Page:Two Sussex archaeologists, William Durrant Cooper and Mark Antony Lower.djvu/20

 destroying the old register, saying it was of no use;" and he recollected also, "when a little boy, the parish clerk of another parish saying, that the clergyman used to direct his pheasants with the parchment of the old registers." And he was wont to relate that, once, when he went to make a search, the first sight that caught his eye, on entering the parsonage house, was a little boy riding cock-horse across a walking-cane, with a parchment cap on his head, made from a leaf of the Register. It cannot be concealed that among some of the old-school "clerics," and their deputies, Mr. Cooper's popularity was not increased by his denunciation of their disregard of the sacredness of their trust in this respect.

Emulating from the outset the conduct of his father and great-uncle, he at once heartily espoused the principles of the Liberal Party, and soon became associated with its local leaders, and no one, who was at all intimate with him, will require to be told that he became a most energetic participator in the numerous election contests of his time. He acquired so great a proficiency in election law as to be regarded as a safe authority therein, and always displaying great courage and talent, he generally won the applause of his opponents, even when they were on the losing side. Indeed, his old friend, and, practically, his first legal tutor, Mr. John Smith, then the managing clerk to Cooper père, and now the veteran actuary of the Lewes Savings' Bank, always lamented his pupil's too eager devotion to the interests of his party, as he thereby barred the way to that degree of pecuniary independence to which, with a less prominent intermingling in electioneering strife, his unquestionable talents and persevering habits would have conducted him. But, like Milton, his inborn predilections and too pronounced opinions would not allow him to

In or about the year 1837, Mr. Cooper went permanently to reside in London, chiefly, it is believed, at the invitation of the late Sir John Easthope, Bart. who