As we have already written very fully in another place, we are quite unable to accept the series of unfinished miniatures at the Victoria and Albert Museum as being the work of Cooper. There is no external evidence whatever in favour of the tradition. They are painted on a very smooth cardboard, quite a different material to that used by Cooper, and on the back of one of the portraits is an inscription in the same handwriting as is the one on the copy by Mrs. Ross at Montagu House, and apparently signed by the same person. It is quite possible that in the collection the portrait of Lord Brooke (which was not contained in the pocket-book when the original purchase was made) may be a genuine work by Cooper, very likely acquired by Mrs. Ross, as a guide for her own work, but all the other portraits are, we are convinced, the work of this clever copyist, and must not be attributed to the master himself. In the course of our investigations concerning a missing portrait by Cooper, representing the Countess of Exeter, we came upon two interesting letters in the Duke of Rutland's collection at Belvoir Castle, which proved that this portrait was never finished. On the 9th April, 1672, Mr. Charles Manners wrote to Lord Roos in the following terms:—"I haesten on Mr. Cooper all I can to the finishing of my Lady Exester's picture, and hee will surely doe it, God willing; but at the present the King and the Duke have put severall things into his hands which take him off from all else." Then again, on the 4th May, Mr. Manners wrote again to Lord Roos respecting the same portrait, and he then stated that although Mr. Cooper had promised "with all imaginable respect and kindeness to finish it out of hand, and actually begun it, he just then fell dangerously sicke, and confyned to his bed, and I very much feare hee cannot possibly outlive three days." As a matter of fact, Cooper did not live a day after this letter had been sent, for from Mary Beale's diary we have the information that he died on the 5th May, the diarist writing as follows:—"Sunday, May 5th, 1672, Mr. Samuel Cooper, the most famous limner of the world for a face, dyed." The two letters from which these quotations are taken are to be found in facsimile in the catalogue of Mr. Pierpont Morgan's collection of miniatures. Other odd facts concerning this great painter we learn from Pepys and certain contemporary records. We know that he was an excellent musician, playing well on the lute, and a clever linguist, speaking French with ease. He resided in Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, and frequented the Covent Garden coffee-house; he was a short, stout man of a ruddy countenance, was married and had one daughter. The Duke of Portland's collection at Welbeck contains the portrait of his wife Christina, and in another collection there is a portrait of his daughter, both fine paintings by the master himself. Christina Cooper was a Miss Turner, and her other sister, Edith, married the father of Alexander Pope. Mrs. Cooper was Pope's godmother and taught him his letters, and to her godson she bequeathed a "painted china dish with a silver pot and a dish to set it in," as well as the reversion of her books, pictures and medals, with Samuel Cooper's "grinding stone and muller," and some of his portrait sketches.
It is not quite certain that Cooper was born in England; we know the date of his birth, 1609, but we have no certain evidence that he was an Englishman by birth, although there is every probability that this was the case. He was, however, for a while in France, and he was certainly in Holland, and possibly in Sweden also, where his brother, Alexander Cooper, also spent some time. It was in Sweden that we were able to discover a good deal of information respecting Alexander Cooper, and notably a statement concerning his account for certain royal portraits in his own handwriting. Samuel Cooper's appearance is known to us by the portraits in the Victoria and Albert Museum, but an even more interesting sketch of him is in the Pierpont Morgan collection, painted in sepia, on a piece of paper which has been twice folded. An inscription, which we believe to be in his own handwriting, is at the back of a portrait at Welbeck Abbey, and is to the effect that the picture in question, and one or two previous ones, were done for a Mr. Graham, but had not been paid for at the time the artist was writing.
There is hardly a miniature by this eminent man which is not worth careful consideration, and in the power of delineating character and setting before us the actual feelings of his sitters, Cooper had no rival, while one of the great features of his work is its amazing variety. Moreover, the manner in which he adapted his technique, his colour scheme, and his ideas of composition to the special circumstances of the person whom he had to delineate, is very remarkable. His portraits of men are perhaps more attractive than those of women, although he was well able to convey the fascination of a woman's face; but the strong, rugged men of his period were portrayed by him with quite extraordinary power, and he created a method of portraiture entirely his own, and filled it with individual characteristics. Two splendid examples are amongst our illustrations in colour ([Plate VIII.]), Lady Fauconberg and Colonel Lilburne, both from the collection of Mr. Hodgkins.
Of his contemporaries it will suffice to mention one or two, and perhaps the best of them was David des Granges, whose work is represented in our illustrations in colour by a portrait of Rachel Fane, Countess of Bath, from the collection of Mr. Hodgkins ([Plate IX., No. 2]). Of this artist and his parentage we know a little, thanks to the researches of Mr. Lionel Cust in the registers of the Huguenot Church in London. It seems probable that Des Granges, although baptised in the Huguenot faith, did not continue in that communion, because in 1649 he is mentioned in some papers belonging to the French Dominicans as a Catholic, and he was a very close friend of the celebrated artist Inigo Jones, who was also a Catholic. The portrait of the architect by David des Granges, representing Inigo Jones at the age of 68, is at Welbeck Abbey, signed with the initials D.D.G., and is one of the best works by him with which we are acquainted.
For the works of Faithorne or Loggan, Flatman or Lens, we must refer our readers to more elaborate books on miniature painting, and hasten forward towards the eighteenth century. Before we do so, however, it may be of interest that we should refer to an illustration in colour of a miniature which has not hitherto been represented in any book on this subject. It is a portrait which has been bequeathed through various owners as a likeness of John Milton ([Plate X.]), and there is a good deal of evidence to support this very interesting attribution. It came from the Woodcock family, who state that it has been handed down in direct succession from Catherine Woodcock, whom Milton married as his second wife on the 12th of November 1656. She was the daughter of a Captain Woodcock, of Hackney, and the former owners of the miniature stated that their family home was in Hackney. Mrs. Milton had a baby girl on October 19th, 1657, and she and her child died in February 1658, when the miniature was given to her niece, who is stated to have been present at the confinement, and from her it came to its late owners, who only parted with it when actually compelled so to do. It therefore belonged to the Mrs. Milton who is immortalised by the poet in his twenty-third sonnet, where he speaks of her as
"My late espousèd saint,
Brought to me like Alcestis from the grave,"
And adds
"... once more I trust to have
Full sight of her in Heaven without restraint."
He says she
"Came vested all in white, pure as her mind
Her face was veiled; yet to my fancied sight
Love, sweetness, goodness, in her person shined
So clear, as in no face with more delight.
But, oh! as to embrace me she inclined,
I waked, she fled, and day brought back my night."