G. P. R. JAMES.
From Mr. Everett.
Cambridge, 23d September, 1851.
Dear Sir:—I received this afternoon your favor of the 17th, inviting me to attend and participate in the meeting to be held in your City Hall, for the purpose of doing honor to the memory of the late Mr. Fenimore Cooper.
I sincerely regret that I cannot be with you. The state of the weather puts it out of my power to make the journey. The object of the meeting has my entire sympathy. The works of Mr. Cooper have adorned and elevated our literature. There is nothing more purely American, in the highest sense of the word, than several of them. In his department he is facile princeps. He wrote too much to write every thing equally well; but his abundance flowed out of a full, original mind, and his rapidity and variety bespoke a resolute and manly consciousness of power. If among his works there were some which, had he been longer spared to us, he would himself, on reconsideration, have desired to recal, there are many more which the latest posterity "will not willingly let die."
With much about him that was intensely national, we have but one other writer (Mr. Irving), as widely known abroad. Many of Cooper's novels were not only read at every fireside in England, but were translated into every language of the European continent.
He owed a part of his inspiration to the magnificent nature which surrounded him; to the lakes, and forests, and Indian traditions, and border-life of your great state. It would have been as difficult to create Leatherstocking anywhere out of New-York, or some state closely resembling it, as to create Don Quixotte out of Spain. To have trained and possessed Fenimore Cooper will be—is already—with justice, one of your greatest boasts. But we cannot let you monopolize the care of his memory. We have all rejoiced in his genius; we have all felt the fascination of his pen; we all deplore his loss. You must allow us all to join you in doing honor to the name of our great American novelist. I remain, dear sir, with great respect, very truly yours,
EDWARD EVERETT.
Rev. Rufus W. Griswold.
Letters of similar import were received from Richard H. Dana, George Ticknor, William H. Prescott, John Neal, and many other eminent men, all approving the design to render the highest honors to the illustrious deceased.