old gentleman of (p. 098)
over seventy, and was preparing to make a creditable close to his
career by performing the task, which seems to assume the shape of a duty
to every literary Englishman of leisure, of translating the Iliad and
the Odyssey. Not unnaturally he was more familiar with the way the wrath
of Achilles manifested itself than with the shape taken by the wrath of
the men of his race beyond the sea. On one occasion he condoled with
Cooper because of the quarrelsomeness and fighting prevalent in America,
making during this expression of his sympathy an obvious allusion to
gouging. It was useless to attempt setting him right. His interest in
ancient fiction had not been so absorbing as to close his mind to the
acquisition of modern fact; and to Cooper's denial of what he had
implied he listened with a polite but incredulous smile.

CHAPTER VI. (p. 099)

1828-1833.

Misrepresentation and abuse of his native land it was not in Cooper's
nature to bear in silence. His resentment for the imputations cast upon
his country began to show itself soon after he had taken up his
residence abroad. In "The Red Rover," which appeared in 1827, there are
satirical references to the benevolence and piety of the moral
missionaries which England had sent among us, and to the correctness and
wisdom of current foreign opinion. In the next novel, "The Wept of
Wish-ton-Wish," his feelings are still more fully expressed. In this
work he puts into the mouth of one of the characters, a physician, an
elaborate disquisition upon the degeneracy of man in America. In the
course of it the leech informs his opponent that the science and wisdom
and philosophy of Europe had been exceedingly active in the
investigation of this matter of colonial inferiority, that they had
proved to their own perfect satisfaction, which was the same thing as
disposing of the question without appeal, that man and beast, plant and
tree, hill and dale, lake, pond, sun, air, fire, and water were all
wanting in some of the perfectness of the old regions. It was plain we
could never hope to reach the exalted excellence they enjoy; and while
he respected the patriotism that held the contrary view, he could not,
out of deference to it, afford to doubt what had been demonstrated (p. 100)
by science and collected by learning.

It was not in this indirect way, however, that he could content himself
with