bearing the same brand. He had created and only knightly lovers sighing at their feet, or breakfostered a taste for fictitious compositions, and he ing lances and heads to attest their devotion. Solely could not complain. The young ladies pouted their by his genius and industry, he had laid the foundapretty lips from vexation, and would not read it tion for a school of romance as original, as extenfrom sheer spite. The young gentlemen took sive, and destined to be as perpetual as that instiit up cavalierly, and determined to read and abuse tuted in another land by the author of Waverley. it out of revenge. The "Travelling Bachelor" In quitting a field where he reigned without a was read, nevertheless, with approbation by a rival, to adventure on unfamiliar ground, evinced, large class of readers, whom his novels had not at least, temerity; and, if it did not endanger the reached. It proved to be a work displaying the fame he had already won in many a tilt, it at least finest powers of the novelist, and although of a promised no adequate honors to one who had aldifferent character from his former productions, ready plucked unfading laurels. The "Bravo," well worthy to rank among them, and advance however, attested on every page, the legitimacy of undisputed claims to a high place in the branch of its authorship—the genius of Cooper pervaded the literature to which it belongs. "The Wept of the whole. There were two causes, however, which Wish-Ton-Wish," an Indian tale, or novel, pub-militated against its unmixed popularity, in Englished soon afterwards in the same year, was far land and in America; although in Italy, France from obtaining the popularity of its predecessors. and Germany, it was preeminently successful. The In 1830, Mr. Cooper omitted sending forth his English palate was sated with continental producannual fiction. This year, also, he passed on the tions from English pens, in every possible shape. continent, during which period, we believe, he was The Bravo was regarded as only another of this acting as our consul at Lyons. In 1831, he pub-genus, although coming from a source which enlished the "Water Witch," a nautical novel. It forced its favorable reception. It is not, however, redeemed the doubtful success of "The Wept of here to be understood, that the Bravo was unpoputhe Wish-Ton-Wish," which, to pursue a figure lar in England; viewed with some of its contembefore adopted, cast a brief shadow, as if from a poraries, it was only comparatively so. Its receppassing cloud, upon the bright waters over which tion was infinitely more flattering than that which his bark bad hitherto been prosperously careering. usually attended the best continental novels of the The apparent resemblance, which, in treating simi- same class. In the United States it was not well lar themes could not be avoided, without too mani- received, although the causes just advanced, could fest artifice, between this work and the "Red not, in this country, affect it. The objection, a Rover," caused some severe and not always just somewhat invidious one, was, that it was a foreign criticisms from the press, on its first appearance; work; and, many thought, with equal jealousy, but this did not affect its popularity, which even- that Mr. Cooper should have exhausted Ameritually equalled, if it did not surpass, that acquired can subjects before he resorted to the hackneyed by the production with which it was compared. themes of Italian story. There may, perhaps, be The Water Witch was not only dramatised and some foundation in a wholesome national pride for successfully performed on the American boards, these prejudices. They materially affected his but, also, many of the previous novels by the same popularity in the United States, although his fame author, received this testimony of popularity. was too firmly established to be sensibly moved by In 1832, Mr. Cooper was still residing in Eu-it. It has been accurately remarked by Sir Walrope, where he had been since 1828, touring ter Scott, that the reputation of an author is neither through England, Belgium, Germany, France and Italy. As the fruit, no doubt, of a some-time In 1833, "The Heidenmauer" (heathen-wall) sojourn in Venice, he gave to the world this year, or "The Benedictines," followed the Bravo. The his twelfth book and eleventh novel, "The Bravo scenes of this fiction are likewise laid in Europe. of Venice." This was the first time Mr. Cooper This work, also, had to contend with the prejuhad placed the scenes of his fictions in other than dices abovementioned. It was moreover written his native land. Up to this period he had been with somewhat less vigor and beauty of style, emphatically a native novelist. He had explored than characterised the former works by the same the empire of American fiction, before untrodden, author. His spirit seemed to languish beneath and proved to the world that Europe was not alone a foreign sky, and labor and art to have sucthe land of story. He had shown that ivied walls, ceeded the freshness of inspiration. A comparitime-worn castles and gloomy dungeons, were not son of his two last works with the Prairie and necessary to make a land a land of romance; that Red Rover, showed clearly that America was the war of the revolution rivalled, in romantic inte- the empire, as well as the birthplace, of Mr. rest, the wars of the crusades; that the Indian war-Cooper's genius.

gained nor lost by a single production.

rior equally with the turbaned Saracen, was the The thirteenth novel of the "Author of the theme of the romancer; and that heroes need not Spy," and his fourteenth work, was published always to be clad in iron mail, nor heroines have in 1834. It is entitled "The Headsman of Berne."

VOL. IV.-48

With the Water Witch, Mr. Cooper appears | what reserved, but his address is courteous and to have bidden adieu to the American soil as pleasing. He is at present a resident of New a novelist, and to have left the field to the nu-York, and will doubtless yield to the renewed merous aspirants for his fame, who now began inspiration of the native American muse, and to occupy the arena. The scenes of this novel are entwine himself for many succeeding years around laid in Switzerland. Its appearance revived in a our hearts; for we are reluctant to believe, that measure the waning popularity of its author in he has yet filled up the measure of his country's the United States, although his countrymen were honor. not pleased that their most distinguished novelist should expatriate both himself and his novels. The Headsman is marked with all the beauties of Mr. Cooper's best and most popular compositions. We believe it was previous to the publication of this romance, that the author received the appointment of Charge d'Affaires for the United States at Paris. "The Monikins," Mr. Cooper's fourteenth and last novel, followed the Headsman. It bore few traces of our author's manner, and was limited in its popularity.

A REVERIE.

Comes blandly through the blind! The fragrancy
A summer morning! How the balmy air
Of myriad flowers and fields of budding grain,
Is borne upon its wings, and it hath stirred
The leaves of yonder tree whose shade I love.
Is it their rustling, or the murmured hum
Of tiny wings, sporting upon the rays
Of the warm sun, which bids the ear to mark,
But not to weary, of the silentness?
It whispers peace; it hints of melody,
As when the memory of a favorite air
Dwells in the soul, its tones, its cadences,
All save its soothing harmony, forgot.

In such an hour--so still, and yet not dull,
So resonant of life, and yet so calm—
How am I prone to think upon her love
Whose spirit's elements are the radiancy,
The loveliness and freshness of the morn;
And from my weariness lured a little way,
By the mild beauty of the Sabbath time,
To yield my soul to fond imaginings.

In 1835, some political strictures appeared from the pen of Mr. Cooper, that were roughly handled by the American press. In 1836, two series of "Sketches of Switzerland, by an American," and in 1837, "England, by an American," and "Gleanings in Europe," were given to the public from the press of Carey & Lea, who have uniformly, we believe, been Mr. Cooper's publishers. These works, completing his nineteenth and last book, and being his thirty-eighth volume, produced in the space of nineteen years, bear testimony that the pen of the novelist has parted with no modicum of the strength and beauty of style, with which he has clothed his description of American scenery in the pages of the Spy, Prairie and PioHark! from the shadows of that leafy grove, neers. Mr. Cooper has suppressed many portions Tones of exulting music, half subdued of the original manuscript of the Sketches of By distance, rouse my lately listless ear. Switzerland, for reasons which he has slightly Sweet songster, born of a mysterious race! touched upon in his preface. These volumes do How oft upon thy fellows have I gazed, not relate exclusively to Switzerland: France, And as I marked the bright intelligent eye, Germany, Italy and Holland, are included in the Turned up to mine as if 'twould read my thought, observations of the writer. The first volume Or saw one hover round my lonely path, opens at Paris in 1828, and leaves the author at Now perching here, and then a little on, As if to lure me to his secret haunt, Milan. The second volume also begins at Paris, and the reflections of the writer embrace some of Deep in the verdurous wilderness, have deemed the countries above-named. We are particularly Their song more eloquent than simple speech, He sought communion with me. Who hath heard struck with the boldness and truth of Mr. Cooper's And while his sympathies answered joy for joy, caustic remarks in his volumes on England, in re- And pensiveness for sadness, hath not wished lation to Americans at home and abroad. He has To know each incident of the tale, thus told herein shown himself an able, impartial and fear-To the far wandering, ne'er returning winds, less censor of the foibles and faults of his country- Or, haply to a fellow? Who hath seen These last works have been favorably re- Their air-borne flights, now piercing through the clouds, ceived, although the bold attitude the writer has Now sweeping down to earth, now skimming o'er assumed, has elicited severe and often merited The unruffled surface of the mirror lake; criticism. Mr. Cooper is now in his fiftieth year; Was on the maple leaf, by some old wood, Or who hath watched, ere yet the hectic flush his figure rather above the usual height, robust, When in their companies they disappeared and slightly inclined to portliness. His forehead In ether's mazes, and when half a year is massive, and of an intellectual shape, and his Had passed, beheld them to their ancient nests, eyes lively and expressive, denoting a thinking Greeting the earliest blossoms of the Spring, man and a close observer. His appearance is All pilotless returned, and marvelled not commanding. His manners are perhaps some- If more than instinct did not shape their flights?

men.

whose services to foreign powers during the emigration, had been thus liberally paid. They required a particle, a de, before the name even of a sub-lieutenant, and the title of a half-pay officer curled their lips with the most disdainful ill-humor. If these chiefs gave any dinners or soirées, the officers who had been taken from the half-pay class were excluded. From the

Notwithstanding the address voted in 1822, by the chamber of deputies, as a reply to the assertion of Manuel, it is not the less true that the Bourbons were received with repugnance by the majority of France; that, however, did not prevent a few acclamations on their passage to Paris. If such acclamations are to be reckoned of any importance, our affections must be very changeable. Nor will I deny that after the hun-chiefs, these sentiments were communicated to the offi dred days, bands of women of all conditions danced under the windows of the Tuileries, singing a spirituelle rondo, the first verse of which concealed under a sort of pun, a delicate allusion to the last journey of the king:

Rendez-nous notre père de Gund.

I do not know whether these evidences of affection could have deceived any one; Louis XVIII had too much shrewdness to suffer himself to be imposed upon

after the 20th March.

The Bourbons had to struggle against their name, and the origin of their newly acquired power. I do not believe them either better or worse than others. Forced to support themselves in a minority, they submitted to its laws, and committed all the faults that this minority could impose upon them; faults forced upon the minority by the necessity of self-preservation. The government of the Bourbons was violent and sanguinary, because it was weak.

There were conspiracies of different sorts during the nine or ten first years of the restoration. From 1823

cers most in favor. They did not openly show disre spect to the newly chosen officers, who would not have submitted to such treatment, but they isolated them completely; they formed them into a separate band. The latter bringing with them their claims of seniority, thus destroyed the hopes of the young officers of 1815, who saw in them the usurpers of their rights. Had they been animated by the best intentions in the world, they must thus have been made the enemies of the

government.

There were certainly exceptions to all that I have just stated; I could cite the names of individuals, were it not that such a course would reflect upon those not mentioned. Twelve or fifteen regiments at the most were engaged in the conspiracies under the restoration; all of them were in the situation I have just described; and it will be easily understood, that with these regiments, the emissaries of the secret societies would naturally find a favorable reception.

The military conspiracy of August, 1820, was the most important of all those which broke out under the

or 1824 until 1830, no one conspired; everybody held/restoration. Discovered on the 18th or 19th of August, himself in readiness for an event which could not fail to arrive soon or late. Those conspiracies, in which the army had no part, were without any solid foundation; they could accomplish nothing. It was only towards 1818 that the secret societies, perceiving the insufficiency of their means, commenced by making proselytes in the army; the conspiracies then became

more serious.

There existed in almost every regiment a strongly

marked line of demarcation between the officers who
had been attached to the old army, and those who had
been created by the new government; a fusion had
only been effected in a very few corps, whose officers
were, by accident, men of firmness and intelligence.
At the period of the pretended organization of the
duke of Feltre, as I have before stated, the old officers
had been almost entirely excluded. They were after-
wards gradually recalled by Marshal Gouvion Saint
Cyr and General Latour Maubourg. But they had
then passed several years at their own firesides; the
greater part had endured cruel privations. Many had
been objects of persecution to the inferior agents of the
government, who are always sufficiently disposed to
exhibit any
evidence of their zeal. They thus returned
with their feelings soured; but yet, had they found in
their new companions that fraternal feeling which pre-
vailed in the old regiments, and which constituted them,
as it were, into one family, their regrets might have
been calmed, and their resentments extinguished.

But such was not the case; the chiefs were no longer men who had been but recently soldiers. They were quasi-great nobles, (I beg it will be remembered that I speak of 1818; things were, I know, afterwards changed,) whose inaction during twenty years, and

ferred to the court of peers. This conspiracy was it was, by a royal ordinance of the 25th or 28th, reit were solemnly arraigned, and six weeks of debates never well understood, though the persons engaged in were wasted on it. Was it that there was no wish to discover the truth? that there were, besides those accused, accomplices too exalted to be attacked? that the magistrates charged with the process were misled? This is a matter which I will not undertake to decide. There is one thing, however, certain: the conspiracy was not at all investigated.

From the commencement of the process, a voluntary error had been once committed, the truth soon disapor involuntary error had been committed. When this peared, and a gigantic conspiracy was soon reduced to the dwarfish proportions of a barracks' plot. The conspiracy was to have broken out simultaneously at Cambray and Paris. The movement proposed at Paris was regarded as the principal, and that of Cambray as a mere appendage to the former. To get at the truth, the opposite course should have been followed-the movement at Cambray have been regarded as the principal one, and that of Paris as nothing but an acces. sary, for the purpose of diverting the attention of the government from what was going on elsewhere. In attaching the movement of Paris to that of Cambray, and not the conspiracy of Cambray to that of Paris, the ramifications of the conspiracy would have been naturally disclosed. It would have been seen that all the strong places of the north were engaged in the plot, with ten regiments, cavalry and artillery. The treaty of 1815 would have been seen violated by an alliance with Belgium, of soldier with soldier; two thrones would have been seen menaced by the same conspiracy, those of France and the Low Countries; and such

a plot would have been worthy of the deliberations | fend itself even in Paris, would have been unable to of the court of peers, while that which was submit-detach any of the forces assembled in the capital, and ted to it was but a farce. The accused, confident of that a rapid march upon Paris would have encountered almost perfect impunity, could mock at their ease, little or no opposition. accusers, witnesses and judges.

All this was extremely well combined. But there This conspiracy had been framed with much skill; exists a fatal principle in all conspiracies, destined to it failed in consequence of the hesitation of its chiefs. produce the failure of thousands: It is the necessity of Though discovered twenty-four or thirty-six hours be- proselytism-that want, which all conspirators feel, of fore the time fixed for its breaking out, its extension enlarging their circle-of associating first one friend was so great that, though foreseen, it might have pro-and then another, with the happy chances of the future. duced incalculable embarrassment. The conspirators The officers and sub-officers of the infantry regiments had for their chief a lieutenant-colonel who had belong-of the garrison of Paris, had successfully attempted ed to the imperial guard, himself subordinate to other to attach to their plan the officers and sub-officers of chiefs, such as are indistinctly seen behind the curtain the royal guard; they had also secured some half-pay in all conspiracies, but who disappear at the moment of officers. In thus regularly enlarging the circle of their their failure. Besides all these, a large number of gene- accomplices, they might naturally calculate upon meetrals, several of whom belonged to the chamber of peers ing with some agent of the police, and so in fact they and the chamber of deputies, had promised their adhe- did. When the plot was once discovered, denunciasion and co-operation, but only after the execution of tions arrived in abundance, even from those who had the plan had been commenced, and its efforts had been participated in the conspiracy, but who were now desicrowned by a first success. rous of making a merit of their return to the government, thus securing a pardon for the past. The conspirators of Paris were arrested while in bed, on the night

The plan was to raise on the night between the 19th and 20th of August, two regiments, one of infantry, the other of cavalry, forming the garrison of Cambray.preceding the day fixed for the execution of the plot. The subaltern officers of these two regiments were in At Cambray, everything was prepared for action, the interest of the conspirators; and the soldiers would but a delay of twenty-four hours appeared necessary have followed without hesitation their subaltern officers. to the chief, and this delay destroyed everything; for it The two regiments were then to unite themselves at allowed time for the receipt of the news from the capiDouai, to two other corps, one of infantry and the tal. In a conspiracy, every one has not the same other of artillery; they were to seize upon the stores of determination. The arrests which had been effected in the arsenal, and, increasing their numbers in passing the capital, had the effect of intimidating a few weak Valenciennes by the addition of the regiment of dra-men, who saw in them the destruction of everything. goons in garrison at that place, to have effected a junc-The conspiracy was, in consequence, denounced to the tion on the frontier of Belgium, with a corps of four thousand Belgians, who were to have met them at a given hour and day.

commandant of the place; who, from that moment, and I think, somewhat against his will, was forced to take the measures necessary to prevent the accomplishment of the plot. Some arrests were ordered by him, but after a long enough period, and in such a manner, as to allow the individuals most seriously compromised, time to effect their escape. Five officers, in fact, left Cambray in the disguise of wagoners, and fled into Belgium. The escape of the one who set off last, was effected in a peculiar way. It was Sunday, and the regiment was at mass; an armed platoon occupied the nave of the church. The colonel had just ordered the officer who commanded this platoon to arrest, on leaving the church, and to conduct to the citadel, one of his comrades, whom he pointed out. The officer who was to be arrested was in the choir, at the lower extremity of the groupe formed by the staff of the regiment. At a moment when every one had his face inclined to the earth, the officer charged to effect the arrest, approached his comrade and whispered in his ear, I must arrest you on leaving the church; save yourself. The latter did not wait to have the caution repeated; a half-hour

It has been said, but I have no certain information of the fact, that a prince of the royal family of the Low Countries had promised his assistance, and that he would have placed himself at the head of the four thousand Belgians. Many of the conspirators were convinced of the truth of this statement; and it was perhaps in consequence of the discovery of this promised participation, that it was determined to tear off but a part of the veil which concealed the conspiracy. It will be seen, after what I have stated, that in less than twelve hours, a little army of at least ten thousand men might have been formed. It would have been quickly augmented by all the accessions promised by the regiments or parts of regiments of the garrisons of the North, of the Pas-de-Calais and of the Somme; and in this condition, appealing to the army and the people, it would have commenced its march upon Paris. It had appeared advisable to throw some embarrassment in the way of the government at the moment that the conspiracy was to break out; that, compelled to di-afterwards, he was out of the city. vide its means, it might be unable to oppose itself suc- The five officers who fled into Belgium, and who cessfully against the march of the army of the conspira- had been received by the Belgians as brothers, were not tors. It was with this view that the conspiracy of long in being delivered up by the government of the Paris had been got up; it was to break out at the same Low Countries. They had fairly risked their lives, moment as that of Cambray. The first act of the and when brought to Paris, only thought of dying regiment of the garrison of Paris would have been to courageously. They expected to be handed over to a possess itself of Vincennes, an understanding having council of war, and to be despatched in three days. It been effected with certain persons in that place. It was only after the first interrogatories had been prowill thus be seen that the government, obliged to de-pounded to them, that they discovered that the govern