the
American author. "This man," he said, describing his first interview,
"who has shown so much genius, has a good deal of the manners, or want
of manners, peculiar to his countrymen." Cooper's personal acquaintance
with Scott had begun in 1826, just after the latter had set about his
gigantic effort to pay off the load of debt in which he had involved
himself. The American novelist had made then an attempt to secure for
the man he regarded as his master some adequate return from the vast
sale of his works in the United States. In this he had been foiled. In
the "Knickerbocker Magazine" for April, 1838, he gave an account of
these fruitless negotiations. In a later number of the same year he
reviewed Lockhart's biography. This work is well known as one of the
most entertaining in our literature. But on its appearance it gave a
painful shock to the admirers of the great author by the revelations it
made of practices which savored more of the proverbial canniness of the
Scotchman than of the lofty spirit of the man of honor. Equally
surprising was the unconsciousness of the biographer, that there was
anything discreditable in what he disclosed. Cooper criticised Scott's
conduct in certain matters with a good deal of severity. In regard to
some points he took extreme, and what might fairly be deemed Quixotic
ground. Yet the general justice of his article will hardly be denied now
by any one who is fully cognizant of the facts. Nor, indeed, was it
then. "I have just read," wrote Charles Sumner from London to Hillard,
in January, 1839, "an article on Lockhart's 'Scott,' written by (p. 161)
Cooper in the "Knickerbocker," which was lent me by Barry Cornwall.
I think it capital. I see none of Cooper's faults; and I think a proper
castigation is applied to the vulgar minds of Scott and Lockhart.
Indeed, the nearer I approach the circle of these men the less disposed
do I find myself to like them." Sumner subsequently wrote, that Procter
fully concurred in the conclusions advanced in the review. But these
were not the prevalent opinions, in this country at least. Great was the
outcry against Cooper for writing this article; great the outcry against
the "Knickerbocker" for printing it. The latter was severely censured
for its willingness to prostitute its columns to the service of the
former in his slanderous "attempts to vilify the object of his impotent
and contemptible hatred." Americans who were averse to Scott's being
hone