JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 1789-1852. "The Walter Scott of America." If you are about to strive for your life, take with you a stout heart and a clean conscience, and trust the rest to God. -The Pilot. OOPER was the first American novelist, and, in Come still greatest. some respects, he still remains the greatest. His works have been more widely read, translated into more languages, and published in more literary centers than those of any other writer of his country. He was the pioneer in two of the greatest fields of fiction. In one of these, the romance of the forest and the prairie, he has had no rival. In the other, the romance of the sea, he has had many followers, but few real rivals, and no superior. Mr. Cooper was the author of the first historical novel of America, The Spy, which appeared in 1821 and won for him everlasting fame. James Fenimore Cooper was born in Burlington, N. J., in 1789. His father was of English descent, a man of wealth, standing and culture, who, shortly after the birth. of his now famous son, made a home for himself on the shores of Otsego Lake, in New York State, where he had an estate of seventeen thousand acres, and where the village of Cooperstown grew up around his stately mansion, Otsego Hall. Mrs. Cooper was of Swedish descent, her maiden name being Fenimore. Young Cooper's early life was spent in the primeval forest. In the contest between advancing civilization and the pursuits of the Indian, the hunter, and the squatter, he acquired that intimate knowledge of forest life which he portrays so truthfully in his Leather Stocking Tales. At the age of thirteen he entered Yale College, but he did not stay to be graduated there; unfortunately for his scholarship, he got into some frolic and was dismissed in disgrace in his third year. It was then determined that he should enter the navy, and for one year he shipped before the mast as a common sailor., During the next five years he served as a midshipman in the U. S. navy, making himself master of that knowledge and detail of nautical life which he afterwards employed to so much advantage in his sea tales. Cooper resigned his post as midshipman in 1811, and married Miss Delancey, with whom he lived happily for forty years. The first few years of their married life were spent in Westchester County, a locality afterward. made famous in The Spy. Then Cooper's father died, and he took possession of the family mansion at Cooperstown, which he had inherited, and prepared to spend the quiet life of a country gentleman. Up to this time, at the age of thirty-one, he seems never to have touched a pen or even thought of one except to write an ordinary letter. He was, however, very fond of reading, and often read aloud to his wife. One day, having finished reading an English novel, he threw it down with impatience, exclaiming: "I could write a better story than that myself!" His wife laughed incredulously, but encour |