MY DEAR SIR,--I readily comply with your wish that I should furnish you with such reminiscences of the late Mr. Cooper as occur to me, although the pressure of professional engagements absolutely forbids such details as I would gladly record. For nearly thirty years I have been the occasional medical adviser, and always the ardent personal friend of the illustrious deceased; but our intercourse has been so fragmentary, owing to the distance we have lived apart, and the busy lives we have both led, that the impressions which now throng upon and impress me are desultory and varied, though endearing. I first knew Mr. Cooper in 1823. He at that time was recognized as the author of "Precaution," of "the Spy," and of "the Pioneers." The two last-named works had attracted especial notice by their widely extended circulation, and the novelty of their character in American literature. He was often to be seen at that period in conversation at the City Hotel in Broadway, near Old Trinity, where many of our most renowned naval and military men convened. He was the original projector of a literary and social association called the "Bread and Cheese Club," whose place of rendezvous was at Washington Hall. They met weekly, in the evening, and furnished the occasion of much intellectual gratification and genial pleasure. That most adhesive friend, the poet Halleck, Chancellor Kent, G. C. Verplanck, Wiley, the publisher of Mr. Cooper's works, Dekay, the naturalist, C. A. Davis (Jack Downing), Charles King, now President of Columbia College, J. Depeyster Ogden, J. W. Jarvis, the painter, John and William Duer, and many others, were of the confederacy. Washington Irving, at the period of the formation of this circle of friends, was in England, occupied with his inimitable "Sketch Book." I had the honor of an early admittance to the Club. In balloting for membership the bread declared an affirmative; and two ballots of cheese against an individual proclaimed non-admittance.