forest, and commencing the labours of civilisation, that has no exact
parallel in any other human occupation; and some refracted share of this
pleasure is secured by every intelligent reader while engaged in
perusing records so faithful and characteristic as those embodied in
this tale. _Ravensnest_, with no lack of scenic embellishments,
introduces to us three of the author's happiest characters--always
excepting Leatherstocking and Long Tom--namely, the two Littlepages,
'Captain Hugh' and his 'Uncle Ro,' and Mistress Opportunity Newcome. The
didactic asperities in which he indulged naturally marred the fortune of
a book whose readers, whatever they might be, were pretty safely
'booked' for a scolding. Otherwise, it gleamed with scintillations,
neither faint nor few, of the light of other days. But it was evident
that Mr Cooper was overwriting himself. He seemed determined not to be
outdone in fecundity by the most prolific of his contemporaries--as
though it were a safe speculation or a healthy emulation to run against
such light horsemen and horsewomen as Mr James and M. Dumas, and
Mesdames Gore and Trollope. Hence he might have appropriately echoed the
complaint of the slave in Terence:

'Parum succedit quod ago, at facio sedulò.'

In 1847, he produced _Mark's Reef_, a story of the Crusoe genus, but far
behind; the desert island being created 'positively for this occasion
only,' and being swallowed up in the sea again when it has served Mark
Woolston and the novelist's requirements. It is characterised, however,
by much glowing description--especially that relating to the crater,
with its noble peak, 'ever the same amid the changes of time, and
civilisation, and decay; naked, storm-beaten, and familiar to the eye.'
The following year he was ready with _The Bee-Hunter_, wherein he sought
to revive his pristine successes among American solitudes and Red