Sir Astley Paston Cooper. 251 



He died at his residence on Kew Green, on the 1 1th of December 

 last, in the 83rd year of his age*. 



Sir Astley Paston Cooper, Bart., was the fourth son of the 

 Rev. Dr. Samuel Cooper, of Yarmouth in Norfolk. His mother 

 was a daughter of James Bransby, Esq., of Shottisham, and was 

 known as the authoress of a novel entitled ' The Exemplary 

 Mother.' Sir Astley was born at Brooke, in the same county, on 

 the 23rd of August, 1768. Even in his boyhood he was noted for 

 his bold and enterprising spirit, the sociability and kindness of his 

 disposition, and for the animation with which he entered into all 

 the sports of his juvenile companions. After receiving from the 

 village schoolmaster, and from his father, who was a good scholar, 

 some portion of classical instruction, he was placed, at the age of 

 fifteen, with Mr. Turner, a surgeon and apothecary at Yarmouth. 

 Here he remained but a few months, and was then sent to London, 

 and bound apprentice to his uncle, Mr. William Cooper, one of the 

 surgeons of Guy's Hospital, but was soon after transferred, by his 

 own desire, to Mr. Cline, who had already attained great eminence, 

 and was surgeon of St. Thomas's Hospital. This connexion af- 

 forded him ample opportunities of acquiring professional know- 

 ledge, under the guidance of a master distinguished by a truly 

 philosophical mind, and for whom his pupil always felt the most 

 profound regard and veneration. Young Cooper's labours in the 

 wide field of observation thus open to him, both in the hospital and 

 dissecting-room, Avere unremitting ; and the practical information he 

 there acquired formed the solid basis of his future fame. He made 

 a short visit to Edinburgh in the year 1787, and, although only in 

 his nineteenth year, was a distinguished member of the Royal Medi- 

 cal Society of that place. On his return to London, Mr. Cline, who 

 was the teacher of anatomy, physiology and surgery at St. Thomas's 

 Hospital, appointed him his demonstrator of anatomy, and soon after 

 gave up to him a part of the anatomical lectures. Sir Astley also 

 gained the consent of Mr. Cline and the other surgeons of the hospi- 

 tals of Guy and St. Thomas, to give a course of lectures on the prin- 

 ciples and practice of surgery, a subject which had previously only 

 formed a part of the anatomical course. He had now full scope for 

 the display of those talents which afterwards shone forth on the wider 

 theatre of the world, in a profession of which he became the bright- 

 est ornament. At first he was attended only by fifty students ; but 

 his class soon increased to four hundred, Avhich was by far the largest 

 that had been known in London. His popularity as a teacher rapidly 

 increased : he made no attempts at displays of oratory, but always 

 studied to render the subject which he treated as plain and intelli- 

 gible as possible to his hearers, wisely avoiding distracting their atten- 

 tion by entering on controversial topics connected witli physiology. 



On the close of 1791; the year he commenced as a lecturer, he 

 married the daughter of Thomas Cock, Estj., of Tottenham, who was 

 a distant relation of Mr. Cline : but as a proof of his constant soli- 



* The above account is chiefly an abridgcmont of that contained in the 

 Proceedings of the Linna'an Society for 1811, p. 101. 



