Cooper stood, against
furious assaults that represented the sentiments of nearly the whole
public was not conducive to playful moods of the spirit; yet the
controversy had its humorous side, and if the novelist had had a keen
sense of humor he would have been spared much trouble. Certain aspects
of the ludicrous appealed to Cooper, and there was a range of absurdity
within which his merriment was easily excited, as when he laughed until
the tears ran down his cheeks because his man-of-all-work thought that
boiled oil should be called "biled ile"; but his attempts to create and
sustain humorous characters, such as the singing-master in _The Last of
the Mohicans_, justify Balzac's comments on Cooper's "profound and
radical impotence for the comic." Nothing could be more comic than his
role of lecturer to the American people upon refinements of social usage
and manners. The many who were guilty of the vulgarities which he wished
to correct were precisely those who could not be made to see the
impropriety of them, and most fiercely resented any attempt to improve
their deportment. If Cooper had possessed an acute sense of humor he
would never have written _Home as Found_, nor would he have dignified
with a reply the attack of every scribbler who assailed him. But he took
all criticisms seriously, and felt it a solemn duty, in justice to
himself and to the principles for which he stood, to defend himself
against all and sundry. There is no doubt that in standing alone against
the whole world he believed himself to be performing a public service,
and displayed a degree of courage which is too rare not to command
extraordinary admiration. At the same time those of his friends who
described him as borne down by the weight of his sorrow at the
misunderstanding and ingratitude which he encountered had not taken the
full measure of his character. So splendid a fighter as Fenimore Cooper
usually finds some pleasure in fighting, especially if, as in his case,
he is habitually victorious. He leaped into the fray of each controversy
with such alacrity that it is difficult to avoid the belief that Cooper
was animated not only by a sense of justice, but by a joy of battle.

The occasion of the libel suits was the publication in August, 1837, in
the _Otsego Republican_, a Cooperstown newspaper, of an article copied
from the _Norwich Telegraph_, in which Cooper was roundly abused in
reference to the Three-Mile Point controversy, and to wh