as we do the face and
voice of an actor in the king, the lover, the priest, or the bandit: but
Cooper is not a mere mannerist, perpetually copying from himself. His
range is very wide: it includes white men, red men, and black
men,--sailors, hunters, and soldiers,--lawyers, doctors, and
clergymen,--past generations and present,--Europeans and
Americans,--civilized and savage life. All his delineations are not
successful; some are even unsuccessful: but the aberrations of his genius
must be viewed in connection with the extent of the orbit through which it
moves. The courage which led him to expose himself to so many risks of
failure is itself a proof of conscious power.

Cooper's style has not the ease, grace, and various power of Scott's,--or
the racy, idiomatic character of Thackeray's,--or the exquisite purity and
transparency of Hawthorne's: but it is a manly, energetic style, in which
we are sure to find good words, if not the best. It has certain wants, but
it has no marked defects; if it does not always command admiration, it
never offends. It has not the highest finish; it sometimes betrays
carelessness: but it is the natural garb in which a vigorous mind clothes
its conceptions. It is the style of a man who writes from a full mind,
without thinking of what he is going to say; and this is in itself a
certain kind of merit. His descriptive powers are of a high order. His
love of Nature was strong; and, as is generally the case with intellectual
men, it rather increased than diminished as he grew older. It was not the
meditative and self-conscious love of a sensitive spirit, that seeks in
communion with the outward world a relief from the burdens and struggles
of humanity, but the hearty enjoyment of a thoroughly healthy nature, the
schoolboy's sense of a holiday dwelling in a manly breast. His finest
passages are those in which he presents the energies and capacities of
humanity in combination with striking or beautiful scenes in Nature. His
genius, which sometimes moves with "compulsion and laborious flight" when
dealing with artificial life and the manners and speech of cultivated men,
and women, here recovers all its powers, and sweeps and soars with
victorious and irresistible wing. The breeze from the sea, the fresh air
and wide horizon of the prairies, the noonday darkness of the forest are
sure to animate his drooping energies, and breathe into his mind the
inspiration of a fresh life. Here he is at home, a