hin octavo of a little more than
one hundred pages; but the damage it wrought him was out of all
proportion to its size. The first half of it was taken up with a reply
to the comments and criticisms made in the New York journals already
mentioned. This was of itself sufficiently absurd, for it revived what
had already been forgotten, and gave importance to some things (p. 130)
had not been worth reading, let alone remembering. But to this
blundering was added a wrongheadedness, of which Cooper's later life was
to afford numerous illustrations. The article from the "Courier and
Enquirer" is quoted in full in the book. Some of its statements are
inaccurate; but no one can read it now without seeing at once that it
was written in a spirit that was the very reverse of hostile. To attack
a powerful journal for comments clearly dictated by friendly feeling,
betrayed more than a lack of prudence; it betrayed a lack of common
sense. Moreover, there were other serious defects in the Letter. He
criticised at some length certain forms of expression used by one of his
assailants. Cooper's remarks on language are almost invariably marked by
the pretension and positiveness that characterize the writers on usage
who are ignorant of their ignorance; but in this case they are in
addition frequently puerile. His personal references were not especially
objectionable. But the best that can be asserted of them is, that he
said with good taste what it would have been better taste not to say at
all. He, however, so contrived to state his position that he laid
himself open to the charge that he looked upon the unfavorable opinion
expressed of "The Bravo" as being instigated by the French government,
and that, in consequence, the ill reception here accorded to his book
was not due necessarily to any inferiority in the work itself, but to
the machinations of foreign political enemies. He did not so mean it. He
meant to imply that there was no limit to the volunteer baseness of men
who stand ready to gratify power by doing for it what it would gladly
have done, but would never ask to have done. But the other was a (p. 131)
natural inference, and it was used against him with marked effect.

Worse even than all this, he succeeded in accomplishing in the latter
half of his Letter. A most exciting controversy was going on at the time
between the President and the Senate of the United States. The
bitterness had been aggravated into fury by the re