. But he met the news as
bravely as he had the various troubles of his eventful life. After Dr.
Francis' departure the malady steadily increased, and it soon became
evident that expectation of recovery must be given up. During all these
days he was quiet and cheerful, and his last hours were full of peace
and hope. On Sunday, the 14th of September, 1851, at half-past one in
the afternoon, he died. Had he lived one day longer he would have been
sixty-two years old. In a little more than four months his wife followed
him to the grave. They lie side by side in the grounds of Christ's
Church at Cooperstown.

His property was found, at his death, to be much impaired in value.
Enough was left to insure the family a competency, but it became
necessary to give up the mansion where so many years of his life had
been passed. The dwelling went, accordingly, into other hands, and it
was not a long while after that it burned down. Part of the grounds have
since become public property, and that which is not so employed is
little better than a waste.

The death of men of letters did not excite at that time the attention
which interest or fashion pays to it now. Cooper's relations, too, with
many, had been of so strained a nature that it was hardly to be (p. 268)
expected that his loss should arouse universal regret. Yet it was
felt on all hands that a great man had fallen. On the 25th of September,
a few days after his death, a meeting was held in the City Hall, New
York, with the intent to make a suitable demonstration of respect to his
memory. Washington Irving presided, and a committee of prominent men of
letters was appointed to carry into effect the measures for which the
gathering had been called. A discourse on the life, genius, and writings
of the dead author was fixed upon to be given by his intimate friend,
William Cullen Bryant. On the 25th of February, 1852, this address was
delivered at Metropolitan Hall before the most cultivated audience the
city could boast. With a singular ineptitude, not generally appreciated
at the time, Daniel Webster was selected to preside. He had nothing to
say, and he said it wretchedly. It was doubtful if he had ever read a
single work of the novelist. That, at least, is a natural inference from
his speech, which, furthermore, is little else than a collection of
dreary platitudes. It was after this fashion that he paid his respects
to the man whose memory they had come together to honor. "