As a Man. viduality, Cooper was a man of strong indibrusque, arrogant, pugnacious, and over-sensitive; he was also fearless, fair, and truthful. He was chivalrous, noble in bearing, and devoted to his wife and children. His home life was ideal. Death. Cooper died on the 14th of September, 1851. He was buried at Cooperstown, the spot he loved most on earth, and the scene of his best work. February 25, 1852, with Daniel Webster as presiding officer, a meeting was held at Metropolitan Hall in New York in commemoration of Cooper, upon which occasion Bryant delivered one of the most eloquent tributes ever bestowed upon an American writer. An Estimate. ― Professor Trent, in his History of American Literature, discussing Cooper's position in the world of letters, says: "He stands the test of cosmopolitan fame better than any other American save Poe. If he did not originate a movement in fiction he enlarged one in two important directions. The romance of the forest and prairie and the romance of the sea are his creations, and no other writer has since done them so well. No one else has come so near writing an adequate epic of the settlement of America—one of the most truly heroic subjects in literature. When he is at his best as a novelist of adventure, he can hold the imaginations of his readers, whether they be boys or grayhaired men. When the spirit of the ocean or of the woods is upon him, he becomes a genuine poet; when he is dealing with hunters and trappers and Indians and sailors, he becomes a genuine dramatist." SUGGESTIONS FOR READING The Spy, The Last of the Mohicans, The Pilot, The Deerslayer. HELPFUL BOOKS T. R. Lounsbury's James Fenimore Cooper. J. G. Wilson's Bryant and his Friends. Parentage. William Cullen Bryant was born in Cummington, Massachusetts, November 3, 1794. He came of distinguished New England stock. Stephen Bryant, the founder of the family in America, was among those who sailed in the Mayflower, and the poet's mother, Sarah Snell, was a direct descendant of John Alden and Priscilla. Dr. Peter Bryant, the poet's father, had an extensive practice in the neighborhood of his home at Cummington. He was a cultured man, and was said to possess the largest private library in that region. Education. Bryant's early education was received in the school of his native village, but in his fifteenth year his uncle, Rev. Thomas Snell, assumed charge of his special preparation for college. He applied himself so diligently to his studies that he was admitted to the sophomore class at Williams at the age of sixteen. Bryant left Williams at the end of the second term with the expectation of continuing the course at Yale. But in this he was disappointed, for his father felt that he could no longer bear the expense of a collegiate course for his son, and thus Bryant, like Franklin, Irving, and Cooper, was deprived of a training which would naturally have been most helpful to him in his literary career. Although Bryant felt his disappointment keenly, he did not fail to take advantage of opportunities close at hand. His father's library was large and well selected, and here he spent many an hour poring over books of natural science, medicine, and poetry. As a Lawyer. — Bryant finally decided to study law, not because his tastes lay in that direction, but because it seemed the most remunerative profession to enter. In 1815, after four years of intermittent study, he was admitted to the bar. It was at this time, while pursuing an uncongenial calling, and in doubt as to his future, that he wrote To a Waterfowl. "There is a Power whose care Teaches thy way along that pathless coast- Lone wandering, but not lost. * "Thou'rt gone, the abyss of heaven Hath swallowed up thy form; yet, on my heart And shall not soon depart. "He who, from zone to zone, Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, Will lead my steps aright." |