learn from his correspondence with John Ray, the naturalist. Evelyn refers to him in 1662, when, on the occasion of the visit that the diarist paid to the king, Cooper was drawing the royal face and head for the new coinage.
Magnificent examples of his work are to be found at Windsor Castle, Belvoir Castle, Montague House, Welbeck Abbey, Ham House, the Rijks Museum at Amsterdam and in the collection of Mr J. Pierpont Morgan. His largest miniature is in the possession of the duke of Richmond and Gordon at Goodwood. A piece of the artist’s handwriting is to be seen at the back of one of his miniatures in the Welbeck Abbey collection, and one of his drawings in black chalk is in the University Gallery at Oxford. His own portrait of himself is in the collection of Mr J. Pierpont Morgan.
The date of his death has been handed down by a record in the diary of Mary Beale, the miniature painter; and in some letters from Mr Charles Manners, addressed to Lord Roos, dated 1672, now amongst the duke of Rutland’s papers at Belvoir, the writer refers to Cooper’s serious illness on the 4th of May, and to his doubt as to whether the artist would ever recover. Mary Beale’s reference to his decease is in the following words: “Sunday, May 5, 1672—Mr Samuel Cooper, the most famous limner of the world for a face, dyed.”
For a fuller account see the History of Portrait Miniatures, by G. C. Williamson, vol. i. p. 64. (G. C. W.)
COOPER (or Couper), THOMAS (c. 1517–1594), English bishop and writer, was born in Oxford, where he was educated at Magdalen College. He became master of Magdalen College school, and afterwards practised as a physician in Oxford. His literary career began in 1548, when he compiled, or rather edited, a Latin dictionary Bibliotheca Eliotae, and in 1549 he published a continuation of Thomas Lanquet’s Chronicle of the World. This work, known as Cooper’s Chronicle, covers the period from A.D. 17 to the time of writing, and was reprinted in 1560 and 1565. In 1565 appeared the first edition of his greatest work, Thesaurus Linguae Romanae et Britannicae, and this was followed by three other editions. Queen Elizabeth was greatly pleased with the Thesaurus, generally known as Cooper’s Dictionary; and its author, who had been ordained about 1559, was made dean of Christ Church, Oxford, in 1567. Two years later he became dean of Gloucester, in 1571 bishop of Lincoln and in 1584 bishop of Winchester. Cooper was a stout controversialist; he defended the practice and precept of the Church of England against the Roman Catholics on the one hand and against the Martin Marprelate writings and the Puritans on the other. He took some part, the exact extent of which is disputed, in the persecution of religious recusants in his diocese, and died at Winchester on the 29th of April 1594.
Cooper’s Admonition against Martin Marprelate was reprinted in 1847, and his Answer in Defence of the Truth against the Apology of Private Mass in 1850.
COOPER, THOMAS (1759–1840), American educationalist and political philosopher, was born in London, England, on the 22nd of October 1759, and educated at Oxford. Threatened with prosecution at home because of his active sympathy with the French Revolution, he emigrated to America about 1793, and began the practice of law in Northumberland county, Pennsylvania. He was president-judge of the Fourth District of Pennsylvania in 1806–1811. Like his friend Joseph Priestley, who was then living in Northumberland, he sympathized with the Anti-Federalists, and took part in the agitation against the Sedition Act, and for a newspaper attack in 1799 on President John Adams, Cooper was convicted, fined and imprisoned for libel. Like Priestley, Cooper was very highly esteemed by Thomas Jefferson, who secured for him the appointment as first professor of natural science and law in the University of Virginia—a position which Cooper was forced to resign under the fierce attack made on him by the Virginia clergy. After filling the chair of chemistry in Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pa. (1811–1814), and in the University of Pennsylvania (1818–1819), he became professor of chemistry in South Carolina College, at Columbia, in 1819, and afterwards gave instruction in political
economy also. In 1820 he became acting president of this institution, and was president from 1821 until 1833, when he resigned owing to the opposition within the state to his liberal religious views. In December 1834, owing to continued opposition, he resigned his professorship. He had been formally tried for infidelity in 1832. He was a born agitator: John Adams described him as “a learned, ingenious, scientific and talented madcap.” Before his college classes, in public lectures, and in numerous pamphlets, he constantly preached the doctrine of free trade, and tried to show that the protective system was especially burdensome to the South. His remedy was state action. Each state, he contended, was a sovereign power and was in duty bound to protest against the tyrannical acts of the Federal government. He exercised considerable influence in preparing the people of South Carolina for nullification and secession; in fact he preceded Calhoun in advocating a practical application of the state sovereignty principle. The last years of his life were spent in preparing an edition of the Statutes at Large of the state, which was completed by David James McCord (1797–1855) and published in ten volumes (1836–1841). Dr Cooper died in Columbia on the 11th of May 1840. As a philosopher he was a follower of Hartley, Erasmus Darwin, Priestley and Broussais; he was a physiological materialist, and a severe critic of Scotch metaphysics. Among his publications are Political Essays (1800); An English Version of the Institutes of Justinian (1812); Lectures on the Elements of Political Economy (1826); A Treatise on the Law of Libel and the Liberty of the Press (1830); and a translation of Broussais’ On Irritation and Insanity (1831), with which were printed his own essays, “The Scripture Doctrine of Materialism,” “View of the Metaphysical and Physiological Arguments in favour of Materialism,” and “Outline of the Doctrine of the Association of Ideas.”
See I. Woodbridge Riley, American Philosophy: the Early Schools (New York, 1907).
COOPER, THOMAS (1805–1892), English Chartist and writer, the son of a working dyer, was born at Leicester on the 20th of March 1805. After his father’s death his mother began business as a dyer and fancy box-maker at Gainsborough. Young Cooper was apprenticed to a shoemaker. He had a passion for knowledge; studied Greek, Latin and Hebrew in his spare time; and in 1827 gave up cobbling to become a schoolmaster, and, later, a Methodist preacher. His affairs did not prosper, and after going to Lincoln, where he obtained work on a local newspaper, he came to London in 1839. Here he became assistant to a second-hand bookseller, but in 1840 he joined the staff of the Leicestershire Mercury. His support of the Chartist movement obliged him to resign his position, but he undertook to edit The Midland Counties Illuminator, a Chartist journal, in 1841. He became a leader of the extreme Chartist party, and for his action in urging on the strike of 1842 he was imprisoned in Stafford gaol for two years. Here he produced The Purgatory of Suicides, a political epic in ten books, embodying the radical ideas of the time. In his efforts to publish this work after his liberation he came under the notice of Benjamin Disraeli and Douglas Jerrold. Through Jerrold’s help it appeared in 1845, and Cooper then turned his attention to lecturing upon historical and educational subjects. In 1856 he suddenly renounced the free-thinking doctrines which he had held for many years, and became a lecturer on Christian evidences. He died at Lincoln on the 15th of July 1892. Among his other works may be mentioned the Bridge of History over the Gulf of Time (1871) and the Life of Thomas Cooper, written by Himself (1872).
COOPER, THOMAS SIDNEY (1803–1902), English painter, was born at Canterbury on the 20th of September 1803. In very early childhood he showed in many ways the strength of his artistic inclinations, but as the circumstances of his family did not admit of his receiving any systematic training, he began before he was twelve years old to work in the shop of a coach painter. A little later he obtained employment as a scene painter; and he alternated between these two occupations for about eight years. But the desire to become an artist continued to influence him, and all his spare moments were given up to drawing and
