tacks. He was
not, however, a man to be driven from any purpose which he had formed,
either by flattery or abuse, and both were tried with equal ill success.
In 1832 he published his _Heidenmauer_, and in 1833 his _Headsman of
Berne_, both with a political design similar to that of the _Bravo_,
though neither of them takes the same high rank among his works.

In 1833, after a residence of seven years in different parts of Europe,
but mostly in France, Cooper returned to his native country. The welcome
which met him here was somewhat chilled by the effect of the attacks made
upon him in France, and remembering with what zeal, and at what sacrifice
of the universal acceptance which his works would otherwise have met, he
had maintained the cause of his country against the wits and orators of
the court party in France, we cannot wonder that he should have felt this
coldness as undeserved. He published, shortly after his arrival in this
country, _A Letter to his Countrymen_ in which he complained of the
censures cast upon him in the American newspapers, gave a history of the
part he had taken in exposing the misstatements of the _Revue
Britannique_, and warned his countrymen against the too common error of
resorting, with a blind deference, to foreign authorities, often swayed by
national or political prejudices, for our opinions of American authors.
Going beyond this topic, he examined and reprehended the habit of applying
to the interpretation of our own constitution maxims derived from the
practice of other governments, particularly that of Great Britain. The
importance of construing that instrument by its own principles, he
illustrated by considering several points in dispute between parties of
the day, on which he gave very decided opinions.

The principal effect of this pamphlet, as it seemed to me, was to awaken
in certain quarters a kind of resentment that a successful writer of
fiction should presume to give lessons in politics. I meddle not here with
the conclusions to which he arrived, though must be allowed to say that
they were stated and argued with great ability. In 1835 Cooper published
_The Monnikins_, a satirical work, partly with a political aim; and in the
same year appeared his _American Democrat_, a view of the civil and social
relations of the United States, discussing more gravely various topics
touched upon in the former work, and pointing out in what respects he
deemed the American people in their p