22 



Uotcs from % giarg of jlir ^n%ng Ssjjleg 

 Cooper, Jrot €arl of jSjjsftcsIrarg : 



JSorn 1621, Bteti 1683. 



By THE LATE J. WaYLEN, 



[These notes are printed as they were left by Mr. Waylen. He had intended 

 writing a fuller memoir, but this was never done.] 



P|5B|HE estates of this knight in Wiltshire were at Purton, 

 ffllifl Damerham, Martin, and Loders : his Dorset seat was St. 

 Giles, Wimhorne. His father dying early left him in the hands of 

 the following trustees : — Sir Daniel Norton, a sea-captain residing 

 at Southwick, near Portsmouth ; Mr. Hannam, of Wimborne ; and 

 Mr. Edward Tooker, his uncle, of Salisbury and Maddington, with 

 the latter of whom he principally resided during his minority. In 

 1637 he was entered at Exeter College, Oxford, and early showed 

 his pluck by organizing and heading an insurrection against the 

 barbarous practice of " Tucking Freshmen." Time out of mind it 

 had been the custom for one of the seniors, acting as executioner- 

 general for the occasion, to summon the freshmen up to the hall-fire, 

 on a given evening, and bidding them hold out their chins, then with 

 the nail of his right thumb (left long for the purpose) to grate off 

 all the skin from the lip to the chin ; concluding the torture by 

 compelling the victim to drink a glass of salt-and- water ; and so on 

 till all the new comers of that year had been treated. Young 

 Cooper perceiving that the freshmen contemporary with himself 

 happened to be more than usually stalwart and numerous, engaged 

 with them to act in unison, and to strike a decisive blow in defence 

 of their chins ; and as it was expected that his own name would be 

 the first called, he consented to give the signal for attack. The 

 senior who summoned him happened to be a son of the Earl of 

 Pembroke. Cooper, nothing daunted, opened the campaign by 



