Samuel Rogers, however, was his first visitor from Mr. Spencer's list, and his call was the beginning of all Cooper's other knowledge of the London élite. An invitation to breakfast at the poet's home was speedily accepted. His house was almost as small as Cooper's, but was tastefully lined inside with pictures by the old masters, valuable books, literary curiosities, and rare relics of art. It was the "nucleus of the very best literary society of London," and its famous petits déjeuners were among the most exclusive of the fashionable festivities of the town-a curious haunt for the uncompromising American! Nevertheless Cooper found the society of his neighbor very enjoyable, if we may trust the testimony of his daughter, and spent many pleasant hours in this "charming bijou of a house." It was there that he met Chantry, the sculptor, the American artist, Leslie, Sir James Mackintosh, Richard "Conversation" Sharp, Lockhart, and Scott himself once more. In one of these gatherings Scott sat silent most of the time, but Mrs. Siddons, who was also of the party "dialogued to him in a very Shakespearean manner." The three, Scott, Rogers, and Cooper, later planned a party to visit Hampton Court, and the intimacy of the neighbors on St. James's Place is witnessed by a letter, dated December 25, 1835, from Rogers, in which he thanks Mrs. Cooper for a sugar cake, her children for Christmas wishes, and her husband for a fragment of a farming journal, adding the remark: "You say you are not reckoned a first-rate writer in America. Pray let us know who your rivals are. We are dying to know."

Sir James Mackintosh lived up to his customary hospitality to Americans by showing the Coopers marked attention, but it was at a dinner at the home of the rather unknown poet, Sotheby, that the American first met Cole

ridge. After the ladies had retired, a remark on the unity of Homer called forth "not a discourse, but a dissertation" from Coleridge. For more than an hour he held the floor, with only occasional brief comment from his opponent, who was Sotheby. "His utterance was slow," continues Cooper, "every sentence being distinctly given, and his pronunciation accurate. There seemed to be a constant struggling between an affluence of words and an affluence of ideas, without either hesitation or repetition. His voice was strong and clear, but not pitched above the usual key of conversation. The only peculiarity about it was a slightly observable burring of the r-r-r's, but scarcely more than what the language properly requires . . . I was less struck by the logic than by the beauty of the language, and the poetry of the images."

The effect of this oration was to hush the company to silence. "Scott sat, immovable as a statue, with his little gray eyes looking inward and outward, and evidently considering the whole as an exhibition, rather than an argument," while Lockhart, catching Cooper's eye, expressed his comment by a hearty, though entirely silent, laugh. A half hour later they rose and Scott led the company "deliberately into a maze of petticoats and . . . let them play with his mane as much as they pleased."

In all this, Cooper was completely in his element, and was therefore scarcely critical at all. A charge has been brought against him that, after accepting English hospitality he returned only hostile criticism for their kindness, once the ocean intervened. If we accept his own testimony, he did nothing so out of keeping with the direct honesty of his character as this. By act as well as by word he made no attempt to court favor. When it was suggested that he might enjoy a presentation at a royal drawing room, his

convictions were sufficiently strong to make him refuse such a hollow show, and when invited to the most fashionable balls, he frequently refused to go or left early. At one dinner of this impersonally élite sort he was utterly ignored by all present, including the host, and, being a stranger, was unable to help himself. When the gentlemen had all entered the dining room with their respective ladies, the American followed in the company of a guest who later proved to be a member of the family, and found the lowest place at the table reserved for him. He was so infuriated by the slight that he made a cutting remark about British policy, which was whispered about the table amid much shaking of heads, and when the meal was finally concluded, he shook the dust off his feet in quitting the house. Such experiences, clearly the result of his uncompromising lack of sympathy with the English social order, did little to add to the pleasure of his brief stay in the country.

This was not, however, his usual experience. He could distinguish between the gentleman and the haughty fashionable. For Lord Holland and Earl Grey he has little but praise. Of the latter, he says: "I find that the English look upon this statesman with a little social awe, but I have now met him several times, and have dined twice with him at his own table, and so far from seeing, or rather feeling, any grounds for such a notion, I have been in the company of no distinguished man in Europe, so much my senior, with whom I have felt myself more at ease, or who has appeared to me better to understand the rights of all in a drawing room."

These personalities and anecdotes may serve to give Cooper's opinion of the English character and social organization rather better than his frequent bitter but penetrating generalizations. He found the Established Church "prosti