state, that they entitled the author to as high a place in law as his
other works had won for him in literature.

I had thought, in meditating the plan of this discourse, to mention all
the works of Mr. Cooper, but the length to which I have found it extending
has induced me to pass over several written in the last ten years of his
life, and to confine myself to those which best illustrate his literary
character. The last of his novels was _The Ways of the Hour_, a work in
which the objections he entertained to the trial by jury in civil causes
were stated in the form of a narrative.

It is a voluminous catalogue--that of Cooper's published works--but it
comprises not all he wrote. He committed to the fire, without remorse,
many of the fruits of his literary industry. It was understood, some years
since, that he had a work ready for the press on the _Middle States of the
Union_, principally illustrative of their social history; but it has not
been found among his manuscripts, and the presumption is that he must have
destroyed it. He had planned a work on the _Towns of Manhattan_, for the
publication of which he made arrangements with Mr. Putnam of this city,
and a part of which, already written, was in press at the time of his
death. The printed part has since been destroyed by fire, but a portion of
the manuscript was recovered. The work, I learn, will be completed by one
of the family, who, within a few years past, has earned an honorable name
among the authors of our country. Great as was the number of his works,
and great as was the favor with which they were received, the pecuniary
rewards of his success were far less than has been generally
supposed--scarcely, as I am informed, a tenth part of what the common
rumor made them. His fame was infinitely the largest acknowledgment which
this most successful of American authors received for his labors.