literature, was published by private subscription. After the decease of the principal author the university handsomely offered to defray the cost of printing at the University Press the remainder of the ‘Athenæ,’ but his two sons, after making some further progress with the preparation of the manuscript, were reluctantly obliged by the pressure of their professional avocations to finally abandon the undertaking. The extensive collection of notes for bringing the work down to 1866 remains in the possession of Cooper's widow, together with another vast mass of manuscript materials for a new ‘Biographia Britannica.’
Cooper's last work, ‘The Memorials of Cambridge,’ appeared at Cambridge in 3 vols. 1858–66. It was originally intended to be based on the work published under the same title by Le Keux, but during its progress it was altered and modified so extensively that it may be regarded as substantially a new and an original work. Cooper was a constant and valued contributor to the ‘Gentleman's Magazine,’ ‘Notes and Queries,’ and the proceedings of the antiquarian societies of London and Cambridge. He always freely and ungrudgingly assisted in any literary undertaking. Thomas Carlyle, in his ‘Life and Letters of Cromwell,’ acknowledges the value of the information given to him by Cooper, and numerous other writers have made similar acknowledgments. Cooper died at his residence, 29 Jesus Lane, Cambridge, on 21 March 1866. The funeral took place at the cemetery, Mill Road, Cambridge, on the 26th, when the members of the corporation attended with the insignia of office. A bust of Cooper, executed by Timothy Butler, was afterwards placed by public subscription in the Cambridge town hall. He married in 1834 Jane, youngest daughter of John Thompson of Prickwillow, by whom he had issue eight children. The survivors were Thompson Cooper (d. 1904); John William Cooper, LL.D., of Trinity Hall, Cambridge; and a daughter, Harriet Elizabeth.
He left in manuscript a ‘Memoir of Margaret, Countess of Richmond and Derby,’ mother of Henry VII. This work, written in 1839, was edited by the Rev. J. E. B. Mayor ‘for the two colleges of her foundation’—Christ's and St. John's—in 1874, 8vo. Mr. Mayor, who for thirteen years was Cooper's intimate literary friend, wrote a character of him shortly after his death. ‘The best years of his life,’ says Mr. Mayor, ‘were devoted to investigating our academic history, though few of those for whom he toiled appreciated his work, and many ignorantly regarded him as an enemy; they might have learned that he loved to identify himself with the university, rejoicing when he could add a new name to our list of worthies. The void which Mr. Cooper has left behind him cannot be filled. Cambridge never had nor will have a town clerk so entirely master of its archives, or more devoted to its interests; no town in England has three such records to boast of as the “Memorials of Cambridge,” the “Annals of Cambridge,” and “Athenæ Cantabrigienses.” Alma Mater has lost one who did her work, under great discouragement, better than any of her sons could have done it. One need not be a prophet to foretell that two hundred years hence Mr. Cooper's works will be more often cited than any other Cambridge books of our time.’
[Gent. Mag. ccxx. 910; Notes and Queries, 3rd ser. ix. 253, 364; Encycl. Brit. 9th edit.; Cooper's Annals of Cambridge, iv. 599, 707; Ashmole's Berkshire, iii. 19; Cambridge Chronicle and Cambridge Independent Press, 24 March 1866; Gardiner and Mullinger's Study of English History (1881), pp. 329, 330.]
COOPER, CHARLES PURTON (1793–1873), lawyer and antiquary, was born in 1793. He was educated at Wadham College, Oxford, where he was a contemporary of Bethell, and in 1814 he attained a double first class in honours, and graduated B.A. on 7 Dec., and on 5 July 1817 M.A. He was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in Michaelmas term 1816, and, after practising with success as an equity draughtsman, was appointed a queen's counsel in 1837, and was long queen's serjeant for the duchy of Lancaster. In 1836 he became a bencher of Lincoln's Inn, and in 1843 presented to the society two thousand volumes of civil and foreign legal works, having previously presented a hundred and fifty volumes of American law reports. He was treasurer in 1855, and master of the library in 1856. His enthusiasm for the cause of legal reform attracted the attention of Brougham, by whom he was introduced to the Holland House circle and the heads of the whig party. Lord Brougham appointed him secretary of the second record commission, in which capacity he bought and printed so many books, that the commission's debt, over and above the 400,000l. voted by parliament, rose to 24,000l. Lord Holland recommended him for the post of solicitor-general when Rolfe was appointed. He played an active part in public affairs in his own county, Kent, where he resided at Denton Court, near Canterbury. He appeared as a candidate for Lambeth in 1850, but withdrew from the contest; in 1854 he unsuccessfully contested Canterbury, and was pro-
