dge and tone were
too little concentrated anywhere, too much diffused everywhere, to make
head against the advances of an overwhelming mediocrity. Of society
there was but little; for what it suited the caprice of certain people
to call such was little more than the noisy, screeching, hoydenish
romping of both sexes. The taint of provincialism was diffused over all
feelings and beliefs. Of arts and letters the country possessed none or
next to none. Moreover, there was no genuine sympathy with either. To
all this dismal prospect there was slight hope of improvement, because
there was a disposition to resent any intimation that we could be better
than we were at present.

It would be a gross error to infer the general character of Cooper's
travels from these extracts. They are gathered together from ten
volumes, without any of the attendant statements by which they are there
in many cases modified. Equally erroneous would it be to suppose that he
did not find much to praise as well as to condemn in both England and
America. These extracts, however, explain the almost savage vituperation
with which Cooper was thenceforth followed in the press of the two
countries. The works themselves met with a very slight sale: none of
them ever passed into a second edition. Men were not likely to read with
alacrity, however much they might with profit, unfavorable opinions
entertained of themselves. Cooper himself could not have hoped for much
success for his strictures. In fact, he expressly declared the contrary.
The most he should expect, he said, would be the secret assent of (p. 139)
the wise and good, the expressed censure of the numerous class of the
vapid and ignorant, the surprise of the mercenary and the demagogue, and
the secret satisfaction of the few who should come after him who would
take an interest in his name.

Notwithstanding the ferocious criticism with which they were assailed at
the time and the forgetfulness into which they have now fallen, Cooper's
accounts of the countries in which he lived are among the best of their
kind. Books of travel are from their very nature of temporary interest.
It requires peculiar felicity of manner to make up long for the fresher
matter about foreign lands which newer books contain. Striking
descriptions and acute observations will still, however, reward the
reader of Cooper's sketches. There are often displayed in them a vigor
and a political sagacity which of themselves would j