the richest gifts, the noblest sentiments are linked to heartless
profligacy, or not less heartless misanthropy. He never palters with
right; he enters into no truce with wrong; he admits of no compromise on
such points. How admirable in its moral aspect is the character of
Leatherstocking! he is ignorant, and of very moderate intellectual range
or grasp; but what dignity, nay, even grandeur, is thrown around him from
his noble moral qualities,--his undeviating rectitude, his
disinterestedness, his heroism, his warm affections! No writer could have
delineated such a character so well who had not an instinctive and
unconscious sympathy with his intellectual offspring. Praise of the same
kind belongs to Long Tom Coffin, and Antonio, the old fisherman. The
elements of character--truth, courage, and affection--are the same in all.
Harvey Birch and Jacopo Frontoni are kindred conceptions: both are in a
false relation to those around them; both assume a voluntary load of
obloquy; both live and move in an atmosphere of suspicion and distrust;
but in both the end sanctifies and exalts the means; the element of
deception in both only adds to the admiration finally awakened. The
carrying out of conceptions like these--the delineation of a character
that perpetually weaves a web of untruth, and yet through all maintains
our respect, and at last secures our reverence--was no easy task; but
Cooper's success is perfect.

Cooper was fortunate in having been born with a vigorous constitution, and
in having kept through life the blessing of robust health. He never
suffered from remorse of the stomach or protest of the brain; and his
writings are those of a man who always digested his dinner and never had a
headache. His novels, like those of Scott, are full of the breeze and
sunshine of health. They breathe of manly tastes, active habits, sound
sleep, a relish for simple pleasures, temperate enjoyments, and the
retention in manhood of the fresh susceptibilities of youth. His genius is