ext year Cooper published "The Spy," one of the finest of his novels,
which was instantly welcomed in England and translated in France. Then
came, in swift succession, "The Pioneers," the first Leather-Stocking
tale in order of composition, and "The Pilot," to show that Scott's
"Pirate" was written by a landsman! "Lionel Lincoln" and "The Last
of the Mohicans" followed. The next seven years were spent in Europe,
mainly in France, where "The Prairie" and "The Red Rover" were written.
Cooper now looked back upon his countrymen with eyes of critical
detachment, and made ready to tell them some of their faults. He came
home to Cooperstown in 1833, the year after Irving's return to America.
He had won, deservedly, a great fame, which he proceeded to imperil by
his combativeness with his neighbors and his harsh strictures upon the
national character, due mainly to his lofty conception of the ideal
America. He continued to spin yarns of sea and shore, and to write naval
history. The tide of fashion set against him in the eighteen-forties
when Bulwer and Dickens rode into favor, but the stouthearted old
pioneer could afford to bide his time. He died in 1851, just as Mrs.
Stowe was writing "Uncle Tom's Cabin."

Two generations have passed since then, and Cooper's place in our
literature remains secure. To have written our first historical novel,
"The Spy," our first sea-story, "The Pilot," and to have created the
Leather-Stocking series, is glory enough. In his perception of masculine
character, Cooper ranks with Fielding. His sailors, his scouts and
spies, his good and bad Indians, are as veritable human figures
as Squire Western. Long Tom Coffin, Harvey Birch, Hawk-Eye, and
Chingachgook are physically and morally true to life itself. Read the
Leather-Stocking books in the order of the events described,
beginning with "The Deerslayer," then "The Last of the Mohicans," "The
Pathfinder," "The Pioneers", and ending with the vast darkening horizon
of "The Prairie" and the death of the trapper, and one will feel
how natural and inevitable are the fates of the personages and the
alterations in the life of the frontier. These books vary in their
poetic quality and in the degree of their realism, but to watch the
evolution of the leading figure is to see human life in its actual
texture.

Clever persons and pedantic persons have united to find fault with
certain elements of Cooper's art. Mark Twain, in one of his least
inspired momen