es of the tale he had formed in his mind. The encouragement of
his wife determined him to go on and complete it, and when completed
the advice of friends decided him to publish it. Accordingly, on the
10th of November, 1820, a novel in two volumes, entitled "Precaution,"
made its appearance in New York. In this purely haphazard way did the
most prolific of American authors begin his literary life.

The work was brought out in a bad shape, and its typographical (p. 017)
defects were unconsciously exaggerated by Cooper in a revised edition
of it, which was published after his return from Europe. In the
preface to the latter he said that no novel of modern times had ever
been worse printed than was this story as it originally appeared. The
manuscript, he admitted, was bad; but the proof-reading could only be
described as execrable. Periods turned up in the middle of sentences,
while the places where they should have been knew them not. Passages,
in consequence, were rendered obscure, and even entire paragraphs
became unintelligible. A careful reading of the edition of 1820 will
show something to suggest, but little to justify, these sweeping
assertions. But the work has never been much read even by the admirers
of the author; and it is a curious illustration of this fact, that the
personal friend, who delivered the funeral discourse upon his life and
writings, avoided the discussion of it with such care that he was
betrayed into exposing the lack of interest he sought to hide. Bryant
confessed he had not read "Precaution." He had merely dipped into the
first edition of it, and had been puzzled and repelled by the
profusion of commas and other pauses. The non-committalism of cautious
criticism could hardly hope to go farther. Punctuation has had its
terrors and its triumphs; but this victory over the editor of a daily
newspaper must be deemed its proudest recorded achievement. The poet
went on to say that to a casual inspection the revised edition, which
Cooper afterward brought out, seemed almost another work. The
inspection which could come to such a conclusion must have been of
that exceedingly casual kind which contents itself with contemplating
the outside of a book, and disdains to open it. As a matter of (p. 018)
fact the changes made hardly extended beyond the correction of some
points of punctuation and of some grammatical forms; it was in a few
instances only that the construction of the sentences underwent