877 



COOPER, THOMAS SIDNEY, A.R.A. 



COPERKICUS, NICOLAUS. 



378 



raries " Sunday, May 5th, 1672, Mr. Samuel Cooper, the most famous 

 limner of the world for a face, dyed." 



The writer of the ' Essay towards an English school ' (London, 

 1 706), say a that Cooper acquired this great excellence by copying the 

 pictures of Vandyck and imitating his style. " Our nation/' he says, 

 " may be ,i!lt wed to boast of him, having far exceeded all that went 

 before him in England in that way (miniature), and even equalled the 

 most famous Italians, insomuch that he was commonly styled the 

 Vandyck in little, equalling that master in his beautiful colouring, 

 and agreeable airs of the face, together with that strength, rilievo, 

 and noble spirit ; that soft and tender liveliness of the flesh which is 

 inimitable." One of the chief excellences of his works is their free- 

 dom of execution, and their vigorous style, for though executed in 

 water-colours they have the power and effect of oil-paintings. 



* COOPER, THOMAS SIDNEY, A.R.A., was born at Canterbury, 

 September 26, 1803. His parents were in humble circumstances, aud 

 his father having while Thomas was a child deserted his family, the 

 boy was early thrown on his own resources. His fondness for sketching 

 amounted to a passion, and having taught himself to draw, he suc- 

 ceeded in occasionally earning a few shillings by the sale of sketches 

 of some of the old buildings in the city. A scene-painter at the theatre 

 named Doyle, who one day saw him sketching, kindly offered to give 

 him some instruction ; aud young Cooper profited so well by his lessons, 

 and those of a drawing master in the city, that on the death of Doyle 

 in the following year, 1820, he was employed to finish the scenes which 

 Doyle had commenced. For some three years he lived by scene- 

 painting aud teaching drawing, when (1823) ho came to London to 

 enter as a student at the British Museum and the Royal Academy. 

 But he soon found it necessary to return to his teaching at Canterbury, 

 where he remained till 1827, when he went to Holland and Belgium, 

 where, while practising portrait-painting, and subsequently making 

 landscape-drawings, he carefully studied the works of the old Flemish 

 and Dutch masters, and familiarised himself with the principles and 

 methods of working of the living painters there, especially of M. 

 Verboeckhoven, the eminent animal-painter, of whom Mr. Cooper 

 himself says, " Whatever I have been able to do since I left the 

 Netherlands in nay branch of art, I owe to him." 



In 1831 Mr. Cooper returned with his wife and family to England, 

 the revolution of the previous year having overturned all his arrange- 

 ments. He now determined to adopt animal-painting as his particular 

 branch of art; and carrying into it the minuteness of finish and much 

 of the style of the Netherlands painters, the novelty of his manner as 

 applied to English cows and sheep grazing in English meadows, caught 

 the attention of the purchasers of pictures as soon as he was able to 

 bring his works fairly to their notice. His first picture was exhibited 

 at the Gallery of the Society of British Artists in 1833, and was so 

 much admired that Mr. Veraon was led to give him a commission to 

 paint the picture now in the Vernon Gallery. From that time his 

 career has been one of almost unbroken prosperity. His pictures have 

 always found purchasers, and at steadily advancing prices; and he has 

 been a general favourite with the critics as well as with the patrons 

 of art. In 1845 Mr. Cooper was elected an associate of the Royal 

 Academy : he has not yet received the honour of full membership. 



The range of Mr. Cooper's art is singularly limited. For the last 

 twenty years he has painted, with little variation of style or character, 

 oxen, cows, sheep, and goats. Almost invariably too they are standing 

 still or lying down. Once he was fond of painting cattle on the fell 

 sides, but now he usually confines himself to the rich Kentish meadows 

 and marshes, with the well-fed cattle and sheep. As a matter of course 

 there is a marvellous monotony in his pictures. Year after year he 

 gives us the same ox and cow and sheep and goat, the same broken 

 bit of foreground, the same grass and dock-leaves, the same trees, the 

 same cloud, and the same thick atmosphere. But then ox and cow 

 and goat and sheep are alike almost perfect in naturalness of attitude 

 and occupation, in colour and in texture, and the other parts of each 

 picture are of corresponding excellence. Whoever sees but one or two 

 of Mr. Cooper's cattle-pieces at a time, and has not too strong a recol- 

 lection of his other pictures, will perhaps be ready to acquiesce in the 

 assertion of his more ardent admirers, that in his own particular 

 department he is the first of English painters. 



(Autobiographic sketch in Art-Journal, November 1849.) 

 COPE, CHARLES WEST, R.A., was born at Leeds about 1815. He 

 learnt the rudiments of art from his father, a drawing-master in that 

 town ; then passed to the school of Mr. Saso ; subsequently entered 

 as a student at the Royal Academy ; and completed his art-education 

 by the usual visit to Italy. Mr. Cope's earlier pictures, both historical 

 and genre, attracted favourable notice at the Academy exhibitions ; 

 bat he first became generally known as one of the three successful 

 competitors for the 3002. prizes at the cartoon competition of the Royal 

 Commission of the Fine Arts in 1843. Mr. Cope's cartoon, ' The First 

 Trial by ^ury,' at the exhibition in Westminster Hall, though felt to 

 be too cold and formal, won general praise for its choice of subject, 

 simplicity and clearness of treatment, excellent composition and good 

 drawing. At the fresco competition in the following year, his fresco 

 of ' The Meeting of Jacob and Rachel ' obtained him a commission to 

 paint one of the six frescoes in the House of Lords ; and in due time 

 he painted there ' Edward III. conferring the Order of the Garter on 

 Edward the Black Prince.' He has since painted in the same edifice 

 BIOO. Drv, VOL. u. 



' Prince Henry's Submission to the Law,' and ' Griselda's First Trial ;' 

 and by common consent his are placed among the most successful of 

 the various attempts in fresco. 



In 1843 Mr. Cope was elected A.R.A., and R.A. in 1848. His 

 employment on the frescoes at the houses of parliament has some- 

 what interfered with his contribution of great pictures to the Royal 

 Academy exhibitions, but he has most years sent works of sufficient 

 importance to maintain his title to academic rank. In his earlier works 

 he showed a partiality for subjects of a semi-domestic class, of which 

 his ' Poor-Law Guardians Board-Day Application for Bread,' exhi- 

 bited in 1841, and the ' Cotters' Saturday Night,' 1843, may be taken 

 as samples ; and in them he displayed much observation of character 

 and very careful painting, but on the other hand they were wanting 

 in spontaneity the great deficiency perhaps in most of Mr. Cope's 

 paintings. He also painted many subjects such as the ' Schoolmaster," 

 the ' Lovers,' &c., suggested by the poetry of Goldsmith, of which he 

 appeared for some years to be a diligent student He then advanced 

 to a higher range of poetic imaginings, such as the ' Pastorella,' from 

 Spenser ; ' Melancholy ' and the ' Dream ' from Milton, aud the like ; 

 and he proved himself not unequal to the effort. Since the fresco 

 commissions directed his attention so forcibly to history, he has con- 

 tributed to the academy exhibitions several excellent works in this 

 highest line of art, and in that branch of poetic painting most nearly 

 allied to it. Of these the principal are 'Last Days of Cardinal 

 Wolsey,' painted for Prince Albert, and exhibited in 1848 ; ' Lear aud 

 Cordelia' (1850); 'Laurence Sauuders, the second Marian Martyr, in 

 Prison' (1851); the 'Marquis of Saluce marrying Griselda' (1852); 

 'Othello relating his Adventures' (1853); aud the 'Children of 

 Charles I. in Carisbrook Castle' (1855). 



COPE'RNICUS, NICOLA'US. The real name was Copemik, or, 

 according to others, Zepemic. We shall not discuss either this, or the 

 somewhat more important question, whether he was born, as Juncti- 

 nus asserts, at 38 minutes past four on the 19th of January 1472; or, 

 as Moestlinu3 asserts, at 48 minutes past four in the afternoon, 

 February 19, 1473. Morin adopts the date of the latter, but remarks 

 that the horoscope was a most happy one for talent, as appears by 

 the nativity given by the former. 



The principal authorities for the life of Copernicus are the account 

 of Qassendi, published with the life of Tyoho Brahe' [BBAHE, TTOHO]; 

 the 'Narratio,' &c., of RHEIIOUS; and an account prefixed to his 

 ' Ephemeris' for 1551. The latter two we have not seen, but Gasaendi 

 cites abundantly from them. Weidler also mentions Adamus, ' Vit. 

 PhiL Germ.' There is nearly a literal translation of a large part of 

 Gassendi's life in Martin's ' Biographia Philosophica ; ' a sufficient 

 abstract in Weidler; and a full account of the writings of Coper- 

 nicus in Delambre's ' Hist, de 1'Art Mod.,' vol. i. 



Copernicus was born at Thorn in Prussia, a town on the Vistula, 

 near the place where it crosses the Polish frontier. His family was 

 not noble ; but his uncle, Lucas Watzelrode, was bishop of Warmia 

 (episcopus Warmiensis), whence it is frequently stated that Copernicus 

 afterwards settled at a town of that name ; whereas the cathedral was 

 situated at Frauenburg, a town ou the coast, near the mouth of the 

 Vistula, and, as to social position, about 50 miles both from Kb'uigs- 

 berg and Danzig. Copernicus was educated first at home, and then at 

 the University of Cracow, where he became Doctor of Medicine. He 

 paid more than usual attention to mathematics, and afterwards to 

 perspective and painting. A portrait of himself, painted by himself, 

 passed into the possession of Tycho Brahc (see hia 'Epistles,' p. 240), 

 who wrote an epigram ou it, the point of which appears to be (the 

 portrait being a half-length) that the whole earth would not contain 

 the whole of the man who whirled the earth itself in ether. After 

 the completion of his studies at Cracow, Copernicus went to Italy, 

 and stayed some time at Bologna, under the instruction of Dominion 

 Maria. His turn for unusual speculation began to appear in his having 

 at this time the notion that the altitude of the pole was not always the 

 same at the same place. He was certainly at Bologna in 1497, and by 

 the year 1500 he had settled himself at Rome, as appears by astrono- 

 mical observations which he is recorded as having made. At Rome 

 he gave public instructions, and in some official capacity (magno 

 applausu factus mathematum professor) : he is said, while thus 

 engaged, to have established a reputation hardly less than that of 

 Regiomontanus. In a few years (but the date is not precisely stated) 

 he returned to his native country, where (having taken orders, we sup- 

 pose, in Italy) his uncle gave him a canonry iu his diocesan church of 

 Frauenburg. There, after some contests in defence of hia rights, not 

 very intelligibly described, he passed the rest of his days in a three- 

 fold occupation his ecclesiastical duties, his gratuitous medical prac- 

 tice among the poor, and astronomical researches. He went very little 

 into the world ; he considered all conversation as fruitless, except that 

 of a serious and learned cast; BO that he formed no intimacies except 

 with grave and learned men, among whom are particularly recorded 

 Gysius, bishop of Culm, aud his pupil and follower, the celebrated 

 Rheticus. A large mass of his epistles is said by Gassendi to have 

 fallen into the hands of Broscius, professor at Cracow, but none have 

 been published. He was all this time engaged as well in actual 

 observation as in speculation. Hia instrumental means however were 

 not superior to those of Ptolemy ; and he perfectly well knew the 

 necessity of improvement iu this department. "If, 1 ' said he to Rhoticus 



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