hown in depicting the latter.

The reverse was the fact when the sequel followed. In this the
characters and their views became prominent, and the events were of
slight importance. "Home as Found" was far poorer than "Homeward Bound"
was good. Never was a more unfortunate work written by any author. This
is the fact, whether it be looked at from the literary or the popular
point of view. For the latter it is enough to say that the opinions
about America which have already been given in the account of his
European travels were more than reenforced. He said again what he had
said before, and he took pains to add a great deal that had been left
unsaid. The new matter surpassed in the energy of invective the old, and
its attack was more concentrated. There were in the novel, to be sure,
the remarks that had now got to be habitual with Cooper upon the
provincialism of the whole country; but it was upon New York city that
the vials of his wrath were especially poured. The town, according to
the view here expressed of it, was nothing more than a huge expansion of
commonplace things. It was a confused and tasteless collection of
flaring red brick houses, martin-box churches, and colossal (p. 151)
taverns. But the assault made upon its external appearance bore no
comparison to that upon its internal life. The city in a moral sense
resembled, according to Cooper, a huge encampment. It stood at the
farthest remove from the intellectual supremacy and high tone of a
genuine capital as distinguished from a great trading port. In its
gayeties he saw little better than the struggles of an uninstructed
taste, if indeed that could properly be styled gay which was only a
strife in prodigality and parade. The conversation of the elders was
entirely about the currency, the price of lots, and the latest
speculations in towns. The younger society was made up of babbling
misses, who prattled as waters flow, without consciousness of effort,
and of whiskered masters who fancied Broadway the world; and the two
together looked upon the flirtations of miniature drawing-rooms as the
ideal of human life in its loftiest aspects. Upon the _literati_ the
attack was even more savage. He described this appellation as being
given to the most incorrigible members of the book clubs of New York.
These had been laboriously employed in puffing each other into celebrity
for many weary years, but still remained just as vapid, as conceited, as
ignorant, as