Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 12.djvu/139

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Cooper
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Cooper

found in it almost all his own (still unpublished) ‘Théodicée,’ ‘but more agreeably turned’ (Des Maizeaux, Recueil, ii. 283; the original in the Shaftesbury Papers).

His chief works are collected in the ‘Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, and Times.’ The first edition appeared in 1711; the second, corrected and enlarged, in 1714 (Shaftesbury gave elaborate directions for the allegorical designs in this edition, which are preserved in the ‘Shaftesbury Papers’); others in 1723, 1732, and Baskerville's handsome edition in 1773. In 1870 one volume of a new edition, edited by the Rev. W. M. Hatch, was published, but the continuation was prevented by the editor's death. The ‘Characteristics’ include the following treatises, with dates of first publication: (1) ‘Letter concerning Enthusiasm,’ addressed to Lord Somers (whose name is not given); suggested by the ‘French prophets,’ dated September 1707 (1708). (2) ‘Sensus Communis; an essay concerning Wit and Humour’ (May 1709). (3) ‘Soliloquy, or Advice to an Author’ (1710). (4) ‘An Inquiry concerning Virtue,’ published by Shaftesbury in ‘Characteristics,’ 1711; described as ‘printed first in 1699’ (see above). (5) ‘The Moralists: a Philosophical Rhapsody’ (January 1709). (6) ‘Miscellaneous Reflections;’ first published in ‘Characteristics,’ 1711. (7) ‘A Notion of the Historical Draught or Tablature of the Judgment of Hercules’ (1713). (8) A ‘Letter concerning Design;’ suppressed by his executors in 1714, and first added to the ‘Characteristics’ in 1733. Besides these Shaftesbury published an edition of Whichcote's ‘Sermons,’ with a characteristic preface, in 1698, and ‘Paradoxes of State’ in 1702. In 1716 appeared ‘Letters to a Student at the University’ (Michael Aynsworth, whom he supported at Oxford; the originals of most, with others unpublished, are in the ‘Shaftesbury Papers’); and in 1721 ‘Letters from … Shaftesbury to Robert, now Viscount, Molesworth,’ with an Introduction by the editor (Toland). The last two have been three times reprinted in one volume. The edition of 1758 includes also the preface to Whichcote. In 1830 appeared ‘Original Letters of Locke, Algernon Sidney, and Lord Shaftesbury,’ edited by T. Forster, a descendant of Furly, to whom Shaftesbury's letters are addressed. The originals are now in the ‘Shaftesbury Papers.’

[Shaftesbury's Life by his son appeared in the ninth volume of the ‘General Dictionary’ (1734–1741). This and the letters noticed above in Toland's introduction are the chief published authorities. A valuable collection of papers relating to Shaftesbury is in Series v. of the Shaftesbury Papers now in the Record Office. They include letters, account books, copies of his works with manuscript corrections, rough copies of the son's memoir, and many interesting documents. Full use has already been made of these in Prof. Fowler's ‘Shaftesbury and Hutcheson’ in the ‘English Philosophers’ series (1882); see also monographs on Shaftesbury by Gideon Spicker (1872), and G. von Gizycki (1876) for accounts of his philosophy. An excellent account of Shaftesbury is in Martineau's Types of Ethical Theory (1885), ii. 449–73. Prof. Fowler also refers to Zart's ‘Einfluss der englischen Philosophie auf die deutsche Philosophie des 18ten Jahrhunderts’ (1881); see also Fox Bourne's Life of Locke; Notes and Queries, 1st ser. iii. 98 (letter to Le Clerc upon Locke); Walpole's Royal and Noble Authors (Park), iv. 55; two interesting letters to Halifax are in Addit. MS. 7121, ff. 59, 63.]

L. S.

COOPER, ANTHONY ASHLEY, seventh Earl of Shaftesbury (1801–1885), philanthropist, was the eldest son of the sixth earl, and of Anne, fourth daughter of the third Duke of Marlborough. He was born on 28 April 1801 at 24 Grosvenor Square, London, his father being then a younger brother of the family, but when his father succeeded to the title and estates in 1811 his home was at St. Giles in Dorsetshire, the family seat. He was educated at Harrow, and at Christ Church, Oxford, and obtained a first class in classics in 1822. In 1832 he took his degree of M.A., and in 1841 he was made D.C.L.

He entered parliament as Lord Ashley in 1826 as member for Woodstock, the pocket borough of the Marlborough family, and gave a general support to the governments of Liverpool and Canning. He was returned for Dorchester in 1830 and 1831, and sat for co. Dorset from 1831 to 1846. His first speech was an earnest pleading in favour of a proposed grant to the family of Mr. Canning, after his sudden death. In 1828, under the Duke of Wellington, he obtained the post of a commissioner of the board of control, and in 1834 Sir Robert Peel made him a lord of the admiralty. If he had chosen a political career, his rank, connections, and high abilities and character might have placed the highest offices of the state within his grasp. But he was early fascinated by another object of pursuit—the promotion of philanthropic reform; and in the ardour of his enthusiasm for this line of action he deemed it best to maintain a somewhat independent position in relation to politics.

In 1830 he married Lady Emily Cowper, daughter of Earl and Lady Cowper, and by the subsequent marriage of Lady Cowper to Lord Palmerston he became stepson-in-law to the future premier. In 1851, on the death