Cooper’s English at best, though fluent and spirited, is without grace; at worst it is clumsy and intractable. This writer of world-wide fame is singularly wanting in literary finish. He is not careless but colorless, not slovenly but neutral. He succeeds almost without the aid of what is commonly called ‘style.’ He is read for what he has to say, not for the way in which he says it. There are surprises in store for the reader, but they are not to be found in the perfect word, the happy phrase, or the balance of a sentence, but always in the unexpected turn of an adventure, in a well-planned episode abounding in incident, in the release of mental tension following the happy issue out of danger. As was said of another copious writer, ‘he weaves a loose web;’ one might add that it is often of coarse fibre. In few writers of eminence is form so subservient to contents. The defect was due to haste, to the natural and lordly contempt of a spontaneous story-teller for the niceties of rhetoric. IV ROMANCES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION _THE SPY_, _LIONEL LINCOLN_ Life in that unhappy strip of country known during the Revolution as ‘the neutral ground,’ Westchester County, New York, is the subject of _The Spy_. Here frequent and bloody encounters took place between skirmishers from the opposing armies. Marauding bands, ostensibly ‘loyal’ or ‘patriotic,’ though often composed of banditti, made life a misery and a terror to peaceably inclined householders. Cooper wrote from first-hand traditions. The family of his wife had been loyalists, and the most famous of Westchester County raiders was a DeLancey. The chief character is Harvey Birch, the Spy. Professing to be in the employ of the British, he is the most trusted of Washington’s secret agents. His devotion to his chief is a passion, almost a religion. Mean of appearance, niggardly in his mode of life, he is capable of the last degree of personal sacrifice. His patriotism is of the most exalted kind, since it can have no proportionate reward. He must live (perchance die) detested by the people for whom he risks his life daily. Cooper makes us deeply interested in this uncouth being, who, persecuted to the point of despair, and even brought to the gallows, finds always a way of escape. Birch gambled with his life in stake. It was a desperate throw when he destroyed the bit of paper signed by Washington.