as not a sentiment, it was a passion. As a sort of atonement,
therefore, for his first work, he determined to inflict, as he phrased
it, a second one upon the world. Against this there should be no
objection on the score of patriotism. He naturally turned for his
subject to the Revolution, with the details of which he was familiar
by his acquaintance with the men who had shared prominently in its
conduct, and had felt all the keenness of a personal triumph in its
success. The very county, moreover, in which he had made his home was
full of recollections. Westchester had been the neutral ground between
the English forces stationed in New York and the American army encamped
in the highlands of the Hudson. Upon it more, perhaps, than upon any
other portion of the soil of the revolted colonies had fallen the
curse of war in its heaviest form. Back and forth over a large part of
it had perpetually ebbed and flowed the tide of battle. Not a road was
there which had not been swept again and again by columns of infantry
or squadrons of horse. Every thicket had been the hiding-place of
refugees or spies; every wood or meadow had been the scene of a
skirmish; and every house that had survived the struggle had its tale
to tell of thrilling scenes that had taken place within its walls.
These circumstances determined Cooper's choice of the place and
period. Years before, while at the residence of John Jay, his host had
given him, one summer afternoon, the account of a spy that had (p. 030)
been in his service during the war. The coolness, shrewdness,
fearlessness, but above all the unselfish patriotism, of the man had
profoundly impressed the Revolutionary leader who had employed him.
The story made an equally deep impression upon Cooper at the time. He
now resolved to take it as the foundation of the tale he had been
persuaded to write. The result was that on the 22d of December, 1821,
the novel of "The Spy" was quietly advertised in the New York papers
as on that day published.

The reader, however, would receive a very wrong idea of the feelings
with which the author began and ended this work of fiction, should he
stop short with the account that has just been given. The circumstances
attending its composition and publication are, as a matter of fact,
almost as remarkable as the story itself. They certainly present a
most suggestive picture of the literary state of America at that time.
Cooper, for his part, had not the sligh