subordination of impulse to law, he insisted upon as rigorously as the veriest monarchist or aristocrat in Christendom.  He would have no authority that was not legitimate; but he would tolerate no resistance to legitimate authority.  All his sentiments, impulses, and instincts were those of a gentleman; and vulgar manners, coarse habits, and want of respect for the rights of others were highly offensive to him.  When in Europe, he resolutely, and at no little expense of time and trouble, defended America from unjust imputations and ignorant criticism; and when at home, with equal courage and equal energy, he breasted the current of public Opinion where he deemed it to be wrong, and resisted those most formidable invasions of right, wherein the many combine to oppress the one.  His long controversy with the press was too important an episode in his life to be passed over by us without mention; though our limits will not permit us to make anything more than a passing allusion to it.  The opinion which will be formed upon Cooper’s course in this matter will depend, in a considerable degree, upon the temperament of the critic.  Timid men, cautious men, men who love their ease, will call him Quixotic, rash, imprudent, to engage in a controversy in which he had much to lose and little to gain; but the reply to such suggestions is, that, if men always took counsel of indolence, timidity, and selfishness, no good would ever be accomplished, and no abuses ever be reformed.  Cooper may not have been judicious in everything he said and did; but that he was right in the main, both in motive and conduct, we firmly believe.  He acted from a high sense of duty; there was no alloy of vindictiveness or love of money in the impulses which moved him.  Criticism the most severe and unsparing he accepted as perfectly allowable, so long as it kept within the limits of literary judgment; but any attack upon his personal character, especially any imputation or insinuation involving a moral stain, he would not submit to.  He appealed to the laws of the land to vindicate his reputation and punish his assailants.  Long and gallant was the warfare he maintained,—­a friendless, solitary warfare,—­and all the hydra-heads of the press hissing and ejaculating their venom upon him,—­with none to stand by his side and wish him God-speed.  But he persevered, and, what is more, he succeeded:  that, is to say, he secured all the substantial fruits of success.  He vindicated the principle for which he contended:  he compelled the newspapers to keep within the pale of literary criticism; he confirmed the saying of President Jackson, that “desperate courage makes one a majority.”