Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses

I just discovered Mark Twain's essay Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses, which is a hilarious criticism of James Fenimore Cooper's writing, and specifically his novel The Deerslayer.

Some examples:

"Cooper’s art has some defects. In one place in 'Deerslayer,' and in the restricted space of two-thirds of a page, Cooper has scored 114 offences against literary art out of a possible 115. It breaks the record."

"Cooper hadn’t any more invention than a horse; and I don’t mean a high-class horse, either; I mean a clothes-horse. It would be very difficult to find a really clever 'situation' in Cooper’s books, and still more difficult to find one of any kind which he has failed to render absurd by his handling of it."

"Cooper's word-sense was singularly dull. When a person has a poor ear for music he will flat and sharp right along without knowing it. He keeps near the tune, but it is not the tune. When a person has a poor ear for words, the result is a literary flatting and sharping; you perceive what he is intending to say, but you also perceive that he does not say it. This is Cooper. He was not a word-musician. His ear was satisfied with the approximate words."