A Sketch of the Life of the late Henry Cooper Part 2

He ne'er shall be extoll'd by me, Whom wealth and fortune raise to power; But he, alone who will be free From sordid shame, or live no more.

Let him with wreaths of song be crown'd, Who life, deflower'd of glory, spurn'd, And breaking from his kindred round, To Carthage and to death return'd.

With him, who when his righteous hand, In vain the splendid blow had given, The tyrant, only chang'd, disdain'd The light of unregarded Heaven.

And Cato--thou, who tyranny All earth besides enslaved, withstood; And failing to high liberty, Pour'd fierce libation of thy blood.

Oh, G.o.dlike men! you leave no praise For him who to the king could bend, To add a few unhonor'd days To life, at latest--soon to end.

Nor him self-raised to Gallia's throne, Who, rushing with his martial hordes, Cast Europe's ancient sceptres down, And made his slaves her sov'reign lords.

For his was not the heart that dar'd When with the battle all was lost, Plunge in the whirlpool of the war, And share the slaughter of his host; Nor his, the indignant soul with brave And Roman arm, his life to shed; But still he sought by flight to save His outlaw'd and unlaurell'd head.

With face to earth his vet'rans' lay In ruins all who bore his name; His mighty Empire past away, And blasted, as a Chief, his fame.

Yet--yet--(so let him live) content The sentence of his foes he bore, Like a vile felon to be sent An exile to a wretched sh.o.r.e.

FROM THE PORTUGUESE.

Where silver hairs no reverence meet, Where to the weary stranger's feet To cross the threshold 'tis denied.

And at the genial board, her place No kerchief'd matron takes to grace Her savage husband's haughty side; Where Niger hides, or on the sh.o.r.e Of dark and stormy Labrador.

O Castres,--I with thee would rove, And, blest, thus wand'ring, if my mind Could leave her galling bonds behind; The bonds of an unworthy love.

Not like a Gambian slave that fled (Of the pale Creole's lash in dread) From Rio, strives in fearful haste The mountain's woody side to gain; But with him drags the clinking chain, Lock'd at his waist or ancle fast.

THE WOES OF THE RIVERS.

"To each his suff'rings."

Heaps of dead Trojans were Scamander's bane, Dead dogs, dead cats, and dung-boats shame the Seine, Ten thousand sh.o.r.es and jakes the Thames defile, And gradual mud is working woe to Nile; Yet harder Duddon's fate, her hapless stream Of fifty strains by Wordsworth is the theme.

The following _jeu d'esprit_ was written on a certain n.o.bleman, who, leaving the Whig party, of which up to that time he had been a strong adherent, and for the sake, it was supposed, of gaining the Regent's favour, not only voted, but took a strong part against the Queen.

TO LORD L---.

What caused you L---, to rush in, Through thick and thin, to give your Queen a splashing For this your party, to the devil gave you, And yet the rav'nous Tories will not have you.

So in that country (where with hopes you fool Your second infancy, you yet shall rule) A sect of devotees there is who tell ye The way to heaven is through a fish's belly; And in the surges, on a certain day, They give themselves to rav'nous sharks a prey.

Among the rest, an ancient beldame went,-- Weak, wither'd, wrinkled, tawny, tough, and bent (Your very self in breeches she would be, Put on her petticoats, and you were she); She waded in the water to her haunches, Hoping the sharks would pa.s.s her through their paunches; But out of fifty, not a shark would have her, Tho' she implored them, as a special favour; They came and smelt, and did not like her savour, She threw their stomachs into such commotion, They would not even bear her in the ocean.

But down they pushed her--roll'd her o'er and o'er, And shovel'd with their snouts again to sh.o.r.e; Alike your fate: to be by sharks abhorr'd Was her's, and your's by Minister's old _Lord_.

In the _Chronicle_ of September 27th, 1824, appeared the following notice of my brother's death, headed:--"Death of Henry Cooper.--We regret to have to announce the death of a gentleman warmly beloved by all who knew him, Mr. Henry Cooper the barrister. He died on Sunday the 19th, at the cottage of his friend, Mr. Hill, of Chelsea, after a short illness which brought on an inflammation in his bowels that proved fatal; he was interred on Friday last.

"Mr. Cooper had overcome the difficulties of his profession, and was rising fast into eminence. He was already leader on the Norfolk circuit, and with his readiness, his powerful memory, and his forcible and fluent delivery, the most distinguished success was universally antic.i.p.ated for him: his vein of pleasantry was particularly rich, as an instance we may refer to a case on the very last circuit in which a hairdresser of Newmarket was one of the parties, and which he made irresistibly amusing.

We appeal confidently to those of our readers who have attentively considered the signs of the times, if there was not much distrust of the bar about the period when Mr. Henry Cooper came into notice, and if he did not by his exertions contribute greatly to remove it.

"He had been sometime employed procuring materials for a life of Lord Erskine, with whom he was particularly intimate, which he had undertaken to write; we suspect he had not made much progress in the work when death erminated all his labour."

The next notice of his death is taken from the _Gentleman's Magazine_, from July to December, 1824; vol. 94, part 2.--"On the 19th of September, 1824, at Chelsea, Henry Cooper, barrister-at-law, in the vigour of life and with every prospect of reaching the highest honors in his profession.

The death of this rising barrister has been recorded in page 381 [as above]. He died of inflammation of the bowels, at the house of his friend, Mr. Hill, at Chelsea. His age was about thirty-eight or thirty- nine, and he had been about twelve years at the bar. He was the son of a counsel of eminence residing at Norwich. He went to sea with Lord Nelson, and was present at the battle of the Nile, but he early quitted the naval profession for that of the law, though he retained much of the frankness and gaiety of manner which distinguish seamen, and the activity and strength of frame which a seaman's habits create. He was afterwards Attorney General of the Bermudas, at the time when one of the c.o.c.kburn's was governor. On the appointment of the late Mr. Serjeant Blossett to the Chief Justiceship of Bengal, Mr. Cooper, who was then rapidly rising on his circuit (the Norfolk) became one of the leaders; and at the two last a.s.sizes, was in every cause.

"He possessed great activity and versatility of mind; no one, according to the testimony of those who saw most of him, combined with a fluent and powerful eloquence, a better judgment and nicer skill in conducting a cause. But his best and highest forensic quality, and that which, combined with his talents, make the loss a national one, was his great moral and professional courage, his unshaken attachment to what he considered a good cause. No consideration ever warped him from his duty.

He was proof not merely against those speculations on the best probable means of personal advancement which many men reject as well as he did, but against that desire of standing well with the judges, of getting the ear of the judge, of obtaining the sympathy of men of professional standing, which it requires much more firmness to resist; there was no one on whom a defendant exposed to the enmity of government, or to the judges, or to any prejudices, could rely with greater certainty; that he would not be compromised or betrayed by his advocate. In a word, there was no man less of a sycophant. He had a confidence that he could make himself a name by his own merits, and he would have it.

"But the fair guerdon when we hope to find, Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears And slits the thin spun life."

The following verses, soon after my brother's death, headed, "On the death of Henry Cooper, Esq.," appeared in the provincial papers; they were composed by my mother, and had not only the tacit consent of all, but the universal praise, and that openly expressed, for their spirit and truthfulness which all felt, for all then knew and admired him they mourned.

The pride of the Circuit is gone, The eloquent tongue is at rest; The spirit so active is flown, And still lies the quick heaving breast.

The mind so gigantic and strong, Is vanish'd like vapour or breath; And the fire that shone in his eye, Is quenched by the cold hand of death.

Yet a balm to his friends shall arise, That so soon he acquired a name; For he dropp'd like a star from the skies, Untarnished in l.u.s.tre or fame.

The following verses also, on the death of my brother, appeared in the provincial papers, and were written by Frederic Wing, Esq., attorney-at- law, residing at Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, and headed, "On the death of the late Henry Cooper."

"Ye friends of talent, genius, hither come, And bend with fond regret o'er Cooper's tomb; Closed are those lips, and pow'rless that tongue, On whose swift accents you've delighted hung.

Cold is that heart,--unthinking now, the brain, But late the seat of thought's mysterious train, For by the stern, relentless hand of death, Is stopt the inspiring, animating breath: And he whose powers of rhetoric all could charm, Fail'd to arrest the Tyrant's conquering arm.

Cooper,--Farewell!-- Transient, yet splendid, was thy short career, Unfading laurels twine thy early bier.

To mourn thy exit, how can we refrain, For seldom shall we see thy like again!

Who, to deep learning, and the soundest sense, Join'd the rare gift of matchless eloquence.

Thy wit most keen, thy penetration clear, Thy satire poignant, made corruption fear.

And such thy knowledge of the human heart, So prompt to see, and to unmask each art.

Oppression shrunk abash'd, while innocence Call'd thee her champion--her sure defence.

Once more, farewell, long shall thy name be dear, And oft shall Independence drop a tear Of grateful memory o'er departed worth, And selfish, wish thee back again to earth.

To abide the important issue of that cause, Fix'd not by mortal, but celestial laws, Thou'rt summon'd hence, may'st thou not plead in vain, But from our Heavenly Judge acceptance gain, And sure admittance to those courts on high, Where term and time are lost in blest eternity.

APPENDIX.

THE LIFE OF LORD ERSKINE.

AS COMMENCED BY MY BROTHER

Thomas Erskine, the only advocate, and, almost, the only orator, whose speeches are likely to survive the interest of the occasion that gave them birth in a country, where forensic litigation abounds, and political inst.i.tutions render the study and exercise of eloquence important and necessary, was born on the in --- the year 175, at ---, in Scotland; he was the third son of the Earl of Buchan, by ---. This family is ancient, and connects, with its pedigree, the sovereigns, both of Scotland and England, related to the former. The marriage of the daughter of James the First with the Palatine, mixed his line with the descendants, and, consequently, united him with the family that now reigns in England. He thus brought with him to the profession of the bar, the advantage of all the prejudice in favour of ill.u.s.trious descents, and found easier way yielded to his powerful talents by the diminution of envy which attended it.

Of his very early years, I am unable to supply the public with any information, and I regret it,--not that any very important lesson of utility can be derived from the anecdotes of childhood, but they are amusing, and amusing without harm; and I agree with Dr. West that he has a very imperfect knowledge of human nature who is not convinced, that in a state of refined society, it is impossible to amuse innocently. All that I have been able to learn distinctly, is, that the most playful vivacity, and the same good humour, which ever after accompanied him even in the keenest rivalry of the bar, displayed itself in his words and actions, and made him the delight of all, but those who morose and splenetic, from their own disgust of existence, conceive offence at others for that enjoyment of the present, which can only subsist upon ignorance, and the hope of the future that MUST BE disappointed. To this vivacity, he, perhaps, owed as much as to those endowments, which are deemed more solid qualifications for the bar. It imparted itself to his eye, his mouth, his tone, and his action, and held his hearers engaged, when his periods were such as p.r.o.nounced by an ordinary speaker, would not have preserved the audience from that listnessness, which is instantly seen and felt by the speaker, and soon adds embarra.s.sment and confusion to feebleness. In private society, to the last months of his existence, it gave him rather the air of a youth inexperienced in the realities of life, and entering it under the ardour of hope, than of a man who had almost reached the limits of human existence, in the exercise of a profession, which lays the human breast naked to inspection. It was said of Pope, from his primitive habits of reflection and gravity, that he was never young; and, on the contrary, it may be said with equal justice, from the playfulness and vivacity of Erskine, that he was never old. At the age of he entered the navy as a midshipman, and served in the ---, commanded by Captain ---, in America. While in this station he was employed in making a survey under one of the lieutenants of the ship, off the coast of Florida. He had some acquaintance with geometry; and, as he tells us himself in his "Armata," always retained a fondness for that science. Whether this fondness grew in acquiring the knowledge of navigation, indispensable to his profession, or subsequently at the university in which it forms so much the greater part of education, I am ignorant; but that he was versed to a degree both in geometry and astronomy, is evident, from the work I have named, and some pieces of his poetry, which I have had access to. The cause that led him to leave the navy and enter the army is unknown; it is most likely to have been disgust and impatience of the subordination, which in our fleets is rigid in the extreme, and never softened by that alternation of social intercourse, at a common table at which in the army, all the officers of the regiment meet daily, and from which they rise with a feeling, not only that insulting and overbearing command upon duty would be a violation of an implied pledge of kindness, but injury to themselves, as diminishing in the gloom that would spread over their next meeting, the common stock of enjoyment. The condition of our naval service is, in some respects, improved since Erskine was a member of it; but then all knowledge beyond that of the conduct of a ship, was deemed unnecessary, impertinent, and even adverse to the attainment of nautical skill. The intercourse of the officers even on the sh.o.r.e, was confined almost entirely to one another, for not to speak of the uncouthness of their habits, which made them as incapable of mingling in society on land, as the beings of their element on which their avocation lay, are of living in the air, their language was technical to a degree that rendered it to all, except themselves, almost unintelligible. With such persons for companions, and to use Terence's expression, quotidian and tedious sameness of a life at sea, we need look no further for Erskine's desire to change his profession. When we consider the great capacity which he possessed for observation, and his extraordinary power of combining the knowledge that he so acquired, the period which he gave to the naval service must have been, to a spirit so active, a period of painful constraints. I remember that in a conversation upon Lord Erskine, with Mr. Capel Loft, after enumerating the many great causes in which the great advocate had been engaged, he exclaimed, "what an infinite mult.i.tude of ideas must have pa.s.sed through that man's mind." The remark is not an empty one; I doubt whether there ever was a man who exercised the faculty of reasoning more, who drew a greater number of distinct conclusions, or whose materials of thought were more the collection and property of his own observation. Cicero, in his speech for Archias, appeals to the judges whether he could possibly supply the demands upon him for daily exertions of eloquence, unless he a.s.sidiously refreshed his mind with studies, in which he was a.s.sisted by Archias and other rhetoricians, and that he read copiously is manifested in all his works.

The accomplished academician, the able balancer of the different schools of philosophy and morals, and the studied Rhetor is obtruded upon us. He was, in every sense of the term, learned; Erskine, on the contrary, cannot be discovered by any of his speeches, or writings, to have read much, and most probably had read very little. He was in no sense of the word learned. He has, indeed by acuteness of observation, vigour of combination, and the ready power of deduction that he possessed, been able to produce and leave behind him what will become the learning of others, but he was not learned himself. His qualities, from his earliest years were quickness and acuteness, unchecked and insatiable curiosity, retentive memory, and busy reflection; his mind was never still. In the coffee-room he conversed and indulged in humour with all round him.

However important or heavy the causes which were to occupy him in court, they never oppressed his mind with a load of anxiety; his was not like ordinary minds under great affairs, so absorbed that he could perceive nothing round him; his, till the hour of solemn exertion arrived, was disengaged and indulged in pleasantry; after the toil of the day, the pa.s.sion of eloquence and the intensity of technical argument, he was full of spirits and waggery at dinner and in the evening. And light as his topics sometimes were, his thoughts were always distinct, and his expressions full; you never from him heard any imperfect thoughts expressed, that (like tadpoles, before they are complete, must go through other processes of animation) required the exertion of your own conceptions to attain their sense and spirit. The activity of his mind was like that of the swallow, which either in sport or pursuit is upon the wing for ever. With this character it may readily be believed that young Erskine received his discharge with feelings like those that attend the cessation of a long and painful disease from a state which called for no exercise of his great talents, and, neither yielded scope for the communication of his own attainments nor opportunity to increase them from the communications of others.

He became an ensign of the Royals and married not long after. He was sent with his corps to the Mediterranean, and stationed either with his regiment or a detachment of his regiment, at Minorca; there, under the influence of an ardent feeling of religion, which he owed to the anxious inculcations of his mother, from whom he received the rudiments of education, he is said in the absence of the chaplain, to have composed more than one sermon, and to have delivered them to the a.s.sembled officers and privates of his regiment. It never occurred to me to ask him whether there was truth in this report; but he has frequently talked to me of anecdotes which were circulated of him, some of which he confirmed while he contradicted others, and never spoke of this as unfounded; from my knowledge of his character it is highly probable, and I believe it is true. About three years ago he was at Tunbridge Wells with Mr. Coutts, and while there, pointed out to a friend of mine a building, and said, "There, when it was a public room, I preached a sermon of my own composition to the company;" this was for a wager. He returned to England in 17-- with his regiment, the father of three children. The anxiety of his mother, whose affections and care for her family rendered her most estimable, and have endeared her memory to her descendants, was excited by Thomas, who had nothing but his pay for the support of his wife and his children, likely soon to become more numerous. Her prudence suggested to her another profession for him by the gains of which he might avoid the dest.i.tution which she saw hanging over his head. With this design, she sent for Mr. Adam, the barrister (now the Commissioner of the Scotch jury courts), that she might receive the a.s.sistance of his experience and advice. On his arrival she said, "My son Tom has been thoughtless enough to marry a woman without fortune, and she has brought him a family which he cannot support himself, nor I for him,--what is to be done? And I have been thinking that he must sell his commission, go to the bar, and be Lord Chancellor." It is interesting to reflect, that while this excellent woman was endeavouring to conceal the bitterness of an affectionate mother's anguish for her son's imprudence, she was unconsciously p.r.o.nouncing a prophecy. Nor will it be less to see how trifling an event would have prevented its accomplishment; Mr. Adam told her that there were a great many steps from the entrance of the profession and the very high rank which she purposed, many of which he should be happy to congratulate her son on attaining.