John Bartlett's Bookshop, too,—"a veritable treasury of literary secrets,"—in the new Astor House, became a haunt for the bookmen of its times. Cooper was fond of the society of literary men when he could meet them as men, and not as lions. He once said: "You learn nothing about a man when you meet him at a show dinner and he sits up to talk for you instead of talking with you. When I was in London Wordsworth came to town, and I was asked to meet him at one of those displays; but I would not
go." Then Mrs. Cooper said: "But you met him afterwards, my dear, and was very much pleased with him." To this Cooper replied: "Yes, at Rogers', and was very much pleased with him; but it was because I met him in a place where he felt at home, and he let himself out freely."
After some stay on Broadway, Cooper moved his family to their Beach Street abode. Some twenty paces from Hudson it stood,—a brick house of many attractions in the wrought iron railings, marble steps, arched doorway, high ceilings, with heavy, ornate mouldings, massive oaken doors, and Venetian blinds of the deep windows. Spacious and inviting was this city
home during the 1820's, in the fashionable district of St. John's. In April, 1823, while living here, Cooper was made a member of the Philadelphia Philosophical Society. August of this year he lost his first son,—the youngest child,—Fenimore; and he himself went through a serious illness, brought on by an accident: "On
returning from a New Bedford visit his carriage broke down, and always glad to be afloat, he took passage in a sloop for New York. Being anxious to reach home, when the wind began to fail, and to make the most of the tide, he took the helm and steered the little craft himself through Hell Gate. The day was very stormy, and the trying heat brought on a sudden sun-stroke-like fever." February 3, 1824, his second son, Paul, was born.