As a chapter in the literary history of America there is another side of Cooper’s career which is intensely interesting. It has already been mentioned that he did not abandon the writing of novels on social life with the unsuccessful “Precaution.” Lowell refers to this fact in the “Fable for Critics”:
There is one thing in Cooper I like, too, and that is
That on manners he lectures his countrymen gratis:
Not precisely so either, because, for a rarity,
He is paid for his tickets in unpopularity.
Now he may overcharge his American pictures,
But you’ll grant there’s a good deal of truth in his strictures;
And I honor the man who is willing to sink
Half his present repute for the freedom to think,
And, when he has thought, be his cause strong or weak,