James Fenimore Cooper

JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. BY THOMAS B. LOUNSBUKT, PROFESSOR OP ENGLISH IN THE SHEFFIELD SCIENTIFIC SCHOOL, VALE COLLEGE. BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFUN COMPANY Cambridge COPYRIGHT, l8 2 AND IpIO, BY THOMAS R. LOUNSBURY PEEFATOEY NOTE. WHEN Cooper lay on his death-bed he enjoined his family to permit no authorized account of his life to be prepared. A wish even, that was tittered at such a time, would have had the weight of a command and from that day to this pious affection has carried out in the spirit as well as to the letter the desire of the dying man. No biography of Cooper has, in consequence, ever ap peared. Nor is it unjust to say that the sketches of his career, which are found either in magazines or cyclopae dias, are not only unsatisfactory on account of their in completeness, but are all in greater or less degree un trustworthy in their details. It is a necessary result of this dying injunction that the direct and authoritative sources of information con tained in family papers are closed to the biographer. Still it is believed that no facts of importance in the record of an eventful and extraordinary career have been omitted or have even been passed over slightingly. A large part of the matter contained in this volume has never been given to the public in any form and for that reason among others no pains have been spared to make this narrative absolutely accurate, so far as it goes. Correction of any errors, if such are found, will be grate fully welcomed. CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE L 178-1820. YOUTH AND EARLY MANHOOD . . 1 1L 1820-1822. ENTRANCE UPON A LITERARY LIFE . 16 III.. 1823-1826. THE PIONEERS THE PILOT LIONEL LINCOLN THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS 39 IV. 1826-1830.REPUTATION AT HOME AND ABROAD RESIDENCE IN EUROPE ... 56 V. 1830. EUROPEAN ESTIMATE OF AMERICA . 78 VI. 1828-1833, DEFENSE OF AMERICA .... 99 VII. 1833-1838. RETURN FROM EUROPE DISSATISFAC TION WITH HIS COUNTRYMEN . . 117 VIII. 1837-1838. THE THREE MILE POINT CONTROVERSY CRITICISM OF AMERICA AND AMERICANS 142 IX. 1837-1842, WAR WITH THE PRESS THE NBWSPAPEB LIBEL SUITS 171 X. 1839-1843. THE NAVAL HISTORY .... 200 XI. 1840-1850. THE LATER NOVELS . . . .231 XII. 1850-1851. His LAST YEARS LITERARY AND PER SONAL CHARACTERISTICS . . . 265 APPENDIX. PARTIAL BIBLIOGRAPHY OF COOPERS WRIT INGS 290 INDEX 301 JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. CHAPTER I. 1789-1820. IN one of the interior counties of New York, less than one hundred and fifty miles in a direct line from the commercial capital of the Union, lies the village of Cooperstown. The place is not and probably never will be an important one but in its situation and sur roundings nature has given it much that wealth cannot furnish or art create. It stands on the southeastern shore of Otsego Lake, just at the point where the Sus quehanna pours out from it on its long journey to the Chesapeake. The river runs here in a rapid current through a narrow valley, shut in by parallel ranges of lofty hills. The lake, not more than nine miles in length, is twelve hundred feet above tide-water. Low and wooded points of land and sweeping bays give to its shores the attraction of continuous diversity. About ft, on every side, stand hills, which slope gradually or rise sharply to heights varying from two to five hundred feet Lake, forest, and stream unite to form a scene of quiet but picturesque beauty, that hardly needs the ad ditional charm of romantic associationwhich has been imparted to it. Though it was here that the days of Coopers child-1 2 JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. hood were passed, it was not here that he was born. When that event took place the village had hardly even an existence on paper. Coopers father, a resident of Burlington, New Jersey, had come, shortly after the close of the Revolutionary War, into the possession of vast tracts of land, embracing many thousands of acres, along the head-waters of the Susquehanna...