Page:Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography Volume 1.pdf/1187

COO stations of the Rarer Plants in the vicinity of London." A supplement to the work was published in 1837. He also superintended a new edition of Bingley's Useful Knowledge.—J. H. B.  COOPER,, an eminent American novelist, was born at Burlington, New Jersey, September 15th, 1789. His father, Judge William Cooper, sat in congress in 1795 and 1801. His son passed his boyhood on an ancestral estate near Otsego Lake, New York, where he had ample opportunity of becoming acquainted with the pioneer settlers, the trappers and the Indians, the characters and the scenes, which he afterwards introduced with so much effect in his novels. After receiving a careful home education, he entered Yale college in 1802. The love of adventure and a longing for a sailor's life tempted him to leave college in 1805; and a midshipman's warrant being obtained for him, he entered the United States navy in that year, and continued in the service till 1811. This was the second school for the formation of the future novelist; here he acquired that familiarity with nautical manœuvres, with naval incidents and personages, which is so conspicuous in one class of his romances. Having obtained the rank of lieutenant, he resigned his commission in 1811, married, and established his home at Mamaroneck in West Chester county, near the city of New York. Henceforward his life was that of a private gentleman and a man of letters. He had no need to write for money, and fame always seemed of little account to him, as he never husbanded his reputation, but wrote freely and carelessly, with a full indulgence of his tastes, his whims, and, it must be confessed, of an irritable and wayward temper. After a residence of a few years, he left West Chester county, "the Neutral Ground" which was the scene of "The Spy," and made his home at Cooperstown, where his literary labours began. "Precaution" was his first work; it was published anonymously in two volumes, and passed quietly into oblivion, as it had little merit. "The Spy, a tale of the Neutral Ground," appeared in 1821, and had immediate and marked success. The writer's strength consisted chiefly in his descriptive power, and his skill as a narrator; and the plot, though it has some ill-fitted episodes, is better constructed than in any of his subsequent stories. In 1823 Cooper published "The Pioneers, or the sources of the Susquehanna," a novel evidently founded on his recollections of his early life. No one who had not lived in the backwoods could have sketched so happily the humours, occupations, and sports of an infant settlement. "The Pilot" came next, the first and best of Cooper's inimitable sea-stories, a department of his art in which he is confessedly without a rival. "Lionel Lincoln" and "The Last of the Mohicans" followed, and the last is probably the most generally popular of all the author's works. In 1827 "The Prairie" was published, and with this book closes the first and best series of Mr. Cooper's novels. He would have left a greater reputation if he had stopped here, and not written another line, though we should then have missed his most characteristic productions. In 1826 he visited Europe, and remained abroad till 1833, being very favourably received, as his works had already been translated into many languages, and acquired great popularity. "The Bravo;" "The Heidenmauer;" "The Headsman of Berne;" "Notions of the Americans, by a Travelling Bachelor" (1828, 2 vols. 12mo); "Sketches of Switzerland;" "Gleanings in Europe, France, and Italy;" "The Red Rover;" "The Water Witch," and "The Wept of the Wish Ton Wish," flowed from his fertile pen in this period of six years. Several of these works betray the acrimonious temper which, on his return home, involved Mr. Cooper in endless warfare with editors and pamphleteers. About 1845 he published a series of three novels, "Satanstoe," "The Chain Bearer," and "The Redskins." His "Naval History of the United States," 2 vols. 8vo, an able and elaborate work, appeared in 1839, and was followed by a plentiful crop of personal controversies. Two other tales, "The Path-finder" and "The Deer-slayer," were published in 1840-41. We need not give the titles of Mr. Cooper's remaining works, having already enumerated enough to give some idea of his amazing industry and perseverance. The whole list comprises thirty-three different novels, and twelve miscellaneous publications, making an aggregate of over eighty volumes; an amount of literary activity paralleled in our own day and language only by Southey and Scott. It is not difficult to anticipate the verdict of posterity upon their merits. Two-thirds of them will probably never reach the honour of a second edition, and will be remembered only among the curiosities of literature. But enough will yet remain to give their author a high rank among those who have done much to alleviate the sorrows, dissipate the ennui, and increase the stock of harmless delights of their fellow-men. Mr. Cooper was engaged upon two other works, one of history and the other of romance, when he was interrupted by fatal disease, which caused his death at Cooperstown, September 14, 1851.—Miss, the daughter of the novelist, is the author of two volumes of merit, "Rural Hours" and "The Rhyme and Reason of Country Life."—F. B.  COOPER,, an English poet, born in 1723, and died in 1769. He wrote "The Power of Harmony," a poem; "The Life of Socrates;" and "Letters on Taste." Cooper takes but an inconsiderable rank among English poets, and is now chiefly remembered by his beautiful song of "Winifreda."—R. M., A.  COOPER,, born at Greenwich in 1790, was for several years a popular lecturer on chemistry in London, and teacher of the same science at the Aldersgate Street school of medicine. The following are the most important of his scientific investigations—"On some Combinations of Platina;" "Analysis of Zinc Ores;" "On Catechuic Acid;" "On the Baroscope;" and "On the Ancient Ruby Glass." He died in 1854.—F. P.  COOPER,, an eminent English miniature painter, was born in London in 1609. He was the first English painter that attained remarkable excellence in miniature painting. "If a glass could expand Cooper's pictures to the size of Vandyck's," wrote Walpole, "they would appear to have been painted for that proportion." He resided for many years in France and Holland, but died in London on the 25th May, 1672.—W. T.  COOPER,, a distinguished surgeon, who for nearly fifty years occupied positions of honour and responsibility in his profession. He was born in the year 1780, and died on the 2d December, 1848, in the sixty-eighth year of his age. He joined the College of Surgeons in 1803, and was appointed a member of the council in 1827. In 1845 he was elected president of the Royal College of Surgeons. He was a fellow of the Royal Society, and a member of the council. In early life Mr Cooper entered the army, and was raised to the rank of staff-surgeon. For many years he was surgeon to the Queen's Bench prison, and consulting surgeon to the Bloomsbury dispensary. For the long period of seventeen years Mr. Cooper held the office of professor of surgery in University college, London. As a teacher Mr. Cooper was greatly esteemed, as a friend and counsellor he was beloved. His "Surgical Dictionary," a library in itself, will long be considered a great and valuable work of reference. The "First Lines of Surgery," an epitome of the "Dictionary," was for many years the text-book in all medical schools.—E. L.  COOPER or COUPER,, an English prelate, born about the year 1517, and died in 1594. He was educated at Oxford, and, after practising medicine for some years, entered the church. He became bishop of Lincoln in 1570. Cooper wrote, besides several other things, "An Admonition to the People of England," in which he defended the bishops against the famous pamphlet published under the name of Martin Mar-Prelate.  COOTE,, was born in the latter part of the sixteenth century, and came at an early age to Ireland from Devonshire, where his family had long been settled. He served under Mountjoy in the war against Tyrone, and was soon advanced in his profession, receiving in 1616 knighthood, in 1620 being created a privy councillor, and in the following year a baronet of Ireland. On the breaking out of the Irish rebellion in 1641, Coote was despatched to relieve the castle of Wicklow, but was shortly recalled to defend Dublin. His administration was characterized with vigour, but at the same time with horrible severity. In April Coote was sent with six troops of horse to the relief of Birr, where he exhibited extraordinary valour, coolness, and skill, accomplishing what Cox describes as "the prodigious passage through Montrath woods," for which the earldom of Montrath was conferred on his son. After assisting Ormonde at the battle of Kilrush, Coote proceeded with Lord Lisle to the aid of Lady Offaley, who, though sixty-four years old, bravely shut her gates against the rebels, and defended her castle of Geashill till relieved by the royalist forces. Coote had now to go through a difficult and dangerous district to the relief of Philipstown; the defile, however, was passed in safety, Philipstown taken, and the royalists marched on Trim on the 7th of May, 1642. At night the rebels, to the number of three <section end="1187Zcontin" />