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peculiarities are to be met with which some critics, and ourselves among the number, have found so offensive. Its principal personage, as the public are already aware, is our old friend Leatherstocking, who is drawn in the vigour of early manhood, thus completing the history of his life and death. Mr. Cooper could not have chosen a more popular hero, and he has felt that no apology was necessary for bringing so general a favourite on the stage again, though for the fifth time. The scene is laid on the borders of that beautiful lake near which the author himself resides. His descriptions of that fine sheet of water and the hills that encircle it are in his best style, that is, remarkably clear and minute, and exquisitely true to nature. We can almost fancy ourselves looking down on the unruffled surface of Ostego, and feel the night-breeze rising, damp and heavy with the odours of the forest. Mr. Cooper cannot delineate fashionable life, nor catch the tone of modern society, but here he has attempted nothing of the kind; ‘his foot is on his native heath,’ and he seems to breathe the freer for it; at least his style is certainly more easy and flowing than it was wont to be. The sketches of Indian character strike us as peculiarly masterly, and the surprises, scuffles, ‘skrimmages,’ and other incidents of border warfare, are of course capital. If there is any fault in the book, and one at least a reviewer must find, or the public will deem him unfit for his task, it is in the love of Judith for the Deerslayer, and the apparent coldness with which he repulses it. It seems too bad that so brilliant a beauty, with so many generous impulses and good qualities to enhance her outward advantages, should throw herself at the head of a rough hunter only to be rejected; and, moreover, the Deerslayer, trained in Indian habits of observation, could hardly have remained so long ignorant of what was going on in his pretty neighbour’s heart as to render so many pages of broad hints and circumlocutions necessary on her part. But, on the whole, the author is perhaps right, for a wife like Judith would have been a sad incumbrance to Natty; and, besides, her unhappy fate is such as the warmest feelings, when uncontrolled by principle, are too apt to lead to. Indeed, throughout the work there is more knowledge of human nature and more successful delineation of character than Mr. Cooper has generally had credit for. There is little of that heavy dialogue which encumbers most of his former works, and indeed everywhere we see signs of a better taste and kindlier feeling. We are glad to be able to say thus much of one whom we have always delighted to honour; who, whatever may be his errors of judgment, has shown a genuine American feeling which is unfortunately too seldom met with in American writers. Let him go on and write a few more such works as the Deerslayer, illustrating American history, scenery and manners, and identifying himself with his subject, and he cannot fail to reach a higher reputation than he has yet enjoyed. His own country will, of course, be the last to appreciate him, but, after his renown has been endorsed by England, France and Germany, it will begin to pass current here; and, it being proved already that he is a man of genius, it will go near to be thought so shortly.

—September 1841

EDGAR ALLAN POE

There are no authors, from whose works individual inaccurate sentences

may not be culled. But ... Mr. Cooper, no doubt through haste

or neglect, is remarkably and especially inaccurate, as a general rule.

—from Graham’s Magazine (November 1843)

FRANCIS PARKMAN

The Deerslayer, the first novel in the series of the Leatherstocking Tales,

seems to us one of the most interesting of Cooper’s productions. He

has chosen for the scene of his story the Otsego lake, on whose banks

he lived and died, and whose scenery he has introduced into three, if

not more, of his novels. The Deerslayer, or Leatherstocking, here

makes his first appearance as a young man, in fact scarcely emerged

from boyhood, yet with all the simplicity,