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COOPER CO-OPERATIVE SOCIETIES. 



chu-it ion for liberty of conscience ; but, on the other 

 hand, he supported ilie Dutch war, ami issued illegal 

 writs for the election of memlxTs of parliament di.nnp 

 a recess, and, in other respects, exhibited much lati- 

 tude of principle and of practice. In 11)72, he was 

 created earl of Shaflesbury and lord high chancellor. 

 His conduct on the bench was able and impartial. 

 He had not, however, been more than a year in of- 

 fice, when t lie seals were taken from him ; and, 

 from that moment, he. became one. of the most 

 powerful leaders of the opposition. For his warmth 

 in asserting that a prorogation of fifteen months 

 amounted to a dissolution of parliament, he was com- 

 mitted to the Tower, and was not released until after 

 a full submission. Whether the popish plot, in 1678, 

 was of his contrivance, is uncertain ; but he made 

 use of it to force out the earl of Danby's administra- 

 tion, and produce the fbnnation of a new one, in 

 which he was himself made president of the council. 

 Amid many violent party proceedings which follow- 

 ed, he was the author of that bulwark of liberty, the 

 habeas corpus act. He only remained in the admin- 

 istration four months, when the interest of the duke 

 of York once more prevailed against a statesman 

 whose endeavours to promote a bill for his exclusion 

 from the succession had been unremitting. On his 

 dismissal from office, he was charged with having 

 attempted subornation of perjury. He was, in con- 

 sequence, once more committed to the Tower, and 

 tried for high treason ; but was acquitted by the 

 jury amidst prodigious acclamations of the people 

 a circumstance which stimulated Dryden to the pro- 

 duction of his celebrated poem of Absalom and 

 Ahithophel, in which Sliaftesbury is so unfavourably 

 conspicuous. Not long after this acquittal, the earl 

 withdrew to Holland, where he arrived in November, 

 1682, and where he died, of the gout in his stomach, 

 on the 22d of Jan., 1683. The career of this able, 

 but dubious and versatile statesman, forms the best 

 commentary on his public principles, and declares 

 him to be rather a bold, active, and enterprising man 

 of expediency, than a great politician. Yet the cha- 

 racter of a man sincerely esteemed by Locke, and 

 other men of undoubted principle, is not to be impli- 

 citly taken from the odium excited by opposing party 

 feelings. On the whole, this extraordinary person 

 appears to have possessed many vices, always re- 

 deemed by a great portion of ability, and a leaning 

 to broad and liberal principles of government, when 

 he could freely display it. 



COOPER, ANTHONY ASHLEY, third earl of Shaftes- 

 bury, a celebrated philosophical and moral writer, 

 was born at Exeter-house, in London, in February, 

 1671. He was grandson to the subject of the pre- 

 ceding article, who early instructed him in Greek and 

 Latin, placing about him a female who spoke those 

 languages with considerable fluency. He could read 

 them both with ease when only eleven years of age. 

 He was then placed at a private school, and finally 

 removed to Winchester. At the latter establishment 

 he did not remain long, but went on his travels ear- 

 lier than was customary. On his return to England, 

 in 1689, he became the representative of Poole, in 

 Dorsetshire, and distinguished himself, while in par- 

 liament, by his support of measures favourable to 

 public liberty. His health suffered so much by par- 

 liamentary attendance, that, in 1698, he gave up his 

 seat, and, visiting Holland in the assumed character 

 of a student of physic, he prosecuted his studies, and 

 became intimately acquainted with Bayle, Le Clerc, 

 and other literary men. On his return to England, 

 he succeeded to the earldom ; and, although not a 

 constant attendant of the house of lords, he was al- 

 ways ready on important occasions. King William 

 offered him the post of secretary of state, wluch his 



health would not allow him to accept. On the ac- 

 cession of Anne, he took leave of public- life, and 

 once more visited Holland, to which he was much 

 attached, where he remained for two years. In 1708, 

 in consequence of the extravagances of the French 

 prophets, he published his Letter on Enthusiasm, in 

 which he opposed prosecution and personal punish- 

 ments. In 1709, he published his Moralists, a Phi- 

 losophical Rhapsody ; being an eloquent defence of 

 the doctrine of a Deity and providence, on the Plato- 

 nic model ; which piece is ranked by bishop Hurd 

 among the most finished productions of the kind in 

 the English language. His Sensus Commwris soon 

 followed, and, in 1710, his Soliloquy, or Advice to 

 an Author ; after which his health declined so rapid- 

 ly, that he was advised to fix his residence at Naples, 

 in which city he died, in February, 1713, in the forty- 

 second year of his age, but not before he had finished 

 his Judgment of Hercules, and Letter concerning 

 Design. His Works appeared, in three volumes, 8vo, 

 in 1713, under the title of Characteristics of Men, 

 Manners, Opinions, and Times. In 1716, some of his 

 private letters, upon philosophical and theological 

 subjects, were published, under the title of Several 

 Letters, written by a Noble Lord to a Young Man at 

 the University, 8vo ; and, in 1721, another collection, 

 entitled Letters from the Right Honourable the Earl 

 of Shaftesbury to Robert Molesworth, Esquire, &c. 

 The principal attention of Lord Shaftesbury was, 

 however, directed to the writings of antiquity, on 

 which he built a civil, social, and theistic kind of 

 philosophy. In his Essay on Wit and Humour, he 

 defends the application of ridicule, as a test of truth, 

 in regard to religion, as well as other matters. His 

 principal merit is a lively and elegant mode of discus- 

 sion, somewhat fettered by his uncommon solicitude in 

 regard to style, to which no English author has at- 

 tended with more assiduity. In all his works, lord 

 Shaftesbury appears a zealous advocate for liberty, 

 and a firm believer in the fundamental doctrines of 

 natural religion ; but, although he professed a re- 

 spect for Christianity, he was doubtless sceptical in 

 regard to revelation, and sometimes indulged his hu- 

 mour, on scriptural points, with correspondent inde- 

 corum. In a moral point of view, his character was 

 very estimable, both as a public and as a private man, 

 and obtained the suffrages of all who knew him. 



COOPER, SAMUEL, an American clergyman, was 

 born March 28, 1725. He gave early indications of 

 great powers of mind, and, after having been graduat- 

 ed at Harvard college, in 1743, devoted himself to the 

 church. When but twenty years of age, he acquired 

 great reputation as a preacher, and was chosen to suc- 

 ceed his father as colleague with the reverend doctor 

 Colman, in Boston. He continued in this situation 

 until his death, which happened Dec. 29, 1783, in 

 the 59th year of his age. As a preacher, doctor 

 Cooper was, perhaps, the most distinguished man of 

 his day in the United States. He was a sincere and 

 liberal Christian, and of a charitable disposition. 

 He was not only a great theologian, but was also 

 extremely well versed in other branches of learning, 

 particularly in the classics. He was one of the 

 original founders of the American academy of arts 

 and sciences, of which he was the first vice-presi- 

 dent. His patriotism prompted him to take a 

 decided part against Great Britain. He was effica- 

 cious in procuring foreign alliances, and was often 

 consulted by some of the most prominent of the 

 revolutionary characters. His manners were those 

 of a finished gentleman. With the exception of his 

 political writings, which were published in the 

 journals of the day, his productions were exclusively 

 sermons. 



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