In 1805 he quitted the college, and obtaining a midshipman's warrant, entered the navy. His frank, generous, and daring nature made him a favorite, and admirably fitted him for the service, in which he would unquestionably have obtained the highest honors had he not finally made choice of the ease and quiet of the life of a private gentleman. After six years afloatsix years not unprofitably passed, since they gave him that knowledge of maritime affairs which enabled him subsequently, almost without an effort, to place himself at the head of all the writers who in any period have attempted the description of the seahe resigned his office, and on the first day of January, 1811, was married to Miss De Lancey, a sister of the present Bishop of the Diocese of Western New-York, and a descendant of one of the oldest and most influential families in America.
Before removing to Cooperstown he resided a short time in Westchester, near New-York, and here he commenced his career as an author. His first book was Precaution. It was undertaken under circumstances purely accidental, and published under great disadvantages. Its success was moderate, though far from contemptible. It is a ludicrous evidence of the value of critical opinion in this country, that Precaution was thought to discover so much knowledge of English society, as to raise a question whether its alleged author could have written it. More reputation for this sort of knowledge accrued to Mr. Cooper from Precaution than from his subsequent real work on England. It was republished in London, and passed for an English novel.
The Spy followed. No one will dispute the success of The Spy. It was almost immediately republished in all parts of Europe. The novelty of an American book of this character probably contributed to give it circulation. It is worthy of remark that all our own leading periodicals looked coldly upon it; though the country did not. The North American Reviewever unwilling to do justice to Mr. Cooperhad a very ill-natured notice of it, professing to place the New England Tale far above it! In spite of such shallow criticism, however, the book was universally popular. It was decidedly the best historical romance then written by an American; not without faults, indeed, but with a fair plot, clearly and strongly drawn characters, and exhibiting great boldness and originality of conception. Its success was perhaps decisive of Mr. Cooper's career, and it gave an extraordinary impulse to literature in the country. More than any thing that had before occurred, it roused the people from their feeling of intellectual dependence. The popularity of The Spy has been so universal, that there is scarcely a written language into which it is not translated. In 1847 it appeared in Persian at Ispahan.
In 1823 appeared The Pioneers. This book has passages of masterly description, and is as fresh as a landscape from another world; but it seems to me that it has always had a reputation partly factitious. It is the poorest of the Leather Stocking tales, nor was its success either marked or spontaneous. Still, it was very well received, though it was thought to be a proof that the author was written out. With this book commenced the absurdity of saying Mr. Cooper introduced family traits and family history into his novels. How little of truth there is in this supposition Mr. Cooper has explained in his revised edition, published the present year.
The Pilot succeeded. The success of The Pilot was at first a little doubtful in this country; but England gave it a reputation which it still maintains. It is due to Boston to say that its popularity in the United States was first manifested there. I say due to Boston, not from considerations of merit in the book, but because, for some reason, praise for Mr. Cooper, from New England, has been so rare. The North American Review took credit to itself for magnanimity in saying some of his works had been rendered into French, when they were a part of every literature of Europe. America, it is often said, has no original literature. Where can the model of The Pilot be found? I know of nothing which could have suggested it but the following fact, which was related to me in a conversation with Mr. Cooper. The Pirate had been published a short time before. Talking with the late Charles Wilkes, of New-Yorka man of taste and judgmentour author heard extolled the universal knowledge of Scott, and the sea portions of The Pirate cited as a proof. He laughed at the idea, as most seamen would, and the discussion ended by his promising to write a sea story which could be read by landsmen, while seamen should feel its truth. The Pilot was the fruit of that conversation. It is one of the most remarkable novels of the time, and every where obtained instant and high applause.
Lionel Lincoln followed. This was a second attempt to embody history in an American work of fiction. It failed, and perhaps justly; yet it contains one of the nicest delineations of character in Mr. Cooper's works. I know of no instance in which the distinction between a maniac and an idiot is so admirably drawn; the setting was bad, however, and the picture was not examined.
In 1826 came The Last of the Mohicans. This book succeeded from the first, and all over Christendom. It has strong parts and weak parts, but it was purely original, and originality always occupies the ground. In this respect it is like The Pilot.
After the publication of The Last of The Mohicans, Mr. Cooper went to Europe, where his reputation was already well established as one of the greatest writers of romantic fiction which our age, more prolific in men of genius than any other, had produced. The first of his works after he left his native country was The Prairie. Its success every where was decided and immediate. By the French and English critics it has been deemed the best of his stories of Indian life. It has one leading fault, however, that of introducing any character superior to the family of the squatter. Of this fault Mr. Cooper was himself aware before he finished the work; but as he wrote and printed simultaneously, it was not easy to correct it. In this book, notwithstanding, Natty Bumpo is quite up to his mark, and is surpassed only in The Pathfinder. The reputation of The Prairie, like that of The Pioneers, is in a large degree owing to the opinions of the reviews; it is always a fault in a book that appeals to human sympathies, that it fails with the multitude. In what relates to taste, the multitude is of no great authority; but in all that is connected with feeling, they are the highest; and for this simple reason, that as man becomes sophisticated he deviates from nature, the only true source of all our sympathies. Our feelings are doubtless improved by refinement, and vice versa; but their roots are struck in the human heart, and what fails to touch the heart, in these particulars, fails, while that which does touch it, succeeds. The perfection of this sort of writing is that which pleases equally the head and the heart.
The Red Rover followed The Prairie. Its success surpassed that of any of its predecessors. It was written and printed in Paris, and all in a few months. Its merits and its reception prove the accuracy of those gentlemen who allege that "Mr. Cooper never wrote a successful book after he left the United States." It is certainly a stronger work than The Pilot, though not without considerable faults.
The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish was the next novel. The author I believe regards this and Lionel Lincoln as the poorest of his works. It met with no great success.