[he was an admirer of scenery and nature], and that the wit, graphic portraitures of the men in office on the island, the general chit chat, scandle and fun, intermixed with politics, occasional rhymes, &c., put the reader [since dead] of a few of them, in mind of the letters of Lord Byron. After his return home, he took chambers in Fig Tree or Elm Court, in the Temple, read and awaited clients, and went the Norfolk circuit; but, alas! few profitable knocks came to his
door, and the circuit yielded rather expense than profit; but on he went struggling and struggling, till at last his talents were acknowledged; and the four years preceding his death, he was an eminent leader, and engaged in almost every cause throughout his circuit, and rapidly gaining a reputation in London from “the very eloquent, bold, and honest style of his defence,” for Mary Ann Carlile, who was prosecuted, by what was then styled the Constitutional Association, for publishing a libel upon the government, and the constitution of this country. The trial ended after a brilliant speech of the defendant’s counsel, full of argument, eloquence, and ability, in the dismissal of the jury, after being locked up all night; the counsel for the prosecution, the late Mr. Baron Gurney, consenting to their discharge. The report of the trial, and Henry Cooper’s speech in full, was printed and published by the notorious Richard Carlile, who then kept a shop in Fleet Street. At the early age of forty my brother died, and he was then looked on by the profession, as a man, who, had he lived, must have achieved the highest honours in it. He was an ardent admirer of, and some of his friends were pleased to say, a close imitator of the oratory of Lord Erskine, with whom, till he died, he was on terms of the greatest intimacy. In fact he was writing his life for publication, by the express desire of Erskine himself, when death staid the pen. Alas! but a few pages of it were written, and those in the rough, I will, however, lay them, ere I have done, before the reader.
Henry, the last four years of his going circuit, and when his abilities were acknowledged, was sometimes opposed to his father, to the no small pleasure and amusement of the Norwich people, who as greatly
respected the legal ability of the one, as they admired the eloquence of the other; and it was often a source of half suppressed laughter in that portion of the court set aside for the public to hear “my learned friend” banded from one to the other by the two Athlete—Father and Son—the one as powerful from his tact, energy, and fervid eloquence, as the other from his legal knowledge and great acumen, and who was often the victor, for that knowledge, deep and extensive gave the father a superiority on those points of a case, in which law and fact were intermingled, and which were apt from Henry’s comparative previous little business and short practice as a leader to escape his attention, or when patent rendered him less capable effectually to grapple with the legal and knotty difficulty, for he had never had the advantage of a pleader’s chambers; nor let it be thought in those days that there were no giants to contend with—Sergeants Blosset, Frere, and Storks, Messrs. Plumptre, Eagle, Robinson, Prime, and others of note, with Biggs Andrews, now Q.C., and George Raymond, author of the “Elliston Papers,” as juniors were on the circuit, all of whom have long since been dead, with the exception of Mr. Sergeant Storks and the four last named.
And here I cannot do better than insert a paragraph signed J. S., which appeared in the Times, I think in or about the years 1831 or 1832; I copy from the paragraph cut out from the paper, and at the time pasted in an album, to which the date was omitted to be attached. The paragraph was headed, “The late Henry Cooper:”—
“To most of our legal readers, we feel convinced, that this week’s sketch of the late Henry Cooper, the friend companion and intended biographer of the late Lord Erskine, will prove highly acceptable. The unexpected and melancholy event which deprived the bar of one of its most promising ornaments, and cast a shade over the gay and talented circle in which he moved, must be fresh within the memory of our readers. As yet no memoir, no frail tribute to stamp even a fleeting remembrance of his learning, professional fame, or liberal principles has appeared, and while worthless rank and heartlessness have been perpetuated by marble and the prostituted energies of literature, genius, talent, and honor, have been left to the obscurity of the grave; not one of those who shared his gay and mirthful hours, who listened enraptured to his eloquence and flashes of wit, which as Hamlet says ‘were won’t to set the table in a roar,’ have endeavoured by giving to the world his literary labours, or even a sketch of his life, to preserve his memory from oblivion. Henry Cooper was the son of an eminent counsellor of Norwich, a gentleman of powerful mind, whose legal knowledge has rendered him one of the first consulting men of the day. Even at his present advanced age of near eighty, he may be seen early of a morning taking his accustomed walk, or if the weather be too severe for exercise, found in his library surrounded by his books and papers.
Raised by his own perseverance, and in a great measure self-educated, it is not to be wondered at if from such a father, the subject of our sketch, acquired those habits of perseverance and industry which enabled him by system to attain knowledge and fame in his profession.
Upon being called to the bar his convivial powers and talent for conversation introduced him to Erskine, who found so much pleasure in his society, that they became not mere friends, but inseparable companions, and plunged together in the gay round of pleasure, which the world too temptingly presents to men whose minds enable them to watch its interests and guide the machine by which society is regulated. To all who knew him, and the thoughtless life he led, it was a matter of surprise how and when he found time to attend to the numerous cases of his clients, for his field of action soon became extended; yet we will venture to pronounce and feel confident of being borne out by those who knew him, that in no one instance did the cause of the party he advocated suffer.
In the Court he appeared as well acquainted with the words of his brief, as if it had been for months the object of his most serious attention; not a thread or a link of evidence escaped him, and so persuasive was his manner, so argumentive his style of language, that the jury frequently received the impressions he wished to convey, and their feelings generally, if not their judgment, went in favour of his client. He used, on some occasions, to plead in the Norfolk Courts, and we have frequently seen him opposed to his father as a special pleader. The old gentlemen, strong in the possession of his youthful intellect, which time even to the present hour has failed to rob him of, was perhaps less assailable by his pleasing manner and florid speech than any of his brothers of the bar, and his ejaculations not always of the most complimentary nature, were sometimes loud and frequent. We have seen the son on such occasions always the first to smile at his father’s petulance, and the last to express any sense of the impropriety of the interruption. We have seen the old gentleman, in the midst of his son’s argument, write to the opposing counsel suggesting authorities and giving references and precedents against him, all with the most perfect good humour on both sides; and the greatest triumph he could boast was to defeat his son upon a point of law: on such occasions he would put his hands behind his back, and moving round with a chuckle, exclaim, “Something to learn yet, Harry!” The father’s delight and pride in his superior legal knowledge over his son, became at last a standing joke with the barristers of the Court. The death of Lord Erskine blighted Henry Cooper’s hopes to a seat in Parliament, where his eloquence and sarcasm would have made him powerful as an ally, and feared as an antagonist; liberal in his opinions to the present exclusive system of the church, he was a decided enemy, and a thorough reformer in the state. His services at a crisis like the present, would have been of incalculable benefit to his country.
From the period of the loss of his friend, till his own untimely end, he devoted himself more than he had ever before, to literary pursuits and the labours of his profession. A life of Lord Erskine was nearly arranged for the press at the time of his decease, and it is to be regretted that as yet his labours have not been given, imperfect as they are, to the world; no one could have had better opportunities or have been better calculated for the task; alike the counsellor in his difficulties, the companion of his mirthful hours, the springs of action, the feelings of his breast, must have appeared unveiled before him; Death, however, prevented the completion of his task and removed him too early from the world his talents ornamented.”
I had forgotten to say, that on his return from Bermudas he became and continued very intimate with the Cockburn family, and often prophesied the future success of the late Attorney General, now Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, then young Alexander Cockburn; and often has my brother said to me, then about sixteen, when speaking of the above family, “rely upon it, Billy, young Alexander, if he enter the profession, will do great things in it; he is a remarkably clever, energetic, and talented young man.” Henry had much of the restlessness and irritability, the usual accompaniments of a high order of talent, with great earnestness in diction and action.
Ere I proceed further; the reader will, perhaps, be pleased with a likeness of the man. I should say, in height, he was about five-feet eleven-inches; of spare and sinewy frame, with an elastic tread, that those who knew him, and seeing him in the distance, might truly say, as Ulysses of Diomede in Shakspeare’s play of “Troilus and Cressida,”
“’Tis he, I ken the manner of his gait;
That spirit of his in aspiration lifts him from the earth.”
And often have I heard the late Mr. Alderson (the father of the present judge), who travelled with my father, circuit and sessions as a provincial barrister, more than thirty years, and who was resident at Norwich, say,—“that Henry always put him more in mind of a Spirit, that a man of flesh and blood;” his eye dark, like that of Edmund Kean’s, the great actor, showed every emotion of the soul, now fiery with anger, now glazed with thought, and anon, melting into softness; his head small, and finely rounded, and covered with thick clustering curls of black crispy hair, was such as sculptors have ever loved to give the youthful Antinous;