuracy has been generally admitted, save on a few points, which still remain matter of discussion. It was the first attempt to fill an important and glorious portion of the record of the national progress, and still remains the chief authority on the subject, and from the finish and

vigor of its battle-picces, an American classic. During an earlier part of this same period, in 1836, Cooper issued his Sketches of Switzerland in four volumas, and in 1837 and 1838 his Gleanings in Europe, France, and Italy, each occupying two duodecimo volumes, The series forms a pleasant record of his wanderings, of the distinguished men whose friendship he enjoyed, and of the public events which he witnessed, and in some instances was himself participant, and contains ingenious criticism on the social and political characteristics of the several countries.

In 1840, while still in the midst of his libel suits, as if to re-assert his literary claims as well as personal rights, he returned to his old and -strong fiell of literary exertion by the publication of The Pathfinder, a tale which introduces us again to the scenes, and many of the personages of The Last of the Mohicans. It was followedthe novel of Mercedes of Castile intervening-in 1841, by The Deerslayer. The scene of this fiction is laid on the Otsego lake and its vicinity in the middle of the last century. It abounds in fine descriptions of the scenery of the region, then in its primeval wildness, and succeeds admirably in making the reader at home in the life of the pioneer. Many of the incidents of the tale take place in the ark or floating habitation of Tom Hutter, the solitary white denizen of the region, who has constructed and adopted this floating fortress as a precaution against the Indians. His family consists of two daughters, Judith and Hetty, in whose characters the author has contra ted great mental vigor combined with lax moral principle, to enfeebled intellect strengthened by unswerving rectitude. These sisters are among the most successful of the author's female portraits. Deerslayer's course in the fiction is intended still further to enforce the same great truth of the strength afforded by a simple straightforward integrity. It is a noble picture of true manliness.

Deerslayer appears in this novel in early youth, and the work is, therefore, now that the Leather-stocking series is completed, to be regarded as that in which he commences his career. This character will always interest the world, both from its essential ingredients, and the novel circumstances in which it exhibits itself. It is the author's ideal of a chivalresque manhood, of the grace which is the natural flower of purity and virtue; not the stoic, but the Christian of the woods, the man of honorable act and sentiment, of courage and truth. Leather-stocking stands half way between savage and civilized life: he has the freshness of nature and the first fruits of Christianity, the seed dropped into the vigorous soil. These are the elements of one of the most original characters in fiction, in whom Cooper has transplanted all the chivalry ever feigned or practised in the middle ages, to the rivers, woods, and forests of the unbroken New World.

Deerslayer, in point of style, is one of Cooper's purest compositions. There are passages of Saxon in the dialogues and speeches which would do honor to the most admired pages of the romantic old Chroniclers. The language is as noble as the thought.

It is a singular proof of the extent to which the newspaper quarrels to which we have al

limits of his own language. His novels were translated as soon as they appeared in the principal countries of Europe, where the Indian tales especially were universal favorites. His delineation of the aboriginal character was a novelty which gained him a hearing, and the attention thus obtained was secured and extended by his vivid pictures of the forest and the frontier. These are topics akin in novel interest in the old world to ruined abbeys and castles in the new. Scott had worked the latter field to an extent that lessened the public interest in such scenes when treated by any but himself. Cooper wisely chose a new path, which he could make and hold as his own. He tried and succeeded.

The novels of Scott set the antiquaries to work rubbing the rust off old armor, and brushing the dust from many an old folio, and illustrating many a well-nigh forgotten chapter of history; and the productions of Cooper have rendered a like service. He has thrown a poetic atmosphere around the departing race of the Red men, which, if it cannot stay their destiny, will do much to fix their place in history.

In his personal character Cooper presents to us a manly resolute nature, of an independent mood, aggressive, fon1 of the attack; conscious of the strength which had led him to choose his own path in the world and triumph. He never exerted his power, however, but in some chivalrous cause. In Europe he battled for republicanism; in America he was punctilious for the personal virtues which grow up under an aristocracy. It would have been as well, perhaps, if he had sometimes been silent and waited for time to remely the evils which he contended with; but this was not his nature. He had great powers, to which something should have been conceded by others, and it would have been better for the others as well as for him. The egotism of such a man, if not inevitable, is at least venial.

It was easy for those at a distance to sneer at alleged weaknesses; but those who knew him well, his family, his friends-and what noble men they were, in the highest stations of trust and confidence in the country-found new demands for sympathy an 1 admiration in Cooper's society. With his intimates he was gay, frank, and warmhearted; fond of the society of children; full of sport and merriment from his youth through life.

Miss Susan Cooper, the daughter of the novelist, is the author of two volumes of merit. Rural Homes, published in 1850, is a felicitous journal of country life, describing the scenery and character about her residence at Cooperstown, with minute observation, and with noticeable sincerity of style. The Rhyme and Reason of Country Life, published in 1854, is a choice collection of passages from the best author-, in prose and verse, who have treated rural themes, accompanied by just and sympathetic original coinments.

CAPTURE OF A WHALE-FROM THE PILOT.

While the young cornet still continued gazing at the whale-boat (for it was the party from the schooner that he saw), the hour expired for the appearance of Griffith and his companions; and Barnstable reluctantly determined to comply with the letter of his instructions, and leave them to their VOL. II.-8

own sagacity and skill to regain the Ariel. The boat had been suffered to ride in the edge of the surf, since the appearance of the sun; and the eyes of her crew were kept anxiously fixed on the cliffs, though in vain, to discover the signal that was to call them to the place of landing. After looking at his watch for the twentieth time, and as often casting glances of uneasy dissatisfaction towards the shore, the lieutenant exclaimed

"A charming prospect, this, Master Coffin, but rather too much poetry in it for your taste; I believe you relish no land that is of a harder consistency than mud!"

"I was born on the waters, sir," returned the cockswain, from his snug abode, where he was bestowed with his usual economy of room," and it's according to all things for a man to love his native soil. I'll not deny, Captain Barnstable, but I would rather drop my anchor on a bottom that won't broom a keel, though, at the same time, I harbour no great malice against dry land."

"I shall never forgive it, myself, if any accident has befallen Griffith in this excursion," rejoined the lieutenant; "his Pilot may be a better man on the water than on terra firma, long Tom."

The cockswain turned his solemn visage, with an extraordinary meaning, towards his commander, before he replied

66

For as long a time as I have followed the waters, sir, and that has been ever since I've drawn my rations, seeing that I was born while the boat was crossing Nantucket shoals, I've never known a Pilot come off in greater need, than the one we fell in with, when we made that stretch or two on the land, in the dogwatch of yesterday."

"Ay! the fellow has played his part like a man; the occasion was great, and it seems that he was quite equal to his work."

"The frigate's people tell me, sir, that he handled the ship like a top," continued the cockswain; "but she is a ship that is a nateral inimy of the bottom !"

"Can you say as much for this boat, Master Coffin?" cried Barnstable: "keep her out of the surf, or you'll have us rolling in upon the beach, presently, like an empty water-cask; you must remember that we cannot all wade, like yourself, in two-fathom water."

The cockswain cast a cool glance at the crests of foam that were breaking over the tops of the billows, within a few yards of where their boat was riding, and called aloud to his men

Pull a stroke or two; away with her into dark water."

The drop of the oars resembled the movements of a nice machine, and the light boat skimmed along the water like a duck, that approaches to the very brink of some imminent danger, and then avoids it, at the most critical moment, apparently without an effort. While this necessary movement was making, Barnstable arose, and surveyed the cliffs with keen eyes, and then turning once more in disappointment from his search, he said

"Pull more from the land, and let her run down at an easy stroke to the schooner. Keep a look-out at the cliffs, boys; it is possible that they are stowed in some of the holes in the rocks, for it's no daylight business they are on."

The order was promptly obeyed, and they had glided along for nearly a mile in this manner, in the most profound silence, when suddenly the stillness was broken by a heavy rush of air, and a dash of water, seemingly at no great distance from them.

"Ay, ay, sir," returned the cockswain with undisturbed composure; "here is his spout not half a mile to seaward; the easterly gale has driven the creater to leeward, and he begins to find himself in shoal water. He's been sleeping, while he should have been working to windward!"

The fellow takes it coolly, too! he's in no hurry to get an offing!"

"I rather conclude, sir," said the cockswain, rolling over his tobacco in his mouth, very composedly, while his little sunken eyes began to twinkle with pleasure at the sight, "the gentleman has lost his reckoning, and don't know which way to head to take himself back into blue water."

""Tis a fin-back!" exclaimed the lieutenant; "he will soon make head-way, and be off."

"No, sir, 'tis a right whale," answered Tom; "I saw his spout; he threw up a pair of as pretty rainbows as a Christian would wish to look at. He's a raal oil-butt, that fellow!"

Barnstable laughed, turned himself away from the tempting sight, and tried to look at the cliffs; and then unconsciously bent his lon ging eyes again on the sluggish animal, who was throwing his huge carcass, at times, for many feet from the water, in idle gambols. The temptation for sport, and the recollection of his early habits, at length prevailed over his anxiety in behalf of his friends, and the young officer enquired of his cockswain

Is there any whale-line in the boat, to make fast to that harpoon which you bear about with you in fair weather or foul?"

"I never trust the boat from the schooner without part of a shot, sir," returned the cockswain; "there is something nateral in the sight of a tub to my old eyes."

Barnstable looked at his watch, and again at the cliffs, when he exclaimed, in joyous tones

"Give strong way, my hearties! There seems nothing better to be done; let us have a stroke of a harpoon at that impudent rascal."

The men shouted spontaneously, and the old cockswain suffered his solemn visage to relax into a small laugh, while the whale-boat sprang forward like a courser for the goal. During the few minutes they were pulling towards their game, long Tom arose from his crouching attitude in the stern-sheets, and transferred his huge form to the bows of the boat, where he made such preparations to strike the whale as the occasion required. The tub, containing about half of a whale line, was placed at the feet of Barrstable, who had been preparing an oar to steer with in place of the rudder, which was unshipped, in order that, if necessary, the boat might be whirled round when not advancing.

Their approach was utterly unnoticed by the monster of the deep, who continued to amuse himself with throwing the water in two circular spouts high into the air, occasionally flourishing the broad flukes of his tail with a graceful but terrific force, until the hardy seamen were within a few hundred feet of him, when he suddenly cast his head downward, and, without an apparent effort, reared his immense body for many feet above the water, waving his tail violently, and producing a whizzing noise, that sounded like the rushing of winds.

The cockswain stood erect, poising his harpoon, ready for the blow; but when he beheld the creature assume this formidable attitude, he waved his hand to his commander, who instantly signed to his men to cease rowing. In this situation the sportsmen rested a few moments, while the whale struck several blows on the water in rapid succession, the noise of which re-echoed along the cliffs, like the hollow reports of so many cannon. After this wanton

exhibition of his terrible strength, the monster sank again into his native element, and slowly disappeared from the eyes of his pursuers.

Which way did he head, Tom?" cried Barnstable, the moment the whale was out of sight.

66

Pretty much up and down, sir," returned the cockswain, whose eye was gradually brightening with the excitement of the sport; "he'll soon run his nose against the bottom if he stands log on that course, and will be glad to get another snuff of pure air; send her a few fathoms to starboard, sir, and I promise we shall not be out of his track."

The conjecture of the experienced old seaman proved true; for in a few moments the water broke near them, and another spout was cast into the air, when the huge animal rushed for half his length in the same direction, and fell on the sea with a turbulence and foam equal to that which is produced by the launching of a vessel, for the first time, into its proper element. After this evolution the whale rolled heavily, and seemed to rest from further efforts.

His slightest movements were closely watched by Barnstable and his cockswain, and when he was in a state of comparative rest, the former gave a signal to his crew to ply their oars or ce more. A few long and vigorous strokes sent the boat directly up to the broadside of the whale, with its bows pointing towards one of the fins, which was, at times, as the animal yielded sluggishly to the action of the waves, exposed to view. The cockswain poised his harpoon with much precision, and then darted it from him with a violence that buried the iron in the blubber of their foe. The instant the blow was made, long Tom shouted, with singular earnestness

"Starn all !"

"Stern all!" echoed Barnstable; when the obedient seamen, by united efforts, forced the boat in a backward direction beyond the reach of any blow from their formidable antagonist. The alarmed animal, however, meditated 1.0 such resistance; igno rant of his own power, and of the insignificance of his enemies, he sought refuge in flight. Oue moment of stupid surprise succeeded the entrance of the iron, when he cast his huge tail into the air, with a violence that threw the sea around him into increased commotion, and then disappeared with the quickness of lightning, amid a cloud of foam.

"Snub him!" shouted Barustable; "hold on, Tom; he rises already."

Ay, ay, sir," replied the composed cockswain, seizing the line, which was running out of the boat with a velocity that rendered such a manœuvre rather hazardous, and causing it to yield more gradually round the large loggerhead that was placed in the bows of the boat for that purpose. Presently the line stretched forward, and rising to the surface with tremulous vibrations, it indicated the direction in which the animal might be expected to re-appear. Barnstable had cast the bows of the boat towards that point, before the terrified and wounded victim rose once more to the surface, whose time was, however, no longer wasted in his sports, but who cast the waters aside, as he forced his way, with prodigious velocity, along the surface. The boat was dragged violently in his wake, and cut through the billows with a terrific rapidity, that at moments appeared to bury the slight fabric in the ocean. When long Tom beheld his victim throwing his spouts on high again, he pointed with exultation to the jetting fluid, which was streaked with the deep red of blood, and cried

66

Ay! I've touched the fellow's life! it must be more than two foot of blubber that stops my iron from reaching the life of any whale that ever scuйed the ocean!"