some time in this
country, writes, after his return, to an American friend, and thus
cheerfully records his impressions. "The frightful effects produced by
an unrestrained democracy," he says, "the demoralizing effects produced
by universal suffrage never appeared to me so odious as they do now by
contrast with the good breeding, the order and mutual support which all
give to each other in this country, from the highest to the lowest."
This letter belongs to the year 1839, and it only continues a line of
remark common for the half-century previous. Everything that came from
America, if praised at all, was praised with a qualification. Not a
compliment could be uttered of an individual without an implied
disparagement of the land that gave him birth. The record of every man
who was well received in English society will bear out this assertion.
Scott wrote to Southey in 1819, that Ticknor was "a wondrous fellow for
romantic lore and antiquarian research, _considering his country_." Even
words of genuine affection were often accompanied with an impertinence
which has a delightfulness of its own from the utter unconsciousness on
the part of the writer or speaker of having said anything out of the
way. They were compliments of the kind which intimated that the person
addressed was a sort of redeeming feature in a wild waste of desert.
"You have taught us," writes in 1840 Mrs. Basil Montagu to Charles
Sumner, "to think much more highly of your country--from whom we have
hitherto seen no such men."

There is nothing to be gained in raking over at this day the ashes of
dead controversies and revilings. Americans no longer read the (p. 092)
writings of the kind described, and Englishmen have largely forgotten
that they were ever written. The new commentators on our habits and
customs have taken up a new line of remark, and the new prophets of woe
foresee an entirely new class of calamities. But it has been necessary
to revive here the memory of the old charges and forebodings, in order
to show the state of feeling that would be developed by them in a man of
a peculiarly sensitive and proud nature, such as was the subject of this
biography. Rubbish as they may seem now, they were to the men of that
time a grievous sore. Whatever may have been Cooper's feelings previously,
it was not until after he had resided for a while in Europe that any
hostility towards England is seen in his works. But there it soon began
to manifest it