ir Mr. Cooper.... There is a certain Long Tom who (p. 058)
appears to me the finest thing since Parson Adams." Subsequently, in
July, 1826, she spoke thus of "The Last of the Mohicans," in a letter
to Haydon: "I like it," she wrote, "better than any of Scott's, except
the three first and 'The Heart of Mid-Lothian.'" The praise, indeed,
given both then and at a later period, may often seem extravagant. In
a passage written in 1835, Barry Cornwall, not merely content with
putting Cooper at the head of all American authors, added that he may
"dare competition with almost any writer whatever."

It need hardly be said that opinions such as these were not to be found
generally in the English literary periodicals. Cooper's name was not
even mentioned in the great reviews until his fame had been secured
without their aid. The success which he won in Great Britain was not
due in the slightest to the professional critics. These men fancied
they had exhausted the power of panegyric when they went so far as to
term him the American Scott. This fact was triumphantly paraded at a
later period by a writer in Blackwood, presumably Wilson, as one of
the convincing proofs of the untruthfulness of the charge made by
Barry Cornwall, that authors from this country were treated with
systematic unfairness in English reviews. "Were we ever unjust to
Cooper?" he asked. "Why, people call him the American Scott." This
sort of patting on the back was thought a proud illustration of the
generosity of the British character, and as putting the recipient of
it under obligations of everlasting gratitude.

There is no doubt, indeed, that the reputation of Cooper suffered all
his life by the constant comparison that was made between him and (p. 059)
the great Scotch writer. It was to a certain extent inevitable; but it
was none the less unfortunate. He could never be judged by what he did;
it was always by the fanciful test of how some one else would have done
it. This was even more true of his own country than of England. Scott's
popularity was greater here than it was anywhere else. There was a
feeling akin almost to moral reprobation expressed against any one who
should presume to fancy that the best work of any native author could
equal the poorest that Scott put forth. The Continental opinion which
at that time often reckoned the American novelist as equal, if not
superior to his British contemporary, seemed to men here like a
profanation. It was,