



COOPKIt, JAMES FENMORE. 



COOPER, SAMUEU 



M year was appointed Mijeant-aurgron to the King. In 1830 he 

 WM elected Vice President of the Royal Society. 



ID 18S9 be publinhed the first part of a work on the ' Anatomy and 

 DiatMM of the Breast.' ThU wa accompanied by admirable illus- 

 tration* and WM a worthy companion to hU previou* work*. The 

 whole of thu work waa completed in 1840. In 1832 appeared a work 

 of the fame magnitude, on the 'Anatomy of the Thymiu Qland,' 

 which wa* an important addition to the knowledge of a very obtcure 

 organ of the human body. lie wai in the same year elected a mem- 

 ber of the II") al Institute of France, aiid shortly after a corresponding 

 member of the Royal Academy of Sciences. In 18S4, on the occasion 

 of the installation of the Duke of Wellington at Oxford, he receive.! 

 from that university the honorary degree of Doctor of Civil Laws. He 

 Tuited Edinburgh in 1837, where new honours awaited him; ho 

 made an LUD. of the university, the freedom of the city was 

 1 to him, and a public dinner was given him by the College of 



In the year 1840 attacks of giddiness, to which he had been subject, 

 increased, and he bad much difficulty of breathing. These symptoms 

 increased, and he died on the 12th of February 1841, in the seventy- 

 third year of his age. He was interred by his own desire beneath the 

 cliapel of Quy'a Hospital. A colossal statue by Bailey has been 

 erected to bis memory in St. Paul's Cathedral. In his will he left 

 10W. a year to be given every third year to the best essay on some 

 surgical subject. 



Sir Astley Cooper is a striking instance of what unceasing industry 

 can accomplish. As a teacher, his kindness, and the easy manner 

 with which he communicated his knowledge, placed him far above 

 moat of his contemporaries. His unwearied assiduity in the dissecting- 

 room enabled him to produce those great works which arc amongst 

 the most important contributions to modern surgery, and must ever 

 give him an important position in surgical literature. His influence 

 on the surgery of the day was great. " Before his time," says Dr. 

 Forbes, " operations were too often frightful alternatives or hazardous 

 compromises; and they were not seldom considered rather as the 

 resource of despair than a* a means of remedy. He always made 

 them follow as it were in a natural course of treatment; he gave 

 them a scientific character ; and he moreover succeeded in a great 

 degree in divesting them of their terrors by performing them unos- 

 tentatiously, simply, confidently, and cheerfully, and thereby inspiring 

 the patient with hope of relief, where previously resignation under 

 misfortune hod too often been all that could be expected from the 

 sufferer." 



(The Life of Sir Aillty Cooper, Bart., by Brausby B. Cooper; Erititk 

 and Foreign Medical Quarterly Review, vols. x. and xvl) 



COOPEK, JAMES FKMMORE, was boni at Burlington, New 

 Jersey, United States, on the 15th of September, 1789. His father 

 was of a Buckinghamshire family which emigrated to America some 

 twenty years before the birth of the future novelist When James 

 was about two years old, his father removed to the banks of the pic- 

 turesque Oteego Lake, Western New York, and there founded the 

 village of Cooperotown ; and somewhat later be was elected a judge 

 of the state of New York. Haviug himself initiated his son in the 

 rudimentary branches of learning, he transferred him to the care of 

 the Rev. J. Ellison, an episcopal clergyman at Albany, by whom he 

 was prepared for college. He remained at Yule College from 1S02 to 

 1805, when, having taken his degree, he entered the navy as a midship- 

 man. He served at sea for six years, and his conduct won the appro- 

 bation of hi* superiors, and the esteem of his fellow-officers. It was 

 here ho acquired that familiarity with a maritime life, and knowledge 

 of the scenes and phenomena of the ocean, which lend such a charm 

 to hi) naval stories. On retiring from the service be in 1811 married 

 Hiss Delancy, a sister of Bishop Delancy of New York, and took up 

 his abode in the family Tillage of Cooperstown. 



His next few years were spent in private life. It was not till 1821 

 that Mr. Cooper appeared as an author. His first work was a novel, 

 1'recautioii,' which prufecscd to be a story of English life. It met 

 with no success, but the author little daunted, speedily ventured 

 before the public again, with ' The Spy a tale of the Neutral Ground.' 

 A thoroughly original and genuine American novel caught the 

 American ear, much as ' Waverley ' had caught the Scottish. It* success 

 was immediate and unbounded. In England iU vivid portraiture of 

 American character and scenery gave it the additional charm of 

 novelty, and Cooper at once took rank with the leading novelists of 

 the day. The 'Pioneers' followed in 1823, and confirmed the repu- 

 tation of iU author. A year later appeared ' The Pilot a Tale of the 

 Sea.' These were the types of a long series of novels which during 

 many years flowed from Cooper's prolific pen. He bad in thrui 

 brought before his readers the mighty forests and wide prairies, the 

 backwoods of America, with their original occupants the Red Indians 

 and the Anglo-American hunters and settlers, who were rapidly sup- 

 planting them; and the tea with its daring American privateers; and 

 again and again be was to reproduce these in more or less varied 

 forms. The strength of his narrative, his power in delineating cha- 

 racter, his command of the passions, keenness of observation, and 

 descriptive skill were acknowledged without stint, and America was 

 admitted to have produced a great original uoveli.t. 

 Cooper like Scott thought the tide of success was to be taken at the 



full ; and he published novel after novel with a rapidity rivalling 

 that of the author of ' Waverley.' For a time his imagination and 

 store* of knowledge appeared to suitain without diminution the heavy 

 drain. He was never happier in depicting peculiarities of character, 

 nor carried the reader along with inure rapidity and interest, than in 

 the ' Prairie ' and the ' Last of the Mohicans,' which appeared, after 

 ' Lionel Lincoln ' and one or two others, in 1826 ; in the ' lied Rover ' 

 and the ' Water Witch,' and the ' Wept of the Wiah-ton-Wiili.' which 

 foUowed in succeeding years. But in these and a few others he 

 exhausted his genius, and novels like ' Ned Myers,' the ' Sea Lions,' 

 ' Mercedes of Castillo,' and the ' Headsman of Berne,' served only to 

 call into clearer notice the weak points of their author; yet the 

 ' Deerslayer ' and one or two other of his later stories had so much of 

 beauty and strength, that hud there been no intervening failures, 

 there would have been little reason to fancy that the hand of the great 

 American novelist had lost its skill. 



In 1S26 Mr. Cooper visited Europe, where he remained for about 

 ten years, bis longest sojourns being made in London and Paris. The 

 fruits of his European travel were the novels of 'The Headsman,' 

 ' The Biavo,' ' Heidenmaur,' and ' Mercedes,' none of which were 

 very successful; and 'Homeward Bound,' and 'Home a* Found,' 

 which, with the 'Introductory Letter to hit Countrymen,' stirred up 

 some strong feeling. Nor was he, as wo have already ii.tiuiatod, 

 happier in the novels he wrote on his return to America, although in 

 several of them he recurred to his old American forest* and sea 

 haunts. But he wandered also often into the regions of home and 

 foreign politics, not even keeping clear of controver.-y in his novels; 

 and his very inaptitude for reasoning rendered him the more dogmatic 

 in maintaining bis own views and irascible under contradiction or 

 dissent. Some of his home critics he prosecuted for lib-1 ; his foreign 

 opponents he denounced with unbounded wrath. However, as time 

 wore on his better spirit resumed its sway, and it was rewarded at 

 home and abroad with a return of the old admiration and esteem ; so 

 that his death, which occurred at Cooperstown, on the 14th of Sep- 

 tember 1851, caused a general expression of sorrow throughout 

 America, which was sincerely responded to in this country, where 

 he had hardly fewer readers and admirers than in his own laud. 



Besides the novels mentioned above, Mr. Cooper wrote ' The Path- 

 finder, 1 ' The Manikins,' ' The Two Admirals,' ' Wyandotte,' ' Wing 

 and Wing,' ' Afloat and Ashore,' ' Autobiography of a Pocket Hand- 

 kerchief,' ' Satanstoe,' ' The Chaiubearer,' ' The Crater,' ' Oak Openings' 

 ' Jack Tier,' ' Tiie Sea-Lions,' and we believe one or two others. He 

 also wrote a ' History of the United States Navy,' which does not bear 

 a very high reputation ; ' Lives of Distinguished American Naval 

 Officers," ' Gleanings in Europe,' ' Sketches of Switzerland,' ' Notions 

 of the Americans by a Travelling Bachelor,' and ' The Way of the 

 Hour.' Most European languages have translations of some of Cooper's 

 novels, and it is stated that one or two of the Oriental tongues possess 

 a version of at least one of his stories. Most of the earlier novels and 

 several of the later have been rendered into German ; and in French 

 there is a translation by Defauconpret in 23 vols. 8vo, Paris, 1838-45, 

 and another in G vols. by Messrs. Larochc and de Montemont. 



COOPER, SAMUEL, a very distinguished English miniature painter 

 of the 17th century, was born in London in 1609. He was brought 

 up together with his brother Alexander by his uncle John Hoskins, 

 likewise a miniature painter, and much distinguished in the reign of 

 Charles L Having displayed remarkable ability his uncle took him 

 into partnership with him, but almost immediately dissolved the part- 

 nership, in consequence it is said of the marked preference which was 

 invariably displayed for the works of his nephew. Cooper was with- 

 out a rival in thu time of the Commonwealth, and during the reign 

 of Charles II. He painted the portrait of Cromwell which has been 

 engraved by Venue, but the head only was finished. The original 

 is still in existence, but it has changed hands various times, and in at 

 present, we believe, in one of the Koyal collections. Walpole speaks 

 in the highest terms of its merits; he says, that "if it could be 

 enlarged to the size of one of Vaudyck's portraits, the latter would 

 losu by the comparison : " it is unquestionably a work of a very high 

 order. Another of Cooper's masterpieces was a head of a person 

 named Swingfiold, which he took with liim to the court of France, 

 where it procured him the highest patronage : he remained sonic 

 years in France and Holland. He was also much patronised by the 

 court of Charles II. He painted the miniature of Charles, as well as 

 that of his queen ; the Duchess of Cleveland, the Duko of York, Monk 

 duke of Albeui.ii le, Archbishop Sheldon, the Chancellor Sbaftesbury, 

 and many others. Wnlpole possessed a drawing by Cooper of Pope's 

 father lying dead in his bed ; Cooper's wife was the sister of Pope's 

 mother. Cooper died in London in 1672, in his sixty-third year, and 

 was buried in old St. Pancras church, where a beautiful marble monu- 

 ment was raised to his memory, on which was inscribed a lung and 

 highly commendatory epitaph, in Latin, commencing "Samuel 

 Cooper, Esquire, of England the Apellec, of his age, and of art the 

 ornament," Kc. Samuel Cooper was an excellent musician, and also 

 well versed in several foreign languages. His widow was pensioned 

 by the crown. Cooper's excellence did not extend beyond the head, 

 but so far he was without a rival ; and the following < ntry in one of 

 the pocket books of Charles, the husband of Mary Beale, shows that 

 in this respect he enjoyed the highest reputation among his contempo- 



