I entirely dissent from your correspondent's statements that "the Lord Mayor is no more a privy councillor than he is Archbishop of Canterbury." First, as to the argument on which your correspondent's conclusion is founded. He assumes first that the title of Lord is a mere courtesy title; and, secondly, that it is because of this courtesy title that the Mayor is deemed a privy councillor. The second assumption is the erroneous one. It is not necessary to have the courtesy title of Lord in order to be a privy councillor; nor are all courtesy lords styled Right Honorables. Your correspondent's assertion in this respect is a curious blunder, which every day's experience contradicts. No one styles a courtesy Lord "Right Honorable" except such persons as will persist in the equally absurd blunder of calling a Marquis "Most Noble." The Boards of the Treasury and Admiralty are not designated "Right Honorable" merely because of the courtesy title of "Lord" being attached to their corporate name, but because these Boards are respectively the equivalents of the Lord High Treasurer and Lord High Admiral, each of whom was always a member of the sovereign's Council. No individual member of the Board is, by membership, "Right Hon." Your correspondent's precedent is equally inconclusive on the subject. He says, "Mr. Harley, when (1768) Lord Mayor of London, was sworn of His Majesty's most honorable Privy Council." This precedent does not prove the argument; and for this simple reason, that the individual who holds the office is not "Right Honorable," but the officer is. Mr. Harley was not, as an individual, a privy councillor, till he was made one: he could only have appeared in council as "the Lord Mayor," and not as "Mr. Harley." The description, therefore, of "The Right Honorable A. B., Lord Mayor," which has probably misled your correspondent, is, like the "Most Noble the Marquis," a blunder of ignorant flattery; the correct description being "A. B., the Right Honorable the Lord Mayor:" or rather, the A. B. ought to be suppressed, except the individual, for a particular reason, is to be personally designated, and the style should be written, "The Right Honorable the Lord Mayor." This distinction between the officer and the man is almost universal in our system. Our Judges are Lords in court (yet, by-the-bye, this courtesy "Lord" does not give any one of them at any time the title of Right Honorable, another instance of the fallacy of your correspondent's reasoning), and they are Sirs in individual designation. In Scotland the Judges assume the titles of Baronies during their tenure of office, but become mere Esquires on surrender of it. The Lord Mayor is always summoned to the council on the accession of a new sovereign, and was formerly, when his office was of greater practical importance than at present, accustomed to put his name very high on the list of signatures attached to the declaration of accession. A commoner might by the bare delivery of the great seal become "Lord" in the Court of Chancery, and be the President of the House of Lords, where he would sit by virtue of his office, without having any title to speak or vote. Mr. Henry Brougham did so for one if not two nights before his patent of peerage was completed. The same distinction between officer and individual applies to the Lord Mayor, who is Right Honorable as Lord Mayor, but in no other way whatever.
L. M.
COWPER OR COOPER.
(Vol. iv., pp. 24.93)
The poet's family was originally of Stroode in Slinfold, Sussex, not Kent, as Lord Campbell (Lives of the Chan., vol. iv. p. 258.) states, and spelt their names Cooper. The first person who altered the spelling was John Cooper of London, father of the first baronet, and he probably adopted the spelling in affectation of the Norman spelling; the family having in those days been styled Le Cupere, Cuper, and Coupre in Norman-French, and Cuparius in Latin, as may be seen by the grants made to Battle Abbey. The pronunciation was never changed. All the Sussex branches continued the spelling of Cooper until the time of Henry Cowper of Stroode, who died 1706. In Lord Campbell's Lives of the Chancellors (p. 259.) the first letter is signed "William Cooper."
W. D. COOPER.
Cowper.—There is an affectation in the present day for pronouncing words, not only contrary to established usage, but in defiance of orthography. The Bar furnishes one example, and "polite society" the other. By the former, a judge on the bench is called, instead of "My Lord" and "His Lordship," "My Lud" and "His Ludship;" and in the latter, Cowper is metamorphosed into Cooper. Now, I fancy that "My Lord" is a vast deal more euphonious than "My Lud" and Cowper, as Shakspeare has it, "becomes the mouth as well" as Cooper. We don't speak of getting milk from the coo, but from the cow; and Cow being the first syllable of the poet's name should not be tortured into Coo, in compliment to a nonsensical fastidiousness, whoever may have set the example. As Cowper the poet has been hitherto known, and by that name will be cherished by posterity. John Kemble, the great actor, I remember, tried to alter the pronunciation of Rome to room, and was laughed at for his pains, though he had the authority of a pun of the bard's own for the change: "Old Rome and room enough." But Shakspeare was but an indifferent punster at the best, as is proved by Falstaff's refusing to give a reason on compulsion, even though "reasons were as plentiful as blackberries;" corrupting raisin into reason, for his purpose, which is as far-fetched as any instance of the kind on record, I think. But I digress, and beg pardon for running so away from the cow.
JOHN BULL.
Lord Campbell, in his entertaining Lives of the Chief Justices, says, in paragraph introductory to the life of Sir Edward Coke:
"As the name does not correspond very aptly with the notion of their having come over with the Conqueror, it has been derived from the British word 'Cock' or 'Coke' a 'Chief;' but, like 'Butler,' 'Taylor,' and other names now ennobled, it much more probably took its origin from the occupation of the founder of the race at the period when surnames were first adapted in England. Even in Queen Elizabeth's reign, as well as that of James I., Sir Edward's name was frequently spelt 'Cook.' Lady Hatton, his second wife, who would not assume it, adopted this spelling in writing to him, and according to this spelling, it has invariably been pronounced."
Lord Campbell, who seems rather fond of such speculations, however, in the case of Lord Cowper does not give the etymology of the name. But he gives a letter written from school by the subsequent chancellor, in which he signs his name "William Cooper." However, elsewhere, in a note he speaks of the propensity evinced by those who have risen to wealth and station to obliterate the trace of their origin by dropping, adding, or altering letters and among them he mentions "Cowper" as having its origin in "Cooper." Mr. Mark Antony Lower, too, in his Essay on English Surnames, classes Cowper among the surnames derived from trade. Possibly, therefore, notwithstanding the alteration, the original pronunciation has been continued.