men, but, with his
keen sense of justice, he was not always judicious. Abroad he defended
his country with vigor, and was fearless in warning and advising her,
when needful, at home. While he never mistook 'her geese for swans,' he
was a patriot to the very core of his heart." However, this
over-critical writing soon became newspaper gossip, and began for Cooper
six long years of tedious lawsuits, finally settled in his favor in
1843. With such able men as Horace Greeley, Park Benjamin, and Thurlow
Weed among others in battle-array against him, Cooper closed this strife
himself by making a clear, brilliant, and convincing six-hour address
before the court during a profound silence. Well may it be said: "It was
a good fight he fought and an honorable victory he won" when he silenced
the press as to publishing private or personal affairs. His speech was
received with bursts of applause, and of his closing argument an eminent
lawyer said: "I have heard nothing like it since the days of Emmet." "It
was clear, skilful, persuasive, and splendidly eloquent," is another's
record. At the Globe Hotel the author wrote his wife the outcome, and
added: "I tell you this, my love, because I know it will give you
pleasure." In "American Bookmen," by M.A. De Wolfe Howe, it appears that
when going to one of his Cooper trials Mr. Weed picked up a new book to
shorten the journey. It proved to be "The Two Admirals," and says Weed:
"I commenced reading it in the cars, and became so charmed that I took
it into the court-room and occupied every interval that my attention
could be withdrawn from the trial with its perusal." Mr. Howe adds:
"Plaintiff and defendant have rarely faced each other under stranger
conditions."

[Illustration: HORACE GREELEY.]

[Illustration: PARK BENJAMIN.]

[Illustration: THURLOW WEED.]

While in the St. Mark's-Place home the family found Frisk, described by
Mr. Keese as "a little black mongrel of no breed whatever, rescued from
under a butcher's cart in St. Mark's Place, with a fractured leg, and
tenderly cared for until recovery. He was taken to Cooperstown, where
he died of old age after the author himself. Mr. Cooper was rarely seen
on the street without Frisk."

The shores of Otsego, "the Susquehanna's utmost spring," Cooper made the
scenic part of "Home as Found," but high authority asserts the
characters to be creatures of the author's fancy, all save one,--"a
venerable figure, tall and upright, to be see