Two of his novels, “Homeward Bound” and “Home as Found,” bear a strong infusion of the feelings which led to his contest with the press.  After the publication of these, he became much interested in the well-known Anti-Rent agitation by which the State of New York was so long shaken; and three of his novels, “Satanstoe,” “The Chainbearer,” and “The Redskins,” forming one continuous narrative, were written with reference to this subject.  Many professed novel-readers are, we suspect, repelled from these books, partly because of this continuity of the story, and partly because they contain a moral; but we assure them, that, if on these grounds they pass them by, they lose both pleasure and profit.  They are written with all the vigor and spirit of his prime; they have many powerful scenes and admirably drawn characters; the pictures of colonial life and manners in “Satanstoe” are animated and delightful; and in all the legal and ethical points for which the author contends he is perfectly right.  In his Preface to “The Chainbearer” he says,—­“In our view, New York is at this moment a disgraced State; and her disgrace arises from the fact that her laws are trampled under foot, without any efforts—­at all commensurate with the object—­being made to enforce them.”  That any commonwealth is a disgraced State against which such charges can with truth be made no one will deny; and any one who is familiar with the history of that wretched business will agree, that, at the time it was made, the charge was not too strong.  Who can fail to admire the courage of the man who ventured to write and print such a judgment as the above against a State of which he was a native, a citizen, and a resident, and in which the public sentiment was fiercely the other way?  Here, too, Cooper’s motives were entirely unselfish:  he had almost no pecuniary interest in the question of Anti-Rentism; he wrote all in honor, unalloyed by thrift.  His very last novel, “The Ways of the Hour,” is a vigorous exposition of the defects of the trial by jury in cases where a vehement public sentiment has already tried the question, and condemned the prisoner.  The story is improbable, and the leading character is an impossible being; but the interest is kept up to the end,—­it has many most impressive scenes,—­it abounds with shrewd and sound observations upon life, manners, and politics,—­and all the legal portion is stamped with an acuteness and fidelity to truth which no professional reader can note without admiration.

Cooper’s character as a man is the more admirable to us because it was marked by strong points which are not common in our country, and which the institutions of our country do not foster.  He had the courage to defy the majority:  he had the courage to confront the press:  and not from the sting of ill-success, not from mortified vanity, not from wounded self-love, but from an heroic sense of duty.  How easy a life might he have purchased by the cheap virtues