his forehead retreating was characteristic, as Lavater says, “of genius;” his nose was slightly arched in the centre and slightly fleshy near the nostrils; his face oval, with a well defined chin and a mouth plain, but full of energy and expression, and similar to Sterne’s, the contour, of whose face I always thought my brother’s much resembled. I have thus given, to please the lover of physiognomy, “a shadow portrait,” not “a Myall’s photograph,” which I hope will not only satisfy the physiognomist, but which I think they, who but even slightly remember Henry Cooper, have but to place before the tablet of their memory and view the shade cast from it with their “mind’s eye” to at once recall and recognize the original. I have thus sketched his likeness, as I regret to say, thus only can he be now known, or viewed by those who were unacquainted with him living, as no portrait of him is extant, he dying young, and for years previous struggling to succeed in a profession where the “battle is not always to the strong,” though in the long run the best man often succeeds, as with few exceptions, perhaps, the long race, barring accidents, is usually won by the best horse. He left no writings behind him save a few letters, beautifully expressed, but mostly relating to family matters, and, therefore, uninteresting to the general reader, with the exception of five or six preserved by my mother, which I will give the reader ere I have ended this biographical sketch; and the few friends with whom he corresponded, and to whom, occasionally, he showed, and gave the productions of his pen, though they considered him a man of considerable talent, set such small value on his effusions, that, however, pleased at the time they might have been with them
they were put aside forgotten and most probably destroyed, and what he himself chanced to write and was pleased with for the instant, was, from the natural carelessness of his disposition, hastily cast aside, and, no doubt, often burnt with the waste paper of his chambers; so that every endeavour I have made to possess even a shred of these scraps, has been futile. All I have been able to gather are the few letters alluded to, with a few poetical lines which will be given to the reader; and, as we often judge of character from trifles, he must, from the slight sketch I have given, and the small crumbs I have been able to collect, form a judgment of him I have endeavoured to describe. He had all but reached the height of his profession, when he was taken away, no doubt for a wise purpose, to the deep and lasting regret of those who not only fondly loved him, but who had begun to take, and no wonder, a warm pride in the object of their affections.
He died on September 19th, 1824, having been attacked some days previous by a severe attack of diarrhœa, which, by some fatal mischance, was mistaken by the surgeons who attended him, for brain fever; he was, consequently, bled, and drastic medicines were administered, which must have hastened if they did not cause his death, which happened at the house of a friend of his, by the name of Hill, at Chelsea, where he was buried, but his body was afterwards removed by his sister and deposited where it now lies, near his father’s in the cloisters of Norwich Cathedral.
I will now lay before the reader the few letters I possess. By the letters of an ingenuous writer, it is said, you can gain a clearer insight into his character, disposition, and mental powers, than by long association or familiar
discourse; these letters have been kindly given me by my mother, with whom Henry constantly corresponded, and whom he always treated with marked respect and affection, which was fully reciprocated. They were addressed to her at Norwich, where she with my father resided, and the first bears date,
London, 3rd Nov. 1815.
“My Dear Madam,
“And it came to pass that when they emptied their sacks, lo! ev’ry man’s money was in the mouth of his sack.” I have had the same measure from you which Joseph’s liberality heaped on his brethren; and if you will but believe that my proposal to you, to be allowed to be a purchaser of half the preserved raspberry, was not a covert mode of begging it as a gift; I thank you without any regret, and am very much obliged to you. I thank you, too, very much for the pheasant which flew into the window of the mail coach, and startled me in St. Stephen’s Street. George, who is a good lad, had put on his best legs, and soon overtaking the mail, threw it in ‘sans ceremonie.’ It was a pleasant disturbance from no very pleasant reverie, which my mind set out on the moment the coach set out from the inn; and which would, but for this agreeable interruption, have lasted me at least as long as the first stage. For the rest of the good things which you gave me while I was in Norwich, and sent me laden away with, I must thank you en masse; for to thank you one by one for them, would force me to write a long letter, which I have not the least intention in the world of doing. I was outside the mail, and for a long way the only passenger. We learned at Newmarket, that the coachman, who drove the coach, which was overturned the preceding night, lay very much hurt. His viscera are bruised, and his only chance of life is in cool veins well emptied by the lancet. ’Tis right that he on whose care the safety of others depends should be most prominently exposed to the danger of ill conduct or neglect; I wish heartily that this liability could be transferred from those who sit on the coach box, to those who sit in the cabinet and hold the reins of the hard driven state! we should then have had more peace and less taxes. Ask Mr. Samuel Cooper
At Chesterford your friend, Mr. Smith, the representative for Norwich, took the mail; and after a nap, talked very unrestrainedly with me on the present state of France, on Buonaparte, the criminal law, and the wisdom of the Justices at sessions. I was determined—like Horace’s whetstone, which can sharpen other things, though blunt itself, to put an edge on him—to say something deep and decisive on some of the subjects, but I got nothing from him but working-day talk. Perhaps (like the character with the Greek name in the Rambler, who tells his guest, showing him his fine things, that they were only brought into service when persons of consequence visited him) he disdained to pull out his best to me, yet I rather judge that he is only clever to the party at Norwich; and as Oberon, though but six inches high, is yet tall for a fairy, he is a great Apollo to the blue and whites [the colours of the liberal party at Norwich]. For corroboration of any opinion of theirs, I should always, like the Recorder of London, think it right to ask the cook.
There’s my letter, a type of the miracle of the creation and the lie to the great Epicurean maxim, that ‘Nothing can be made out of nothing;’ for as one of those, that, as the song runs, ‘None can love like,’ would exclaim, ‘by Jasus, I had not a word to say, and yet I have spoke three whole pages!’
My duty to my father, and if you please, my best regards to Mrs. Watson [my mother’s sister], on condition she has no more hysterics; and that is, as she pleases, more than perhaps she is aware of. She is not naturally melancholy, and may soon accustom her mind to like hope better than remembrance. My best love to Harriet [his sister], I should, as I promised her, have written to her if I had not written to you, but one letter will serve both; pray assure her how grateful I am to her for all her anxious care and attention to me; I will not even allow that Charles [his eldest brother, who was then the secretary to Sir James Cockburn at Bermudas] loves her more than I, or esteems her more, or will be more glad (as I told him in my letter) than I was to see that she was better in health than she had been for years; ’twill make him happy indeed, for the possibility of losing her is alarming to him, and if she were to die, he would be most inconsolable; yet his grief would not be more than mine, nor would he be more ready to exclaim,—
‘I, nunc; et, numina non posse nega’
which, as you are a lady, I translate for you, ‘go now and say, that angels cannot die.’ But you must not read this to her, for she will absurdly say ’tis flattery, as if I could have any motive to flatter her.
My love to Will [meaning myself]. He is so much improved as to be an engaging boy, and I begin to like him very much.
I am, dear Madam,
Yours very faithfully,
HENRY COOPER.P.S.—If Mr. Boardman [an old friend of his] should call, pray remember me most particularly to him. He has long behaved to me with the affection of a brother. He has even, in no few instances, preferred my interests to his own. I am most deeply obliged to him, and I like to tell people of it.”
The next letter bears date,—
London, 31st Dec. 1815.
To the same,—
“I send you the only coin I have, my very warm thanks for one of the finest and best turkeys that entered the metropolis to be devoured in celebration and honour of Christmas. A Christian of the utmost degree of faith, that is as great as you ladies place in physicians, who devoured with a devout and religious pique, could not have eaten more or with more pleasure than I, though I sat down with no other zeal than an hungry appetite, and little better than a mere heathen stomach. When I reflected that you good people at Norwich were rioting on just such a dinner (upon my honour), I could not help blushing for your preposterous consciences, that, could expect to enjoy so much pleasure in this world, and be saved in the next too. ’Tis well for me that no one offered to bet with me, that the pheasants did not come from you; but, I pray, do not think of returning me the thanks, which I paid for them. They are all due, and a vast sum more on the old account, though you, like a liberal creditor, may have no idea of urging the payment of the balance against me, and I beg they may be carried to it. I had almost forgotten to add Alfred’s thanks to mine for the turkey [he was the youngest brother, who was an ensign in the 14th Foot, and had been wounded in the recent battle]. He was here in time, and made a dinner that contrasts rather vividly with his first meal after the battle of Waterloo, on a slice of old cow that they shot with their muskets, and tore to pieces, without giving themselves a moment’s pause to reflect whether the Bramin’s might not be the true religion. But I must not anticipate any part of his narrative to you, and Harriet, as to another Dido and Anna, of all he has seen, done, and suffered, throughout which he has been, like the French poets (Grissets) famous parrot, quite as unfortunate as Æneas, and a great deal more pious. In other respects, indeed, you’ll not find him like that bird; he’ll not give you his adventures with the gratuitous loquacity of poor Poll. In this he’d rather resemble the bullfinch; you must give out the tune to him, and chirrup with questions to him before he will pipe his strain to you; and when I consider the vast difficulty which the natural taciturnity of you ladies places you under of asking questions, I feel for your curiosity in its tight stays excessively. On this occasion, perhaps, where the motive is so strong, you will break through your native restraint; and, therefore, I advise you to have your interrogatories ready by the 8th of January, 1816, when Alfred, who means to accompany me, will be in Norwich. I am very grateful to you for your benevolent wishes of prosperity and happiness to me, but they fall on a heart dead to expectation. I have been so long in obscurity, that hope has quite left off visiting me; the best years of my life are gone; and what is my condition? Depressed spirits, and ill health; and the way as far as I can see before me, no better, nay worse than the lengths behind. What right have I to hope? The ring and the lamp of the Arabian tales must cease to be fiction, before I can have any chance of good fortune. But I do not call for pity. If I have not learned to be skilful in parrying and eluding the blows of Adversity, from experience, I am at heart somewhat hardened by long subjection, and habituation to them; and, if I have not the soothing of Hope, I am not altogether without the consolation of Philosophy. The happy must substract from his happiness the frequent reflection, which comes like a cloud over him, that death will snatch him from all his blessings. The wretched finds relief in the certainty that death will end his misery; therefore, that state is not very enviable, nor this intolerable. Both will soon, very soon be past, and small, indeed, is the difference between past pleasure and past pain. Be assured, madam, that I, in return, as warmly wish you prosperity and happiness; I wish not only that the approaching, but many succeeding years, may have both hands full of plenty and delight for you; and I trust that it is not so unreasonable in you to believe, that future events may give a character of prophecy to my present wishes, as it would be in me to expect the fulfilment of yours.
Pray, have the goodness to tell my father, that the vol. of Pickering, from Priestleys, is procured, and that the copy of the Manuel Libraire, at Longman’s is still to be sold at four guineas. Pray, make my thanks to him for letting me know the day of the sessions at Norwich; I shall be present to help to do the nothing there. I suppose he knows that the Corporation of Yarmouth have elected Mr. W---, to the stewardship. I hear him say ‘How stupid of them to elect that fellow.’ I beg his pardon; it shewed exquisite judgment; and yet, after all, there was somewhat of a felicity in it. They thought it would be deserting propriety to have a man in the lower office of steward of higher understanding than their Recorder. Now, under all the fleecy cloud of wigs that lowers in the court of King’s Bench, they could not have found a second rate head to A---s, but that of W---d, and nothing but ‘a lucky hit of nature’ that mended her design when she was determined to make as thick a skull as she had ever yet turned out of her hands, could have given existence even to this instance of inferiority. He says he was quite ignorant of their intention of the honour that has been done him. If this be not affectation, I can imagine nothing with which to compare or illustrate his surprise, except that which must have come over the onion, when it discovered that the Egyptians had made a God of it. I am wrong: surprise is the effect of perception and he has none; his is like the genuine night, that admits no ray, and in his very stupidity he is involved from the least glimmering of consciousness of it. Pray, lessen the anxiety of Harriet, which an unmerited affection for me betrays her into, by telling her that I am getting better, and excuse the want of turn to the conclusion of my letter in the want of paper; and allow me abruptly to assure you that, I am, dear Madam,
Yours most faithfully,
HENRY COOPER.”