“But, gentlemen, our guest is not of this fickle class.  He is a tower amid the waters, his foundation is upon a rock, he moves not with the ebb and flow of the stream.  The storm may gather, the waters may rise and even dash above his head, or they may subside at his feet, still he stands unmoved.  We know his site and his bearings, and with the fullest confidence we point to where he stood six-and-fifty years ago.  He stands there now.  The winds have swept by him, the waves have dashed around him, the snows of winter have lighted upon him, but still he is there.

“I ask you, therefore, gentlemen, to drink with me in honor of General Lafayette.”

Portions of many of Morse’s letters to his brothers were published in the New York “Observer,” owned and edited by them.  Part of the following letter was so published, I believe, but, at Mr. Cooper’s request, the sentences referring to his personal sentiments were omitted.  There can be no harm, however, in giving them publicity at this late day.

The letter was written on July 18, 1832, and begins by gently chiding his brothers for not having written to him for nearly four months, and he concludes this part by saying, “But what is past can’t be helped.  I am glad, exceedingly glad, to hear of your prosperity and hope it may be continued to you.”  And then he says:—­

“I am diligently occupied every moment of my time at the Louvre finishing the great labor which I have there undertaken.  I say ‘finishing,’ I mean that part of it which can only be completed there, namely, the copies of the pictures.  All the rest I hope to do at home in New York, such as the frames of the pictures, the figures, etc.  It is a great labor, but it will be a splendid and valuable work.  It excites a great deal of attention from strangers and the French artists.  I have many compliments upon it, and I am sure it is the most correct one of its kind ever painted, for every one says I have caught the style of each of the masters.  Cooper is delighted with it and I think he will own it.  He is with me two or three hours at the gallery (the hours of his relaxation) every day as regularly as the day comes.  I spend almost every evening at his house in his fine family.

“Cooper is very little understood, I believe, by our good people.  He has a bold, original, independent mind, thoroughly American.  He loves his country and her principles most ardently; he knows the hollowness of all the despotic systems of Europe, and especially is he thoroughly conversant with the heartless, false, selfish system of Great Britain; the perfect antipodes of our own.  He fearlessly supports American principles in the face of all Europe, and braves the obloquy and intrigues against him of all the European powers.  I say all the European powers, for Cooper is more read, and, therefore, more feared, than any American,—­yes, more than any European with the exception, possibly, of Scott.