tart. "I decline the office," he wrote, "requested of me by the Historical Society of Rhode Island, and hold the medal and the copy of the resolution, which they request me to transmit to Commodore Elliott, to be delivered to any person whom they, or you by their direction, may authorize to receive them." Cooper apparently said nothing about this action at the time. He had before been solemnly warned by the Providence newspapers not to risk a controversy with Burges, or, as they more graphically expressed it, not to "get into the talons of the bald-headed eagle of Rhode Island." The threatened danger, however, had not deterred him from exposing the absurdities into which even eagles fall when they use their pinions for writing and not for flying. Not even did he have the fear of the Historical Society itself before his eyes. In 1850 he took occasion to pay his respects to that body. He was then bringing out a revised edition of his novels. In the preface to "The Red Rover," he mentioned the stone tower at Newport, and referred to the way in which he had been assailed for his irreverence in calling it a mill. He repeated this assertion as to its character. He expressed his belief that the building was more probably built upon arches to defend grain from mice than men from savages. "We trust," he added, "this denial of the accuracy of what may be a favorite local theory will not draw upon us any new evidence of the high displeasure of the Rhode Island Historical Society, an institution which displayed such a magnanimous sense of the right, so much impartiality, and so profound an understanding of the laws of nature and of the facts of the day, on a former occasion when we (p. 227) incurred its displeasure, that we really dread a second encounter with its philosophy, its historical knowledge, its wit, and its signal love of justice. Little institutions, like little men, very naturally have a desire to get on stilts; a circumstance that may possibly explain the theory of this extraordinary and very useless fortification. We prefer the truth and common sense to any other mode of reasoning, not having the honor to be an Historical Society at all." No reply, at least no public reply, came from that quarter during his life, to the views he had expressed. It was only when he was unable to defend himself that he was again assailed. In February, 1852, an account of the battle of Lake Erie was delivered before the Rhode Island Historical Society by Usher Parsons, who had been assistant surgeon on board the Lawrence. His testimony had been somewhat severely criticised by Cooper. Now that the latter was in his grave he took occasion to cast imputations upon the motives of the historian, and asperse the honesty of his statements. Parsons added nothing new of moment to the discussion, for what he said was merely a rehash, made in a very bungling way, of the old facts and assertions. But the spirit in which he wrote and the insinuations in