At No. 1 Bond Street stood the old-time mansion of Dr. John W. Francis, where were welcomed many eminent in arts and letters at home and abroad, and where their host wrote his “Reminiscences of Sixty Years.”  Here it was that Cooper, on his last visit to New York, came seeking aid for his failing health.  But with December the author returned to Cooperstown, whence he wrote a friend:  “I have gone into dock with my old hulk, to be overhauled.  Francis says I have congestion, and I must live low, deplete, and take pills.  While I am frozen, my wife tells me my hands, feet, and body are absolutely warm.  The treatment is doing good.  You cannot imagine the old lady’s delight at getting me under, in the way of food.  I get no meat, or next to none, and no great matter in substitutes.  This morning being Christmas, I had a blow-out of oysters, and at dinner it will go hard if I do not get a cut into the turkey.  I have lost pounds, yet I feel strong and clearheaded.  I have had a narrow escape, if I have escaped.”

[Illustration:  DR JOHN WAKEFIELD FRANCIS.]

[Illustration:  DR. FRANCIS’S HOME IN NEW YORK CITY.]

The following spring Cooper again went to New York City, whence he dates a letter to his wife: 

     Saturday, March 29, 1851

     COLLEGE HOTEL, NEW YORK

Your letter of Thursday has just reached me.  I am decidedly better.—­Last night I was actually dissipated.  L.——­ came for me in a carriage and carried me off almost by force to Doctor Bellows, where I met the Sketch Club, some forty people, many of whom I knew.  I stayed until past ten, ate a water ice, talked a great deal, returned, went to bed fatigued and slept it off.—­My friends are very attentive to me, they all seem glad to see me and think I am improving, as I certainly am....  I shall come home shortly—­I want to be in my garden and I wish to be in your dear hands, love, for though you know nothing you do a great deal that is right.  Last evening I passed with Charlotte M.—­who wanted to take me home to nurse me.  There is no chance of seeing S.——.

     Adieu, my love....  My blessing on the girls—­all four of them.

     J.F.C.

In April, 1851, the poet Bryant wrote of him “Cooper is in town, in ill health.  When I saw him last he was in high health and excellent spirits.”  These spirits were not dashed by the progressing malady that took him home to Cooperstown.  Not realizing what illness meant, he bravely accepted what it brought,—­the need to dictate the later parts of his “History of the United States Navy,” and the “Towns of Manhattan,” when he himself could no longer write.  The latter was planned, partly written, and in press at the time of his death.  That which was printed was burnt, the manuscript in part rescued, and finished by the pen of one of the family.