THE ECLIPSE.
FROM AN UNPUBLISHED MS. OF JAMES FENIMORE COOPER.
Putnam's Monthly Magazine 21 (n.s. 4) (Sept. 1869): 352-359.
Note by the Editor.—During Mr. Cooper's residence at
Paris, he wrote, at the request of an English friend, his
recollections of the great eclipse of 1806. This article, which is
undated, must have been written about the year 1831, or twenty-five
years after the eclipse. His memory was at that period of his life
very clear and tenacious, where events of importance were
concerned. From some accidental cause, this article was never sent
to England, but lay, apparently forgotten, among Mr. Cooper's
papers, where it was found after his death. At the date of the
eclipse, the writer was a young sailor of seventeen, just returned
from a cruise. At the time of writing these recollections, he had
been absent from his old home in Otsego County some fifteen years,
and his affectionate remembrance of the ground may be traced in
many little touches, which would very possibly have been omitted
under other circumstances.
