gown. I rose to take a nearer view of a little
picture, when Mr. Coleridge told me it was by his friend Allston." From
the bard of Highgate they went to see Miss Joanna Baillie at Hampstead,
and found her "a little, quiet woman, a deeply-seated earnestness about
her that bespoke the higher impulses within; no one would have thought
her little person contained the elements of a tragedy."

[Illustration: HOUSE OF THE GILLMAN'S, HIGHGATE, LONDON.]

An Amsterdam engagement for early June called Cooper and his family from
London before the end of the season, and prompted him to say, "The
force of things has moved heavier bodies." Quitting England was by no
means easy, but "the weather was fine and the North Sea smooth as a
dish." They paddled the whole night long in their "solid good vessel,
but slow of foot." With morning "a low spit of land hove in sight, and a
tree or a church tower" rose out of the water,--this was Holland. At
Rotterdam "the boat was soon alongside the Boom Key." With some
fluttering about the dykes and windmills of Dutchland, a flight through
Belgium soon brought them once more to Paris.

[Illustration: BOOM KEY AT ROTTERDAM.]

Cooper was a keen observer and a calm critic of both home and foreign
folk. That he was stirred to strong words by unpleasing comments on his
country appears in his "Notions of Americans: Picked up by a Traveling
Bachelor." This book of facts, showing wide and accurate knowledge, was
intended to enlighten and clear away mistakes. Instead of this, it drew
upon its writer critical fire both at home and abroad, and was the first
of the many shadows of his after life. His stories of our new country
taught Europe more about America than Europe had ever learned before.
His love for, and faith in, his own country were strong. Abroad he was a
staunch defender of her free institutions, and foreigners deemed him
more proud of his American birth than of his literary birthright of
genius; and yet, at home he was voted "an enemy of all that the fathers
of the Republic fought for." However, the opinion of those who knew
Cooper best was given by his Bread and Cheese Club friend, Dr. John
Wakefield Francis, as,--"He was an American inside and out--a thorough
patriot." It was said that as an aristocratic American he never
presented letters of introduction. Yet in foreign lands his society was
sought by the most distinguished men of his time. However of this, the
rare pleasure of these London d