he authors Verplanck, Bryant, and Halleck, Morse the inventor,
the artists Durand and Jarvis, and Wiley the publisher. They met
Thursday evenings, each member in turn caring for the supper, always
cooked to perfection by Abigail Jones--an artist of color, in that line.
It was at one of these repasts that Bryant "was struck with Cooper's
rapid, lively talk, keen observation, knowledge, and accurate memory of
details." Said he: "I remember, too, being somewhat startled, coming as
I did from the seclusion of a country life, with a certain emphatic
frankness of manner, which, however, I came at last to like and admire."
Many an attractive page might be written of these talks with Mathews,
rambles with DeKay, and daily chats with his old messmates of the sea,
and this "Bread and Cheese Club." Cooper was scarcely in France before
he sent frequent missives to his friends at the club to be read at their
weekly meetings; but it "missed its founder, went into a decline, and
not long afterward quietly expired." General Wilson says that it was at
Wiley's, corner of Wall and New Streets, in a small back room christened
by Cooper "The Den"--which appeared over the door--that he first met
"The Idle Man," R.H. Dana. Here Cooper was in the habit of holding
forth to an admiring audience, much as did Christopher North about the
same time in "Blackwood's" back parlor in George Street, Edinburgh.

John Bartlett's Bookshop, too,--"a veritable treasury of literary
secrets,"--in the new Astor House, became a haunt for the bookmen of its
times. Cooper was fond of the society of literary men when he could meet
them as _men_, and not as lions. He once said: "You learn nothing about
a man when you meet him at a show dinner and he sits up to talk _for_
you instead of talking _with_ you. When I was in London Wordsworth came
to town, and I was asked to meet him at one of those displays; but I
would not go." Then Mrs. Cooper said: "But you met him afterwards, my
dear, and was very much pleased with him." To this Cooper replied: "Yes,
at Rogers', and _was_ very much pleased with him; but it was because I
met him in a place where he felt at home, and he let himself out
freely."

[Illustration: CITY HOTEL AND WASHINGTON HALL.]

[Illustration: EARLY BROADWAY.]

[Illustration: WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.]

[Illustration: COOPER'S NEW YORK CITY HOME IN BEACH STREET.]

[Illustration: ST. JOHN'S CHAPEL.]

After some stay on Broadway, Cooper moved his family to