om the frank, brave, and generous but peculiar character of the
seaman, may be drawn materials of romance by which the minds of men may be
as deeply moved as by anything in the power of romance to present. In this
walk, Cooper has had many disciples but no rival. All who have since
written romances of the sea have been but travellers in a country of which
he was the great discoverer; and none of them all seemed to have loved a
ship as Cooper loved it, or have been able so strongly to interest all
classes of readers in its fortunes. Among other personages drawn with
great strength in the _Pilot_, is the general favorite, Tom Coffin, the
thorough seaman with all the virtues and one or two of the infirmities of
his profession, superstitious, as seamen are apt to be, yet whose
superstitions strike us as but an irregular growth of his devout
recognition of the Power who holds the ocean in the hollow of his hand;
true-hearted, gentle, full of resources, collected in danger, and at last
calmly perishing at the post of duty, with the vessel he has long guided,
by what I may call a great and magnanimous death. His rougher and coarser
companion, Boltrope, is drawn with scarcely less skill, and with a no less
vigorous hand.

The _Pioneers_ is not Cooper's best tale of the American forest, nor, the
_Pilot_, perhaps, in all respects, his best tale of the sea; yet, if he
had ceased to write here, the measure of his fame would possibly have been
scarcely less ample than it now is. Neither of them is far below the best
of his productions, and in them appear the two most remarkable creations
of his imagination--two of the most remarkable characters in all fiction.

It was about this time that my acquaintance with Cooper began, an
acquaintance of more than a quarter of a century, in which his deportment
towards me was that of unvaried kindness. He then resided a considerable
part of the year in this city, and here he had founded a weekly club, to
which many of the most distinguished men of the place belonged. Of the
members who have since passed away, were Chancellor Kent, the jurist;
Wiley the intelligent and liberal bookseller; Henry D. Sedgwick, always
active in schemes of benevolence; Jarvis, the painter, a man of infinite
humor, whose jests awoke inextinguishable laughter; De Kay, the
naturalist; Sands, the poet; Jacob Harvey whose genial memory is cherished
by many friends. Of those who are yet living was Morse, the inventor of
the