Читать книгу The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 - Various - Страница 2

The readers of the International have in the above engraving, from a Daguerreotype by Brady, the best portrait ever published of an illustrious countryman of ours, who, as a novelist, take him all in all, is entitled to precedence of every other now living. "With what amazing power," exclaims Balzac, in the Revue de Paris, "has he painted nature! how all his pages glow with creative fire! Who is there writing English among our contemporaries, if not of him, of whom it can be said that he has a genius of the first order?" And the Edinburgh Review says, "The empire of the sea, has been conceded to him by acclamation;" that, "in the lonely desert or untrodden prairie, among the savage Indians or scarcely less savage settlers, all equally acknowledge his dominion. 'Within this circle none dares walk but he.'" And Christopher North, in the Noctes: "He writes like a hero!" And beyond the limits of his own country, every where, the great critics assign him a place among the foremost of the illustrious authors of the age. In each of the departments of romantic, fiction in which he has written, he has had troops of imitators, and in not one of them an equal. Writing not from books, but from nature, his descriptions, incidents, and characters, are as fresh as the fields of his triumphs. His Harvey Birch, Leather Stocking, Long Tom Coffin, and other heroes, rise before the mind, each in his clearly defined and peculiar lineaments, as striking original creations, as actual persons. His infinitely varied descriptions of the ocean, ships gliding like beings of the air upon its surface, vast solitary wildernesses, and indeed all his delineations of nature, are instinct with the breath of poetry; he is both the Horace Vernet and the Claude Lorraine of novelists; and through all his works are sentiments of genuine courtesy and honor, and an unobtrusive and therefore more powerful assertion of natural rights and dignity.

William Cooper, the emigrant ancestor of James Fenimore Cooper, arrived in this country in 1679, and settled at Burlington, New Jersey. He immediately took an active part in public affairs, and his name appears in the list of members of the Colonial Legislature for 1681. In 1687, or subsequent to the establishment of Penn at Philadelphia, he obtained a grant of land opposite the new city, extending several miles along the margin of the Delaware and the tributary stream which has since borne the name of Cooper's Creek. The branch of the family to which the novelist belongs removed more than a century since into Pennsylvania, in which state his father was born. He married early, and while a young man established himself at a hamlet in Burlington county, New Jersey, which continues to be known by his name, and afterward in the city of Burlington. Having become possessed of extensive tracts of land on the border of Otsego Lake, in central New-York, he began the settlement of his estate there in the autumn of 1785, and in the following spring erected the first house in Cooperstown. From this time until 1790 Judge Cooper resided alternately at Cooperstown and Burlington, keeping up an establishment at both places. James Fenimore Cooper was born at Burlington on the fifteenth of September, 1789, and in the succeeding year was carried to the new home of his family, of which he is now proprietor.

Judge Cooper being a member of the Congress, which then held its sessions in Philadelphia, his family remained much of the time at Burlington, where our author, when but six years of age, commenced under a private tutor of some eminence his classical education. In 1800 he became an inmate of the family of Rev. Thomas Ellison, Rector of St Peter's, in Albany, who had fitted for the university three of his elder brothers, and on the death of that accomplished teacher was sent to New Haven, where he completed his preparatory studies. He entered Yale College at the beginning of the second term of 1802. Among his classmates were John A. Collier, Judge Cushman, and the late Justice Sutherland of New-York, Judge Bissel of Connecticut, Colonel James Gadsden of Florida, and several others who afterwards became eminent in various professions. John C. Calhoun was at the time a resident graduate, and Judge William Jay of Bedford, who had been his room-mate at Albany, entered the class below him. The late James A. Hillhouse originally entered the same class with Mr. Cooper; there was very little difference in their ages, both having been born in the same month, and both being much too young to be thrown into the arena of college life. Hillhouse was judiciously withdrawn for this reason until the succeeding year, leaving Cooper the youngest student in the college; he, however, maintained a respectable position, and in the ancient languages particularly had no superior in his class.

In 1805 he quitted the college, and obtaining a midshipman's warrant, entered the navy. His frank, generous, and daring nature made him a favorite, and admirably fitted him for the service, in which he would unquestionably have obtained the highest honors had he not finally made choice of the ease and quiet of the life of a private gentleman. After six years afloat—six years not unprofitably passed, since they gave him that knowledge of maritime affairs which enabled him subsequently, almost without an effort, to place himself at the head of all the writers who in any period have attempted the description of the sea—he resigned his office, and on the first day of January, 1811, was married to Miss De Lancey, a sister of the present Bishop of the Diocese of Western New-York, and a descendant of one of the oldest and most influential families in America.

Before removing to Cooperstown he resided a short time in Westchester, near New-York, and here he commenced his career as an author. His first book was Precaution. It was undertaken under circumstances purely accidental, and published under great disadvantages. Its success was moderate, though far from contemptible. It is a ludicrous evidence of the value of critical opinion in this country, that Precaution was thought to discover so much knowledge of English society, as to raise a question whether its alleged author could have written it. More reputation for this sort of knowledge accrued to Mr. Cooper from Precaution than from his subsequent real work on England. It was republished in London, and passed for an English novel.

The Spy followed. No one will dispute the success of The Spy. It was almost immediately republished in all parts of Europe. The novelty of an American book of this character probably contributed to give it circulation. It is worthy of remark that all our own leading periodicals looked coldly upon it; though the country did not. The North American Review—ever unwilling to do justice to Mr. Cooper—had a very ill-natured notice of it, professing to place the New England Tale far above it! In spite of such shallow criticism, however, the book was universally popular. It was decidedly the best historical romance then written by an American; not without faults, indeed, but with a fair plot, clearly and strongly drawn characters, and exhibiting great boldness and originality of conception. Its success was perhaps decisive of Mr. Cooper's career, and it gave an extraordinary impulse to literature in the country. More than any thing that had before occurred, it roused the people from their feeling of intellectual dependence. The popularity of The Spy has been so universal, that there is scarcely a written language into which it is not translated. In 1847 it appeared in Persian at Ispahan.

In 1823 appeared The Pioneers. This book has passages of masterly description, and is as fresh as a landscape from another world; but it seems to me that it has always had a reputation partly factitious. It is the poorest of the Leather Stocking tales, nor was its success either marked or spontaneous. Still, it was very well received, though it was thought to be a proof that the author was written out. With this book commenced the absurdity of saying Mr. Cooper introduced family traits and family history into his novels. How little of truth there is in this supposition Mr. Cooper has explained in his revised edition, published the present year.

The Pilot succeeded. The success of The Pilot was at first a little doubtful in this country; but England gave it a reputation which it still maintains. It is due to Boston to say that its popularity in the United States was first manifested there. I say due to Boston, not from considerations of merit in the book, but because, for some reason, praise for Mr. Cooper, from New England, has been so rare. The North American Review took credit to itself for magnanimity in saying some of his works had been rendered into French, when they were a part of every literature of Europe. America, it is often said, has no original literature. Where can the model of The Pilot be found? I know of nothing which could have suggested it but the following fact, which was related to me in a conversation with Mr. Cooper. The Pirate had been published a short time before. Talking with the late Charles Wilkes, of New-York—a man of taste and judgment—our author heard extolled the universal knowledge of Scott, and the sea portions of The Pirate cited as a proof. He laughed at the idea, as most seamen would, and the discussion ended by his promising to write a sea story which could be read by landsmen, while seamen should feel its truth. The Pilot was the fruit of that conversation. It is one of the most remarkable novels of the time, and every where obtained instant and high applause.

Lionel Lincoln followed. This was a second attempt to embody history in an American work of fiction. It failed, and perhaps justly; yet it contains one of the nicest delineations of character in Mr. Cooper's works. I know of no instance in which the distinction between a maniac and an idiot is so admirably drawn; the setting was bad, however, and the picture was not examined.

In 1826 came The Last of the Mohicans. This book succeeded from the first, and all over Christendom. It has strong parts and weak parts, but it was purely original, and originality always occupies the ground. In this respect it is like The Pilot.

After the publication of The Last of The Mohicans, Mr. Cooper went to Europe, where his reputation was already well established as one of the greatest writers of romantic fiction which our age, more prolific in men of genius than any other, had produced. The first of his works after he left his native country was The Prairie. Its success every where was decided and immediate. By the French and English critics it has been deemed the best of his stories of Indian life. It has one leading fault, however, that of introducing any character superior to the family of the squatter. Of this fault Mr. Cooper was himself aware before he finished the work; but as he wrote and printed simultaneously, it was not easy to correct it. In this book, notwithstanding, Natty Bumpo is quite up to his mark, and is surpassed only in The Pathfinder. The reputation of The Prairie, like that of The Pioneers, is in a large degree owing to the opinions of the reviews; it is always a fault in a book that appeals to human sympathies, that it fails with the multitude. In what relates to taste, the multitude is of no great authority; but in all that is connected with feeling, they are the highest; and for this simple reason, that as man becomes sophisticated he deviates from nature, the only true source of all our sympathies. Our feelings are doubtless improved by refinement, and vice versa; but their roots are struck in the human heart, and what fails to touch the heart, in these particulars, fails, while that which does touch it, succeeds. The perfection of this sort of writing is that which pleases equally the head and the heart.

The Red Rover followed The Prairie. Its success surpassed that of any of its predecessors. It was written and printed in Paris, and all in a few months. Its merits and its reception prove the accuracy of those gentlemen who allege that "Mr. Cooper never wrote a successful book after he left the United States." It is certainly a stronger work than The Pilot, though not without considerable faults.

The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish was the next novel. The author I believe regards this and Lionel Lincoln as the poorest of his works. It met with no great success.

The Water Witch succeeded, but is inferior to any of the other nautical tales. It was the first attempt by Mr. Cooper—the first by any author—to lay the scene of a tale of witchcraft on the coast of America. It has more imagination than any other of Mr. Cooper's works, but the blending of the real with the ideal was in some parts a little incongruous. The Water Witch was written in Italy and first printed in Germany.

Of all Americans who ever visited Europe, Mr. Cooper contributed most to our country's good reputation. His high character made him every where welcome; there was no circle, however aristocratic or distinguished, in which, if he appeared in it, he was not observed of all observers; and he had the somewhat singular merit of never forgetting that he was an American. Halleck, in his admirable poem of Red Jacket, says well of him:

After having been in Europe about two years he published his Notions of the Americans, in which he "endeavored to repel some of the hostile opinions of the other hemisphere, and to turn the tables on those who at that time most derided and calumniated us." It contained some unimportant errors, from having been written at a distance from necessary documentary materials, but was altogether as just as it was eloquent in vindication of our institutions, manners, and history. It shows how warm was his patriotism; how fondly, while receiving from strangers an homage withheld from him at home, he remembered the scenes of his first trials and triumphs, and how ready he was to sacrifice personal popularity and profit in defence of his country.

He was not only the first to defend and to praise America, but the first to whom appeals were made for information in regard to her by statesmen who felt an interest in our destiny. Following the revolution of the Three Days, in Paris, a fierce controversy took place between the absolutists, the republicans, and the constitutionalists. Among the subjects introduced in the Chambers was the comparative cheapness of our system of government; the absolutists asserting that the people of the United States paid more direct and indirect taxes than the French. La Fayette appealed to Mr. Cooper, who entered the arena, and though, from his peculiar position, at a heavy pecuniary loss, and the danger of incurring yet greater misfortunes, by a masterly exposé silenced at once the popular falsehoods. So in all places, circumstances, and times, he was the "American in Europe," as jealous of his country's reputation as his own.

Immediately after, he published The Bravo, the success of which was very great: probably equal to that of The Red Rover. It is one of the best, if not the very best of the works Mr. Cooper had then written. Although he selected a foreign scene on this occasion, no one of his works is more American in its essential character. It was designed not only to extend the democratical principle abroad, but to confirm his countrymen in the opinion that nations "cannot be governed by an irresponsible minority without involving a train of nearly intolerable abuses." It gave aristocracy some hits, which aristocracy gave back again. The best notice which appeared of it was in the famous Paris gazette entitled Figaro, before Figaro was bought out by the French government. The change from the biting wit which characterized this periodical, to the grave sentiment of such an article, was really touching, and added an indescribable grace to the remarks.

The Heidenmaur followed. It is impossible for one to understand this book who has not some acquaintance with the scenes and habits described. It was not very successful.

The Headsman of Berne did much better. It is inferior to The Bravo, though not so clashing to aristocracy. It met with very respectable success. It was the last of Mr. Cooper's novels written in Europe, and for some years the last of a political character.

The first work which Mr. Cooper published after his return to the United States was A Letter to his Countrymen. They had yielded him but a hesitating applause until his praise came back from Europe; and when the tone of foreign criticism was changed, by acts and opinions of his which should have banded the whole American press for his defence, he was assailed here in articles which either echoed the tone, or were actual translations of attacks upon him by foreigners. The custom peculiar to this country of "quoting the opinions of foreign nations by way of helping to make up its own estimate of the degree of merit which belongs to its public men," is treated in this letter with caustic and just severity, and shown to be "destructive of those sentiments of self-respect and of that manliness and independence of thought, that are necessary to render a people great or a nation respectable." The controlling influence of foreign ideas over our literature, fashions, and even politics, are illustrated by the manner in which he was himself treated, and by what he considers the English doctrines which have been broached in the speeches of many of our statesmen. It is a frank and honest book, which was unnecessary as a vindication of Mr. Cooper, but was called for by the existence of the abuse against which it was chiefly directed, though it seems to have had little effect upon it. Of the political opinions it contains I have no more to say than that I do not believe in their correctness.

It was followed by The Monikins, a political satire, which was a failure.

The next publications of Mr. Cooper were his Gleanings in Europe. Sketches in Switzerland, first and second series, each in two volumes, appeared in 1836, and none of his works contain more striking and vivid descriptions of nature, or more agreeable views of character and manners. It was followed by similar works on France, Italy, and England. All of these were well received, notwithstanding an independence of tone which is rarely popular, and some absurdities, as, for example, the imputations upon the American Federalists, in the Sketches of Switzerland. The book on England excited most attention, and was reviewed in that country with as much asperity as if its own travellers were not proverbially the most shameless libellers that ever abused the hospitality of nations. Altogether the ten volumes which compose this series may be set down as the most intelligent and philosophical books of travels which have been written by our countrymen.

The American Democrat, or Hints on the Social and Civil Relations of the United States of America, was published in 1835. The design is stated to be, "to make a commencement toward a more just discrimination between truth and prejudice." It is essentially a good book on the virtues and vices of American character.

For a considerable time Mr. Cooper had entertained an intention of writing The History of the Navy of the United Stated, and his early experience, his studies, his associations, and above all the peculiar felicity of his style when treating of nautical affairs, warranted the expectation that his work would be a solid and brilliant contribution to our historical literature. It appeared in two octavo volumes in 1839, and reached a second edition in 1840, and a third in 1846.1 The public had no reason to be disappointed; great diligence had been used in the collection of materials; every subject connected with the origin and growth of our national marine had been carefully investigated, and the result was presented in the most authentic and attractive form. Yet a warm controversy soon arose respecting Mr. Cooper's account of the battle of Lake Erie, and in pamphlets, reviews, and newspapers, attempts were made to show that he had done injustice to the American commander in that action. The multitude rarely undertake particular investigations; and the attacks upon Mr. Cooper, conducted with a virulence for which it would be difficult to find any cause in the History, assuming the form of vindications of a brave and popular deceased officer, produced an impression so deep and so general that he was compelled to defend the obnoxious passages, which he did triumphantly in a small volume entitled The Battle of Lake Erie, or Answers to Messrs. Burgess, Duer, and Mackenzie, published in 1843, and in the notes to the last edition of his Naval History. Those who read the whole controversy will perceive that Mr. Cooper was guided by the authorities most entitled to the consideration of an historian, and that in his answers he has demonstrated the correctness of his statements and opinions; and they will perhaps be astonished that he in the first place gave so little cause for dissatisfaction on the part of the friends of Commodore Perry. Besides the Naval History and the essays to which it gave rise, Mr. Cooper has published, in two volumes, The Lives of American Naval Officers, a work of the highest merit in its department, every life being written with conciseness yet fulness, and with great care in regard to facts; and in the Democratic Review has published an unanswerable reply to the attacks upon the American marine by James and other British historians.

The first novel published by Mr. Cooper after his return to the United States was Homeward Bound. The two generic characters of the book, however truly they may represent individuals, have no resemblance to classes. There may be Captain Trucks, and there certainly are Steadfast Dodges, but the officers of the American merchant service are in no manner or degree inferior to Europeans of the same pursuits and grade; and with all the abuses of the freedom of the press here, our newspapers are not worse than those of Great Britain in the qualities for which Mr. Cooper arraigns them. The opinions expressed of New-York society in Home as Found are identical with those in Notions of the Americans, a work almost as much abused for its praise of this country as was Home as Found for its censure, and most men of refinement and large observation seem disposed to admit their correctness. This is no doubt the cause of the feeling it excited, for a nation never gets in a passion at misrepresentation. It is a miserable country that cannot look down a falsehood, even from a native.

The next novel was The Pathfinder. It is a common opinion that this work deserves success; more than any Mr. Cooper has written. I have heard Mr. Cooper say that in his own judgment the claim lay between The Pathfinder and The Deerslayer, but for myself I confess a preference for the sea novels. Leather Stocking appears to more advantage in The Pathfinder than in any other book, and in Deerslayer next. In The Pathfinder we have him presented in the character of a lover, and brought in contact with such characters as he associates with in no other stages of his varied history, though they are hardly less favorites with the author. The scene of the novel being the great fresh water seas of the interior, sailors, Indians, and hunters, are so grouped together, that every kind of novel-writing in which he has been most successful is combined in one complete fiction, one striking exhibition of his best powers. Had it been written by some unknown author, probably the country would have hailed him as much superior to Mr. Cooper.

Mercedes of Castile, a Romance of the Days of Columbus, came next. It may be set down as a failure. The necessity of following facts that had become familiar, and which had so lately possessed the novelty of fiction, was too much for any writer.

The Deerslayer was written after Mercedes and The Pathfinder, and was very successful. Hetty Hunter is perhaps the best female character Mr. Cooper has drawn, though her sister is generally preferred. The Deerslayer was the last written of the "Leather Stocking Tales," having come out in 1841, nineteen years after the appearance of The Pioneers in 1822. Arranged according to the order of events, The Deerslayer should be the first of this remarkable series, followed by The Last of the Mohicans, The Pathfinder, The Pioneers, and The Prairie.

The Two Admirals followed The Deerslayer. This book in some respects stands at the head of the nautical tales. Its fault is dealing with too important events to be thrown so deep into fiction; but this is a fault that may be pardoned in a romance. Mr. Cooper has written nothing in description, whether of sea or land, that surpasses either of the battle scenes of this work; especially that part of the first where the French ship is captured. The Two Admirals appeared at an unfortunate time, but it was nevertheless successful.

Wing-and-Wing, or Le Feu Follet, was published in 1842. The interest depends chiefly upon the manœuvres by which a French privateer escapes capture by an English frigate. Some of its scenes are among Mr. Cooper's best, but altogether it is inferior to several of his nautical novels.

Wyandotte, or the Hutted Knoll, in its general features resembles The Pathfinder and The Deerslayer. The female characters are admirable, and but for the opinion, believed by some, from its frequent repetition, that Mr. Cooper is incapable of depicting a woman, Maud Meredith would be regarded as among the very first class of such portraitures.

Next came the Autobiography of a Pocket Handkerchief, in one volume. It is a story of fashionable life in New-York, in some respects peculiar among Mr. Cooper's works, and was decidedly successful. It appeared originally in a monthly magazine, and was the first of his novels printed in this manner.

Ned Myers, in one volume, which followed in the same year, is a genuine biography, though it was commonly regarded as a fiction.

In the beginning of 1844 Mr. Cooper published Ashore and Afloat, and a few months afterward Miles Wallingford, a sequel to that tale. They have the remarkable minuteness yet boldness of description, and dramatic skill of narration, which render the impressions he produces so deep and lasting. They were as widely read as any of his recent productions.

The extraordinary state of things which for several years has disgraced a part of the state of New-York, where, with unblushing effrontery, the tenants of several large proprietors have refused to pay rents, and claimed, without a shadow of right, to be absolute possessors of the soil, gave just occasion of alarm to the intelligent friends of our institutions; and this alarm increased, when it was observed that the ruffianism of the "anti-renters," as they are styled, was looked upon by many persons of respectable social positions with undisguised approval. Mr. Cooper addressed himself to the exposure and correction of the evil, in a series of novels, purporting to be edited from the manuscripts of a family named Littlepage; and in the preface to the first of these, entitled Satanstoe, a Tale of the Colony, published in 1845, announces his intention of treating it with the utmost freedom, and declares his opinion, that the "existence of true liberty among us, the perpetuity of our institutions, and the safety of public morals, are all dependent on putting down, wholly, absolutely, and unqualifiedly, the false and dishonest theories and statements that have been advanced in connection with this subject." Satanstoe presents a vivid picture of the early condition of colonial New-York. The time is from 1737 to the close of the memorable campaign in which the British were so signally defeated at Ticonderoga. Chainbearer, the second of the series, tracing the family history through the Revolution, also appeared in 1845, and the last, The Red Skins, story of the present day, in 1846. "This book," says the author, in his preface, "closes the series of the Littlepage manuscripts, which have been given to the world as containing a fair account of the comparative sacrifices of time, money, and labor, made respectively by the landlord and the tenants, on a New-York estate, together with the manner in which usages and opinions are changing among us, and the causes of these changes." These books, in which the most important practical truths are stated, illustrated and enforced, in a manner equally familiar and powerful, were received by the educated and right-minded with a degree of favor that showed the soundness of the common mind beyond the crime-infected districts, and their influence will add to the evidences of the value of the novel as a means of upholding principles in art, literature, morals and politics.

The Crater, or Vulcan's Peak, followed in 1847. It is a story of the Pacific, embracing some of Mr. Cooper's finest sea pictures, but altogether is not so interesting as the average of his nautical tales.

Oak Openings, or the Bee-Hunter, came next. It has the merits characteristic of his Indian novels, masterly scene-painting, and decided individuality in the persons introduced.

Jack Tier, or the Florida Reef, appeared in 1848, and is one of the best of the sea stories. The chief character is a woman, deserted by a half smuggler, half buccaneer, whom she joins in the disguise of a sailor, and accompanies undiscovered during a cruise. In vividness of painting and dramatic interest it has rank with the Red Rover and The Pilot.

The Sea Lions, or the Lost Sealers, was published in 1849. It deals to some extent in metaphysics, and its characters are for the most part of humble conditions. It has more of domestic life than any of the other nautical pieces.

In the spring of 1850 came out The Ways of the Hour, the last of this long series of more than thirty novels, and like the Littlepage MSS. it was devoted to the illustration of social and political evils, having for its main subject the constitution and office of juries. In other works Mr. Cooper appears as a conservative; in this as a destructive. The book is ingenious and able, but has not been very successful.

In 1850 Mr. Cooper came out for the first time as a dramatic writer, in a comedy performed at Burton's theatre in New-York. A want of practice in writing for the stage prevented a perfect adaptation of his piece for this purpose, but it was conceded to be remarkable for wit and satirical humor. He has now in press a work illustrative of the social history and condition of New-York, which will be published during the summer by Mr. Putnam, who from time to time is giving to the public the previous works of Mr. Cooper, with his final revisions, and such notes and introductions as are necessary for the new generation of readers. The Leather Stocking Tales, constituting one of the great works to be ranked hereafter with the chief masterpieces of prose fiction in the literature of the world, are among the volumes now printed.

It cannot be denied that Mr. Cooper is personally unpopular, and the fact is suggestive of one of the chief evils in our social condition. In a previous number of this magazine we have asserted the ability and eminently honorable character of a large class of American journals. The spirit of another class, also in many instances conducted with ability, is altogether bad and base; jealous, detracting, suspicious, "delighting to deprave;" betraying a familiarity with low standards in mind and morals, and a consciousness habituated to interested views and sordid motives; degrading every thing that wears the appearance of greatness, sometimes by plain denial and insolent contempt, and sometimes by wretched innuendo and mingled lie and sophistry; effectually dissipating all the romance of character, and all the enthusiasm of life; hating dignity, having no sympathies with goodness, insensible to the very existence of honor as a spring of human conduct; treating patriotism and disinterestedness with an elaborate sneer, and receiving the suggestions of duty with a horse-laugh. There is a difference not easily to be mistaken between the lessening of men which is occasioned by the loftiness of the platform whence the observation is made, and that which is produced by the malignant envy of the observer; between the gloomy judicial ferocity of a Pope or a Tacitus, and the villain levity which revels in the contemplation of imputed faults, or that fiendishness of feeling which gloats and howls over the ruins of reputations which itself has stabbed.

For a few years after Mr. Cooper's return from Europe, he was repeatedly urged by his friends to put a stop to the libels of newspapers by an appeal to the law; but he declined. He perhaps supposed that the common sense of the people would sooner or later discover and right the wrong that was done to him by those who, without the slightest justification, invaded the sacredest privacies of his life for subjects of public observation. He finally decided, at the end of five years after his return, to appeal to the tribunals, in every case in which any thing not by himself submitted to public criticism, in his works, should be offensively treated, within the limits of the state of New-York. Some twenty suits were brought by him, and his course was amply vindicated by unanimous verdicts in his behalf. But the very conduct to which the press had compelled him was made a cause of ungenerous prejudices. He has never objected to the widest latitude or extremest severity in criticisms of his writings, but simply contended that the author should be let alone. With him, individually, the public had nothing to do. In the case of a public officer, slanders may be lived down, but a literary man, in his retirement, has no such means of vindication; his only appeal is to the laws, and if they afford no protection in such cases, the name of law is contemptible.

I enter here upon no discussion of the character of the late Commander Slidell Mackenzie, but observe simply that no one can read Mr. Cooper's volume upon the battle of Lake Erie and retain a very profound respect for that person's sagacity or sincerity. The proprietors of the copyright of Mr. Cooper's abridged Naval History offered it, without his knowledge, to John C. Spencer, then Secretary of the State of New-York, for the school libraries of which that officer had the selection. Mr. Spencer replied with peculiar brevity that he would have nothing to do with such a partisan performance, but soon after directed the purchase of Commander Mackenzie's Life of Commodore Perry, which was entirely and avowedly partisan, while Mr. Cooper's book was rigidly impartial. Commander Mackenzie returned the favor by hanging the Secretary's son. A circumstance connected with this event illustrates what we have said of obtaining justice from the newspapers. A month before Commander Mackenzie's return to New-York in the Somers, Mr. Cooper sent to me, for publication in a magazine of which I was editor, an examination of certain statements in the Life of Perry; but after it was in type, hearing of the terrible mistake which Mackenzie had made, he chose to suffer a continuation of injustice rather than strike a fallen enemy, and so directed the suppression of his criticism. Nevertheless, as the statements in the Life of Perry very materially affected his own reputation, in the following year, when the natural excitement against Mackenzie had nearly subsided, he gave his answer to the press, and was immediately accused in a "leading journal of the country" of having in its preparation devoted himself, from the date of that person's misfortune, to his injury. The reader supposes, of course, that the slander was contradicted as generally as it had been circulated, and that justice was done to the forbearance and delicacy with which Mr. Cooper had acted in the matter; but to this day, neither the journal in which he was assailed, nor one in a hundred of those which repeated the falsehood, has stated these facts. Here is another instance: The late William L. Stone agreed with Mr. Cooper to submit a certain matter of libel for amicable arbitration, agreeing, in the event of a decision against him, to pay Mr. Cooper two hundred dollars toward the expenses he must incur in attending to it. The affair attracted much attention. Before an ordinary court Mr. Cooper should have received ten thousand dollars; but he accepted the verdict agreed upon, the referees deciding without hesitation that he had been grossly wronged by the publication of which he had complained. After the death of Mr. Stone one of the principal papers of the city stated that his widow was poor, and had appealed to Mr. Cooper's generosity for the remission of a fine, which could be of no importance to a gentleman of his liberal fortune, but had been answered with a rude refusal. The statement was entirely and in all respects false, and it was indignantly contradicted upon the authority of President Wayland, the brother of Mrs. Stone; but the editors who gave it currency have never retracted it, and it yet swells the tide of miserable defamation which makes up the bad reputations of so many of the purest of men. Numerous other instances might be quoted to show not only the injustice with which Mr. Cooper has been treated, but the addiction of the press to libel, and its unwillingness to atone for wrongs it has itself inflicted.

It used to be the custom of the North American Review to speak of Mr. Cooper's works as "translated into French," as if thus giving the highest existing evidence of their popularity, while there was not a language in Europe into which they did not all, after the publication of The Red Rover appear almost as soon as they were printed in London. He has been the chosen companion of the prince and the peasant, on the borders of the Volga, the Danube, and the Guadalquivir; by the Indus and the Ganges, the Paraguay and the Amazon; where the name even of Washington was never spoken, and our country is known only as the home of Cooper. The world has living no other writer whose fame is so universal.

Mr. Cooper has the faculty of giving to his pictures an astonishing reality. They are not mere transcripts of nature, though as such they would possess extraordinary merit, but actual creations, embodying the very spirit of intelligent and genial experience and observation. His Indians, notwithstanding all that has been written to the contrary, are no more inferior in fidelity than they are in poetical interest to those of his most successful imitators or rivals. His hunters and trappers have the same vividness and freshness, and in the whole realm of fiction there is nothing more actual, harmonious, and sustained. They evince not only the first order of inventive power, but a profoundly philosophical study of the influences of situation upon human character. He treads the deck with the conscious pride of home and dominion: the aspects of the sea and sky, the terrors of the tornado, the excitement of the chase, the tumult of battle, fire, and wreck, are presented by him with a freedom and breadth of outline, a glow and strength of coloring and contrast, and a distinctness and truth of general and particular conception, that place him far in advance of all the other artists who have attempted with pen or pencil to paint the ocean. The same vigorous originality is stamped upon his nautical characters. The sailors of Smollett are as different in every respect as those of Eugene Sue and Marryat are inferior. He goes on board his ship with his own creations, disdaining all society and assistance but that with which he is thus surrounded. Long Tom Coffin, Tom Tiller, Trysail, Bob Yarn, the boisterous Nightingale, the mutinous Nighthead, the fierce but honest Boltrope, and others who crowd upon our memories, as familiar as if we had ourselves been afloat with them, attest the triumph of this self-reliance. And when, as if to rebuke the charge of envy that he owed his successes to the novelty of his scenes and persons, he entered upon fields which for centuries had been illustrated by the first geniuses of Europe, his abounding power and inspiration were vindicated by that series of political novels ending with The Bravo, which have the same supremacy in their class that is held by The Pilot and The Red Rover among stories of the sea. It has been urged that his leading characters are essentially alike, having no difference but that which results from situation. But this opinion will not bear investigation. It evidently arose from the habit of clothing his heroes alike with an intense individuality, which under all circumstances sustains the sympathy they at first awaken, without the aid of those accessories to which artists of less power are compelled to resort. Very few authors have added more than one original and striking character to the world of imagination; none has added more than Cooper; and his are all as distinct and actual as the personages that stalk before us on the stage of history.

To be American, without falling into Americanism, is the true task that is set before the native artist in literature, the accomplishment of which awaits the reward of the best approval in these times, and the promise of an enduring name. Some of our authors, fascinated very excusably with the faultless models of another age, have declined this condition, and have given us Spectators and Tattlers with false dates, and developed a style of composition of which the very merits imply an anachronism in the proportion of excellence. Others have understood the result to be attained better than the means of arriving at it. They have not considered the difference between those peculiarities in our society, manners, tempers, and tastes, which are genuine and characteristic, and those which are merely defects and errors upon the English system; they have acquired the force and gayety of liberty, but not the dignity of independence, and are only provincial, when they hoped to be national. Mr. Cooper has been more happy than any other writer in reconciling these repugnant qualities, and displaying the features, character, and tone of a great rational style in letters, which, original and unimitative, is yet in harmony with the ancient models.