r to-day" and
other similar comprehensive remarks. I am patiently waiting for the
"Lake Gun" [a magazine article]. I am well and shall commence in
earnest next week. Tell Sue [his daughter] I have seen Putnam, who
will be delighted to publish her new book. "Naval History" is a
little slack for the moment. There are less than a hundred copies
of second edition on hand and the third must be shortly prepared.
The fine edition will be published to-morrow. About two hundred
copies have been sent to the trade and with that issue he will
start. He has had five and twenty copies done up in papier machia
at $9.00. N---- is well. D.Z. is still here. Old Peter is not yet
married, but the affair is postponed until Spring, when the bride
and groom will return to America. They wish to prolong the
delightful delusion of courtship. I hope they may be as happy as we
have been and love each other as much forty--days after their union
as we do forty years.... Yours J.F.C.

[Illustration: JENNY LIND AT CASTLE GARDEN, NEW YORK CITY, 1850.]

At No. 1 Bond Street stood the old-time mansion of Dr. John W. Francis,
where were welcomed many eminent in arts and letters at home and abroad,
and where their host wrote his "Reminiscences of Sixty Years." Here it
was that Cooper, on his last visit to New York, came seeking aid for his
failing health. But with December the author returned to Cooperstown,
whence he wrote a friend: "I have gone into dock with my old hulk, to be
overhauled. Francis says I have congestion, and I must live low,
deplete, and take pills. While I am frozen, my wife tells me my hands,
feet, and body are absolutely warm. The treatment is doing good. You
cannot imagine the old lady's delight at getting me under, in the way of
food. I get no meat, or next to none, and no great matter in
substitutes. This morning being Christmas, I had a blow-out of oysters,
and at dinner it will go hard if I do not get a cut into the turkey. I
have lost pounds, yet I feel strong and clearheaded. I have had a narrow
escape, if I have escaped."

[Illustration: DR JOHN WAKEFIELD FRANCIS.]

[Illustration: DR. FRANCIS'S HOME IN NEW YORK CITY.]

The following spring Cooper again went to New York City, whence he dates
a letter to his wife:

Saturday, March 29, 1851

COLLEGE HOTEL, NEW YORK

Your letter of Thursday has just reached me. I am decidedly
b