s and the newspapers
attacked him. Libel suits followed, which, too, he usually won.
Criticism of his "History of the United States Navy" aroused his
indignation, and a trial which is a _cause celebre_ was the result. A
time of storm all these years were for Cooper.

All this gives the impression of a man who was constantly "spoiling
for a fight." The impression is hardly just, however. He was not
quarrelsome; but he was proud, possessed of strong passions and of a
deep sense of his own rights. Whenever, therefore, what he regarded as
his rights were struck at, he struck back. For one blow received
another was given, till what was simply a continued litigation seemed
to be his normal condition. But these troublesome scenes have to be
read in the books, and are not lingering in the minds of his few
remaining contemporaries.

In this period he was constantly engaged in writing. Not only was the
number of volumes he produced great, but the variety of subject and
treatment was no less great. He even wrote a drama. Yet it is to his
novels that one turns as the most precious result of these years.
Cooper is, above all other Americans, the writer of the novel of
adventure. In his own day, at home and abroad, he was often called the
American Scott. The metaphor is true in several senses, besides the
one point of both the American and the Scotchman standing for the
story of objective life and daring. Like Scott, Cooper wrote a
tremendous amount; like Scott, he wrote with great rapidity; like
Scott, he burdened his books with long introductions; like Scott, he
was careless in literary expression; like Scott, too, into the novel
of adventure he put a mighty literary power. It must be said that,
unlike the Waverley Novels, Cooper's romances have little of
development, and that to the cultivated reader Scott is more
attractive. One cannot forbear saying that the women of Cooper's
creation are far inferior to Scott's--they are women usually narrow in
knowledge, weak in brain and heart, and gentle, if not even insipid,
in character. They are as proper as well-draped statues, and almost as
lifeless. When Cooper, however, passes from this point of weakness to
nature herself, he shows himself a master. His descriptions of nature
represent his finest work, and are among the finest to be found
anywhere. His sea tales are properly named; they are rather tales of
the sea than tales of seamen. The closer, too, is the association of
his cha