land, and in the other on water. Even those majestic first families,
whom he had celebrated before, loom up in these pages with renewed and
increasing grandeur. But the story is throughout told in a graphic and
spirited manner, and as it approaches the end and details the scenes
that follow Abercrombie's repulse at Lake George in 1758, it (p. 253)
becomes intensely exciting. The villain of the tale is, of course, a New
Englander, in this instance a long, ungainly pedagogue from Danbury,
Connecticut. He does not, however, blossom out into the full perfection
of his rascality until he makes his appearance in "The Chainbearer," the
next novel of the series. This tale, though decidedly inferior to
"Satanstoe," contains passages of great interest. The description,
especially, of the squatter family and the life led by it, is one of
Cooper's most powerfully drawn pictures.

It has been the misfortune of this series that the member of it which
has attracted most attention is "The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin,"
which came out in July, 1846. This is one of three or four books which,
in a certain way, give one a high idea of Cooper's power in the fact
that his reputation has been able to survive them. If he had been
anxious to help the anti-renters and hurt the patroon, he could hardly
have done better than to write this book. As a story it has no merit.
The incidents told in it are absurd. It is full, moreover, of the
arguments that irritate but do not convince; and is liberally supplied,
in addition, with prophecies that have never been realized. Everything
that was disagreeable in Cooper's manner and bungling in his art, was
conspicuous in this work. His dislikes were not uttered pleasantly, as
in "Afloat and Ashore," but with an ill-nature that often bordered upon
ferocity. A tone of pretension ran through the whole, a constant
reference to what men think who had seen the world, with the implied
inference that those who disagreed with the author in opinion had not
seen the world. The feeling of the reader is, that if this extravagance
and over-statement be the result of travel, men had better stay (p. 254)
at home. Nor did Cooper refrain from dragging in everything with which
he had found fault before. We are not even spared the everlasting
reference to the bays of New York and of Naples. The work is what he
himself would have called provincial in the worst sense of that word.
Even more than its spirit was its mat