After his return to this country he wrote the " Naval History of the United States," which excited an acrimonious di.scussion as to the correctness of his account of the battle of Lake Erie. In one of his libel suits Cooper defended, in person, the accuracy of his version of the battle. A lawyer, who was an auditor of the closing sentences of his argument, remarked, " I have heard nothing like it since the days of Emmet." Cooper continued to write with amazing fertility and vigor almost to the close of his life, which was terminated by dropsy, September 14, 1851. Notwithstanding his defects of style, his romances are conceded to be among the most vivid and original of j all American works of fiction. He was the first of his countrymen who obtained a wide recognition in other portions of the world. His works were tran.slated into many languages, and the Indian tales | esjjecially were universal favorites in Europe. The great French novelist, Balzac, said of him, " With, what amazing power has he painted nature! How all his pages glow with creative fijel Who is there writing English among our contemporaries, if not of him, of whom it can be said that he has a genius of the first order?" "The emj)ire of the sea," says the Edinburf/h Review, " has been conceded to him by acclamation ; " and the samejournal adds, " In the lonely desert or untrodden prairie, among the savage Indians, or scarcely less savage settlers, all equally acknowledge his dominion."