of the Sea, 1824; Lionel Lincoln, or the Leaguer of Boston, 1825; The Last of the Mohicans, a Narrative of 1757, 1826. But one of this group of four can be pronounced a failure and two have had a success almost phenomenal in the history of letters. Cooper shared the American passion for seeing foreign lands. The proceeds of authorship enabled him to carry out a plan he had formed of spending some time abroad. With his family and servants (a party of ten in all), he set sail from New York on June 1, 1826. He proposed to be gone five years. He overstayed that time by two years and five months. From May, 1826, to about January, 1829, he held the nominal position' of American consul at Lyons. His journeyings were made in a leisurely way after the fashion of the time. Eighteen months were spent in Paris and the vicinity, four months in London, and a few weeks in Holland, Belgium, and Switzerland. The winter of 1828-29 was passed in Florence, and was followed by a voyage to Naples. After spending some months at Sorrento and Naples, he settled in Rome for the winter of 1829-30. Thence to Venice, Munich, Dresden, and finally back to Paris. He published while abroad The Prairie, 1827; The Red Rover, 1828; Notions of the Americans, Picked up by a Travelling Bachelor, 1828; The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish, 1829; The Water-Witch, COOPER'S LIFE or the Skimmer of the Seas, 1830; The Bravo, 1831; The Heidenmauer, or the Benedictines, 1832; The Headsman, or the Abbaye des Vignerons, 1833. In November, 1833, Cooper returned to America. That and several ensuing winters were passed in New York, the summers in Cooperstown. Later he made Otsego Hall his permanent home. He soon became embroiled in quarrels with the press. While in Paris his defence of Lafayette's position in what is known as the 'Expenses Con'troversy' had provoked from his native land criticism which Cooper resented. He angered a part of the inhabitants of Cooperstown by making clear to them that Three Mile Point (a wooded tract on the lake, long used by the villagers as a picnic ground) was not theirs, as they maintained, but a part of the Cooper estate. With no thought of robbing them of their pleasure park, he insisted on their understanding that they enjoyed its use by favor and not by right. For this the country papers assailed him. Combative by nature, Cooper brought suits for libel and recovered damages. The novel spectacle of an author baiting the newspapers' caused remark.' The city press joined in the attack, the 'Courier 'and Enquirer,' the New York Tribune,' the 'Albany Evening Journal,' edited by Thurlow Weed, who once said apropos of his skill in stirring up litigation: There is something in my manner of writing that makes the galled jades 'wince.' Verdicts were given in Cooper's favor. More libels followed, more suits were brought, more damages recovered. A cry arose that the liberty of the press was endangered. Cooper did not think so. He was a bulldog; when he had once fastened his teeth in a Whig editor, nothing could make him let go. He continued his prosecutions until he made his detractors respect him. It took about six years to do it. Bryant has described with grim humor the novelist's warfare with that leviathan the Press: He put a hook 'into the nose of this huge monster,' said Bryant admiringly.' This warfare disturbed Cooper's peace of mind, but in no wise interrupted his literary activity. The following list records by no means all that he wrote after 1834, but will suffice to show his right copious and often happy industry. Besides ten volumes of travels, Cooper published: A Letter to his Countrymen, 1834; The Monikins, 1835; The American Democrat, 1838; Homeward Bound, or the Chase, 1838; Home as Found, 1838; The History of the Navy of the United States of America, 1 One of the most extraordinary of the suits arose from criticism of the Naval History. Cooper had refused to take the popular side of a heated controversy and to join in assailing Elliott, Perry's second in command at the Battle of Lake Erie. The suit, against Stone of the Commercial Advertiser,' was settled by arbitration, and in Cooper's favor. Lounsbury's Cooper, pp. 200-230. COOPER'S LIFE 1839; The Pathfinder, or the Inland Sea, 1840; Mercedes of Castile, or the Voyage to Cathay, 1840; The Deerslayer, or the First War Path, 1841; The Two Admirals, 1842; The Wing-and-Wing, or Le Feu-Follet, 1842; Wyandotté, or the Hutted Knoll, 1843; Ned Meyers, or a Life before the Mast, 1843; Afloat and Ashore, or the Adventures of Miles Wallingford, 1844; Miles Wallingford (the second part of Afloat and Ashore), 1844; Satanstoe, or the Littlepage Manuscripts, 1845; The Chainbearer, or the Littlepage Manuscripts, 1846; Lives of Distinguished American Naval Officers, 1846; The Redskins, or Indian and Injin, 1846; The Crater, or Vulcan's Peak, 1847; Jack Tier, or the Florida Reefs, 1848; The Oak Openings, or the Bee Hunter, 1848; The Sea Lions, or the Lost Sealers, 1849; The Ways of the Hour, 1850. The Spy was dramatized and played successfully.' Dramatizations were also made of The Pilot, The Red Rover, The Water-Witch, The Pioneers (The Wigwam, or Templeton Manor '), and The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish (Miantonomah and Narrahmat'tah'). An original comedy,' Upside Down, or 'Philosophy in Petticoats,' was withdrawn after four performances. No satisfactory account exists of Cooper's earnings by literature. It is believed that in the later years he was obliged to write, if 2 I Park Theatre, New York, March, 1822. not for the necessities of life, at least for the comforts and luxuries. The hostility provoked by his energetic criticisms subsided in time. There was even a project on foot in New York to pay him the compliment of a public dinner as a proof of returning confidence. His untimely illness put to one side the question of honors of this poor sort. Cooper died at Otsego Hall on September 14, 1851. II HIS CHARACTER COOPER was a democrat in theory but not in practice. The rude 'feudalism' in which his boyhood was passed fostered the aristocratic sentiment. A residence abroad, in the obsequious atmosphere with which the serving classes invest any one who has the appearance of wealth, aggravated it. No one could have been more heartily American ' than Cooper; but he made distinctions and his countrymen abhorred the distinctions. Pride of this not unreasonable sort may go hand in hand with genuine modesty. Cooper was more unpretentious than his enemies were willing to allow. With a reputation that would have opened many doors he made no capital of it; he had no mind to thrust himself on all societies.' |