the road builder or leveler of forests, not the men
who fought against Brant and the Tories. To none of these, in so large a
degree, can we apply with such full measure of truth the sayings that no
man liveth himself, and that his works do follow him."

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 82: _Lives of Phelps and Nash_, John N. Norton.]

[Footnote 83: _History of Zion Church Parish, Morris_, by Katherine M.
Sanderson, p. 6.]

[Footnote 84: _Historic Records of Christ Church, Cooperstown_, G.
Pomeroy Keese.]

[Footnote 85: Reports of Rev. Daniel Nash to New York Convention,
1803-1827.]

[Footnote 86: For The Otsego Nash see Reports of Daniel Nash to New York
Conventions. For the other see _Memoirs of Rev. Charles G. Finney_, New
York, A. S. Barnes and Co., 1876, pp. 52, 70, 117.]

[Footnote 87: Finney, _Memoirs_, p. 70.]

[Footnote 88: _Bishop Chase's Reminiscences_, Vol. I, p. 33.]

[Footnote 89: _Reminiscences_, Levi Beardsley, p. 42.]

[Footnote 90: _The Church Review_, New Haven, October, 1848, p. 398.]

CHAPTER X

THE IMMORTAL NATTY BUMPPO

In the opinion of Sainte-Beuve, Fenimore Cooper possessed the "creative
faculty which brings into the world new characters, and by virtue of
which Rabelais produced Panurge, Le Sage Gil-Blas, and Richardson
Pamela." Thackeray, praising the heroes of Scott's creation, expressed
an equal liking for Cooper's, adding that "perhaps Leather-Stocking is
better than any one in Scott's lot. La Longue Carabine is one of the
great prize-men of fiction. He ranks with your Uncle Toby, Sir Roger de
Coverley, Falstaff--heroic figures all, American or British; and the
artist has deserved well of his country who devised him." Thackeray
proved the sincerity of his admiration when he borrowed a hint from the
noble death-scene of Leather-Stocking in _The Prairie_, and adapted it
to describe the passing of Colonel Newcome.

Cooper's wide audience of general readers is here in agreement with
Sainte-Beuve the critic and Thackeray the novelist. Whatever else may be
said of Cooper's works it is certain that in the man Natty Bumppo, known
as "Leather-Stocking," "Pathfinder," "Deerslayer," and "La Longue
Carabine," Cooper created an immortal being. Among heroes of fiction
Leather-Stocking stands with the few that are as real to the imagination
as the personages of veritable history. Readers of Cooper recall
Leather-Stocking with genuine affection; others, without having read a
line of the _Le