Bliss Perry, The American spirit in lierature: a chronicle of great interpreters

[98] Stocking tale in order of composition, and The Pilot, to show that Scott's Pirate was written by a landsman! Lionel Lincoln and The last of the Mohicans followed. The next seven years were spent in Europe, mainly in France, where The Prairie and The red Rover were written. Cooper now looked back upon his countrymen with eyes of critical detachment, and made ready to tell them some of their faults. He came home to Cooperstown in 1833, the year after Irving's return to America. He had won, deservedly, a great fame, which he proceeded to imperil by his combativeness with his neighbors and his harsh strictures upon the national character, due mainly to his lofty conception of the ideal America. He continued to spin yarns of sea and shore, and to write naval history. The tide of fashion set against him in the eighteen-forties when Bulwer and Dickens rode into favor, but the stouthearted old pioneer could afford to bide his time. HIe died in 1851, just as Mrs. Stowe was writing Uncle Tomn's cabin.

Two generations have passed since then, and Cooper's place in our literature remains secure. To have written our first historical novel, The Spy, our first sea-story, The Pilot, and to have created