you at a glance while it fears not to let you read him in turn.  ‘Who is he?’ I whispered to a grand-daughter of the General near me.  ’Mr. Cooper; do you not know Mr. Cooper?  Let me introduce you to him.’  ‘Cooper,’ said I to myself; ’can it be that I am within five paces, and that there, too, are the feeble of the race around which his genius has shed a halo like that of Homer’s own heros?’ I was fresh from ‘The Mohicans,’ and my hand trembled as it met the cordial grasp of the man to whom I owed so many pleasing hours.  I asked about the Indians.  ‘They are poor specimens,’ said he; ’fourth-rate at best in their own woods, and ten-times worse for the lives they are leading here.’” Later, Mr. G. met the author in Lafayette’s bed-room, and saw how warmly he was welcomed by the great poet Beranger.  Still later Mr. G. and Cooper met in Florence, where they had much fine talking and walking “on calm summer evenings.”  Of the Bard-of-Avon it is noted that Cooper said:  “Shakespeare is my traveling library.  To a novel-writer he is invaluable.  Publishers will have mottoes for every chapter; I never yet turned over Shakespeare without hitting upon just what I wanted I like to take them, whenever I can, from our own poets.  It is a compliment they have a right to, and I am glad when I can pay it.”  Concerning the author’s habits, this friend concludes:  “When Cooper left his desk he left his pen on it.  He came out into the world to hear and see what other men were doing.  If they wanted to hear him, there he was, perfectly ready to express opinions of men or things.  It was delightful to hear him talk about his own works, he did it with such a frank, fresh, manly feeling.”

[Illustration:  PROF.  GEORGE WASHINGTON GREEN ("MR. G.")]

[Illustration:  P.T.  DE BERANGER.]

[Illustration:  TALLEYRAND.]

[Illustration:  DUCHESSE DE BERRI.]

[Illustration:  CHARLES X of FRANCE.]

Among the great again was seen the ever-favored yet not “gai” Talleyrand.  Of the incident Cooper noted:  “It is etiquette for the kings of France to dine in public on January 14 and on the monarch’s fete-day.”  Wishing to see this ceremony, Mr. and Mrs. Cooper were sent the better of the two permissions granted for the occasion.  Cooper describes the ceremony—­the entree of Charles X:  "Le Roi, tall, decidedly graceful; the Dauphin to his right, the Dauphine to his left, and to her right the Duchess of Berri.”  Passing Cooper, he continues:  “Near a little gate was an old man in strictly court-dress.  The long white hair that hung down his face, the cordon bleu, the lame foot, and the unearthly aspect made me suspect the truth, it was M. de Talleyrand as grand chamberlin, to officiate at the dinner of his master”; whereby proving his own words:  “It is not enough to be some one,—­it is needful to do something.”  A near Abbe whispered of Talleyrand to Cooper:  “But, sir, he is a cat, that always falls on its feet.”  Yet of Talleyrand another’s record is:  “But if Charles Maurice was lame of leg—­his wit was keener and more nimble than that of any man in Europe.”  Brushing past the gorgeous state-table to Mrs. Cooper, the author adds:  “She laughed, and said ’it was all very magnificent and amusing,’ but some one had stolen her shawl!”