is deftly combined with the more serious
irony of a poet's frantic appeal for help becoming an expensive
plaything of the rich, while the poet himself has died of want. Susan
Fenimore Cooper's typically understated expression of this irony
renders it all the more poignant, and the unspoken message of "The
Lumley Autograph" is as relevant today as it was in 1851.

{Though "The Lumley Autograph" was published in 1851, it was written as
early as 1845, when Susan's father first unsuccessfully offered it to
Graham's Magazine, asking "at least $25" for it. [See James Fenimore
Cooper to Mrs. Cooper, Nov. 30, 1845, in James F. Beard, ed., "The
Letters and Journals of James Fenimore Cooper" (Harvard University
Press, 1960-68), Vol. V, pp. 102-102]. Three years later he offered it
to his London publisher, also without success [James Fenimore Cooper to
Richard Bentley, Nov. 15, 1848, Vol. V, p. 390; and Richard Bentley to
James Fenimore Cooper, July 24, 1849, Vol. VI, p. 53.] What Graham's
Magazine finally paid, in 1851, is not known.}

THE LUMLEY AUTOGRAPH.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "RURAL HOURS," ETC.

[Not long since an American author received an application from a
German correspondent for "a few Autographs"--the number of names
applied for amounting to more than a hundred, and covering several
sheets of foolscap. A few years since an Englishman of literary note
sent his Album to a distinguished poet in Paris for his contribution,
when the volume was actually stolen from a room where every other
article was left untouched; showing that Autographs were more valuable
in the eyes of the thief than any other property. Amused with the
recollection of these facts, and others of the same kind, some idle
hours were given by the writer to the following view of this mania of
the day.]

The month of November of the year sixteen hundred and -- was cheerless
and dark, as November has never failed to be within the foggy, smoky
bounds of the great city of London. It was one of the worst days of the
season; what light there was seemed an emanation from the dull earth,
the heavens would scarce have owned it, veiled as they were, by an
opaque canopy of fog which weighed heavily upon the breathing multitude
below. Gloom penetrated every where; no barriers so strong, no good
influences so potent, as wholly to ward off the spell thrown over that
mighty town by the spirits of chill and damp; they clung to the silken
draperies of luxury, th