to "The Chainbearer" he says,--"In our view, New York is at this moment a
disgraced State; and her disgrace arises from the fact that her laws are
trampled under foot, without any efforts--at all commensurate with the
object--being made to enforce them." That any commonwealth is a disgraced
State against which such charges can with truth be made no one will deny;
and any one who is familiar with the history of that wretched business
will agree, that, at the time it was made, the charge was not too strong.
Who can fail to admire the courage of the man who ventured to write and
print such a judgment as the above against a State of which he was a
native, a citizen, and a resident, and in which the public sentiment was
fiercely the other way? Here, too, Cooper's motives were entirely
unselfish: he had almost no pecuniary interest in the question of
Anti-Rentism; he wrote all in honor, unalloyed by thrift. His very last
novel, "The Ways of the Hour," is a vigorous exposition of the defects of
the trial by jury in cases where a vehement public sentiment has already
tried the question, and condemned the prisoner. The story is improbable,
and the leading character is an impossible being; but the interest is kept
up to the end,--it has many most impressive scenes,--it abounds with
shrewd and sound observations upon life, manners, and politics,--and all
the legal portion is stamped with an acuteness and fidelity to truth which
no professional reader can note without admiration.

Cooper's character as a man is the more admirable to us because it was
marked by strong points which are not common in our country, and which the
institutions of our country do not foster. He had the courage to defy the
majority: he had the courage to confront the press: and not from the sting
of ill-success, not from mortified vanity, not from wounded self-love, but
from an heroic sense of duty. How easy a life might he have purchased by
the cheap virtues of silence, submission, and acquiescence! Booksellers
would have enriched him; society would have caressed him; political