98 
MR. BRANSBY COOPER. 
bold, and upright, and fearless man ; incapable of committing any 
act inconsistent with the character of a gentleman, of having re- 
course to any hole-and-corner practices, or in any degree lace- 
rating the feelings and increasing the sufferings of either man or 
woman. Nor is he one likely to resort to law where a question 
concerning his honour is involved. There is no member of the 
faculty, we believe, who would more readily adopt the customary 
means of resenting such an imputation ; and this is paying him no 
slight compliment, as the faculty, whatever be their failings, are 
not, with one or two noted exceptions, destitute of courage. They, 
on the contrary, daily risk their lives for others ; and there is, 
perhaps, not above one man in the profession who would consent to 
retain life at the cost of another’s honour and his own. 
This trial, as already mentioned, forms the principal public 
event in Mr. Cooper’s life, and no incident has since occurred to 
bring him conspicuously before the e}'es of the community. When 
it took place, he was almost the junior assistant of the hospital in 
which he is now amongst the senior surgeons. He has subsequently 
become known as a lecturer and an author, but in neither capacity 
calls especially for notice. His lectures are sound without being 
brilliant, and, if not so off-hand as those of his late uncle, are more 
correct in taste and structure. His Life of Sir Astley, already 
alluded to, is his sole extra-professional work ; and though by no 
means perfect as a piece of biography, it is, perhaps, as impartial 
as could be expected from such a source. It abounds with ad- 
ventures and incidents which might well have been omitted ; but 
this possibly is to be attributed more to the subject than to the 
writer of the memoir. 
In his younger days, Mr. Cooper was described as a fierce-look- 
ing Gorgon; but he never could have presented the bold, devil- 
may-care, burly appearance of his uncle. At present, now that 
nearly sixty summers have passed across his forehead, he is an ex- 
ceedingly sedate, self-possessed, compact, and unassuming looking 
man. When uncovered, his resemblance to Lord Nelson is re- 
markable ; and if asked to sit for the portrait of that hero, he would 
undoubtedly have formed a much better picture than the one-armed 
image which figures in Trafalgar-square, and only requires the 
addition of a cork-leg to render it supremely ridiculous. This 
peculiarity of his physiognomy has frequently been remarked, 
especially in courts of justice, where, somehow or other — possibly 
from the central position of his residence at Charing-cross — Mr. 
Cooper chances to find himself more frequently than any other 
member of the profession, with the exception of one brother chip, 
who has fixed his domicile still nearer to St. Stephens’s, for the 
purpose of meeting with parliamentary accidents. Mr. Cooper 
