ss with Mrs. Cooper."

Some two years after Cooper's return from abroad, a friend about to sail
for Europe met him walking leisurely along Broadway with his coat open
and a great string of onions in his hand. Seeing several persons turn to
look at him, then speak to each other, the friend too turned--"and
behold, it was Cooper!" After greetings he raised his bunch of onions
and said: "I have turned farmer, but am obliged to come to town now and
then, as you see." Kind remembrances were sent to Greenough; and of
Italy he added: "There is no place where mere living is such a luxury."

Fenimore Cooper had a keen sense of the ridiculous. His table-talk by
his own fireside was full of cheery life, fun, and glowing merriment.
"Severe and stern his fine face could be when touching on serious
subjects," but his relish of the ludicrous and comical was very strongly
marked, and when such came his way in reading, it was carried at once to
the family circle and read by him with zest, and a laugh so hearty it
brought the tears rolling down his cheeks. While in Europe he outlined a
satirical tale in which the men's parts should be seriously assumed by
monkeys. An English baronet, Sir John Goldencalf, and a Yankee skipper,
Captain Noah Poke, were made to travel together through the different
parts of Monkeyland, called Leaphigh, Leaplow, and Leapthrough,
representing England, America, and France. This tale was hastily written
in his New York home on Bleecker Street near Thompson. Of these
countries, their people, and that time, the story was a strong, clever,
and ludicrous picture, which in this day would be accepted as such, and
be equally helpful and amusing to writers and readers. It was called
"The Monikins," and was published in 1835.

Delight in the scenery of Switzerland led Cooper to put in book form his
notes on his visits to that small country of many interests and
magnificent views. Under the name of "Sketches in Switzerland," it was
published in 1836. The France and England part of his "Gleanings in
Europe" went to print the next year. Concerning his book on old England,
Cooper, in the autumn of 1837, writes: "They tell me it has made a stir
in London, where I get abused and read _a la Trollope_. It ought to do
them good, but whether it does or not depends upon Divine grace." This
effort has been called keen, clever, but untimely, tending rather to set
people by their ears than to save them from their sins.

In the summ