career,--an outlaw in spirit, a corsair in deed. In early life he was of
quick mind, strong will, with culture and social position, but wildly
passionate and wayward; and smarting under official injustice, in an
evil hour he casts his lawlessness loose on the storm-tide of life. The
voice of an elder sister, who had given something of a mother's deep
love and tenderness to the wayward youth, falls upon his ear. Old
memories are awakened; home feeling revives; conscience is aroused, and
in the very hour of its greatest triumph the proud spirit bows in
penitence,--the Rover surrenders his captives. A like change of heart
came, through a mutual love of the birds of heaven, to a real pirate who
chanced upon a cabin in the forest's solitude and here confessed his
life to its inmate, Audubon, who left this "striking incident" a record
in his works. However, "Dick Fid, that arrant old foretop man, and his
comrade, Negro Sip, are the true lovers of the narrative;--the last,
indeed, is a noble creature, a hero under the skin of Congo." "The Red
Rover" is all a book of the sea. In Sir Walter Scott's journal, January,
1828, appears: "I have read Cooper's new novel, 'The Red Rover.' The
current of it rolls entirely on the ocean. Something too much of
nautical language. It is very clever, though." Its author "has often
been idly compared to the author of 'Waverley,' but to no such heritage
as Scott's was ever Cooper born. Alone he penetrated the literary
wilderness, blazing paths for those who should come after him
there";--and a Columbus of letters for others to follow on the sea's
highway was he.

[Illustration: THE NEWPORT BOX.]

[Illustration: JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART.]

A misprint in Lockhart's "Life of Scott" made his comment on Cooper most
unfortunate by an "s" added to the word manner. Sir Walter's journal
reads: "This man who has shown so much genius has a good deal of manner,
or want of manner, peculiar to his countrymen." Cooper, hurt to the
quick for himself and his country at being rated "a rude boor from the
bookless wilds," by one he had called his "sovereign" in past cordial
relations, resented this expression in his review of Lockhart's work
for the _Knickerbocker Magazine_, 1838, and for so doing he was harshly
criticised in England. October, 1864, the literary editor of _The
Illustrated London News_ wrote: "I am almost inclined to agree with
Thackeray in liking Hawkeye 'better than any of Scott's lot.' What noble