What caused you L---, to rush in,
Through thick and thin, to give your Queen a splashing
For this your party, to the devil gave you,
And yet the rav'nous Tories will not have you.
So in that country (where with hopes you fool
Your second infancy, you yet shall rule)
A sect of devotees there is who tell ye
The way to heaven is through a fish's belly;
And in the surges, on a certain day,
They give themselves to rav'nous sharks a prey.
Among the rest, an ancient beldame went,--
Weak, wither'd, wrinkled, tawny, tough, and bent
(Your very self in breeches she would be,
Put on her petticoats, and you were she);
She waded in the water to her haunches,
Hoping the sharks would pass her through their paunches;
But out of fifty, not a shark would have her,
Tho' she implored them, as a special favour;
They came and smelt, and did not like her savour,
She threw their stomachs into such commotion,
They would not even bear her in the ocean.
But down they pushed her--roll'd her o'er and o'er,
And shovel'd with their snouts again to shore;
Alike your fate: to be by sharks abhorr'd
Was her's, and your's by Minister's old _Lord_.
* * * * *
In the _Chronicle_ of September 27th, 1824, appeared the following notice
of my brother's death, headed:--"Death of Henry Cooper.--We regret to
have to announce the death of a gentleman warmly beloved by all who knew
him, Mr. Henry Cooper the barrister. He died on Sunday the 19th, at the
cottage of his friend, Mr. Hill, of Chelsea, after a short illness which
brought on an inflammation in his bowels that proved fatal; he was
interred on Friday last.
"Mr. Cooper had overcome the difficulties of his profession, and was
rising fast into eminence. He was already leader on the Norfolk circuit,
and with his readiness, his powerful memory, and his forcible and fluent
delivery, the most distinguished success was universally anticipated for
him: his vein of pleasantry was particularly rich, as an instance we may
refer to a case on the very last circuit in which a hairdresser of
Newmarket was one of the parties, and which he made irresistibly amusing.
We appeal confidently to those of our readers who have attentively
considered the signs of the times, if there was not much distrust of the
bar about the period when Mr. Henry Cooper came into notice, and if he
did not by his exertions contribute greatly to remove it.
"He had been sometime employed procuring materials for a life of Lord
Erskine, with whom he was particularly intimate, which he had undertaken
to write; we suspect he had not made much progress in the work when death
erminated all his labour."
The next notice of his death is taken from the _Gentleman's Magazine_,
from July to December, 1824; vol. 94, part 2.--"On the 19th of September,
1824, at Chelsea, Henry Cooper, barrister-at-law, in the vigour of life
and with every prospect of reaching the highest honors in his profession.
The death of this rising barrister has been recorded in page 381 [as
above]. He died of inflammation of the bowels, at the house of his
friend, Mr. Hill, at Chelsea. His age was about thirty-eight or thirty-
nine, and he had been about twelve years at the bar. He was the son of a
counsel of eminence residing at Norwich. He went to sea with Lord
Nelson, and was present at the battle of the Nile, but he early quitted
the naval profession for that of the law, though he retained much of the
frankness and gaiety of manner which distinguish seamen, and the activity
and strength of frame which a seaman's habits create. He was afterwards
Attorney General of the Bermudas, at the time when one of the Cockburn's
was governor. On the appointment of the late Mr. Serjeant Blossett to
the Chief Justiceship of Bengal, Mr. Cooper, who was then rapidly rising
on his circuit (the Norfolk) became one of the leaders; and at the two
last assizes, was in every cause.
"He possessed great activity and versatility of mind; no one, according
to the testimony of those who saw most of him, combined with a fluent and
powerful eloquence, a better judgment and nicer skill in conducting a
cause. But his best and highest forensic quality, and that which,
combined with his talents, make the loss a national one, was his great
moral and professional courage, his unshaken attachment to what he
considered a good cause. No consideration ever warped him from his duty.
He was proof not merely against those speculations on the best probable
means of personal advancement which many men reject as well as he did,
but against that desire of standing well with the judges, of getting the
ear of the judge, of obtaining the sympathy of men of professional
standing, which it requires much more firmness to resist; there was no
one on whom a defendant exposed to the enmity of government, or to the
judges, or to any prejudices, could rely with greater certainty; that he
would not be compromised or betrayed by his advocate. In a word, there
was no man less of a sycophant. He had a confidence that he could make
himself a name by his own merits, and he would have it.
"But the fair guerdon when we hope to find,
Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears
And slits the thin spun life."
The following verses, soon after my brother's death, headed, "On the
death of Henry Cooper, Esq.," appeared in the provincial papers; they
were composed by my mother, and had not only the tacit consent of all,
but the universal praise, and that openly expressed, for their spirit and
truthfulness which all felt, for all then knew and admired him they
mourned.
The pride of the Circuit is gone,
The eloquent tongue is at rest;
The spirit so active is flown,
And still lies the quick heaving breast.
The mind so gigantic and strong,
Is vanish'd like vapour or breath;
And the fire that shone in his eye,
Is quenched by the cold hand of death.
Yet a balm to his friends shall arise,
That so soon he acquired a name;
For he dropp'd like a star from the skies,
Untarnished in lustre or fame.
The following verses also, on the death of my brother, appeared in the
provincial papers, and were written by Frederic Wing, Esq., attorney-at-
law, residing at Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, and headed, "On the death of
the late Henry Cooper."
"Ye friends of talent, genius, hither come,
And bend with fond regret o'er Cooper's tomb;
Closed are those lips, and pow'rless that tongue,
On whose swift accents you've delighted hung.
Cold is that heart,--unthinking now, the brain,
But late the seat of thought's mysterious train,
For by the stern, relentless hand of death,
Is stopt the inspiring, animating breath:
And he whose powers of rhetoric all could charm,
Fail'd to arrest the Tyrant's conquering arm.
Cooper,--Farewell!--
Transient, yet splendid, was thy short career,
Unfading laurels twine thy early bier.
To mourn thy exit, how can we refrain,
For seldom shall we see thy like again!
Who, to deep learning, and the soundest sense,
Join'd the rare gift of matchless eloquence.
Thy wit most keen, thy penetration clear,
Thy satire poignant, made corruption fear.
And such thy knowledge of the human heart,
So prompt to see, and to unmask each art.
Oppression shrunk abash'd, while innocence
Call'd thee her champion--her sure defence.
Once more, farewell, long shall thy name be dear,
And oft shall Independence drop a tear
Of grateful memory o'er departed worth,
And selfish, wish thee back again to earth.
To abide the important issue of that cause,
Fix'd not by mortal, but celestial laws,
Thou'rt summon'd hence, may'st thou not plead in vain,
But from our Heavenly Judge acceptance gain,
And sure admittance to those courts on high,
Where term and time are lost in blest eternity.
APPENDIX.
THE LIFE OF LORD ERSKINE.
AS COMMENCED BY MY BROTHER
Thomas Erskine, the only advocate, and, almost, the only orator, whose
speeches are likely to survive the interest of the occasion that gave
them birth in a country, where forensic litigation abounds, and political
institutions render the study and exercise of eloquence important and
necessary, was born on the in --- the year 175, at ---, in Scotland; he
was the third son of the Earl of Buchan, by ---. This family is ancient,
and connects, with its pedigree, the sovereigns, both of Scotland and
England, related to the former. The marriage of the daughter of James
the First with the Palatine, mixed his line with the descendants, and,
consequently, united him with the family that now reigns in England. He
thus brought with him to the profession of the bar, the advantage of all
the prejudice in favour of illustrious descents, and found easier way
yielded to his powerful talents by the diminution of envy which attended
it.
Of his very early years, I am unable to supply the public with any
information, and I regret it,--not that any very important lesson of
utility can be derived from the anecdotes of childhood, but they are
amusing, and amusing without harm; and I agree with Dr. West that he has
a very imperfect knowledge of human nature who is not convinced, that in
a state of refined society, it is impossible to amuse innocently. All
that I have been able to learn distinctly, is, that the most playful
vivacity, and the same good humour, which ever after accompanied him even
in the keenest rivalry of the bar, displayed itself in his words and
actions, and made him the delight of all, but those who morose and
splenetic, from their own disgust of existence, conceive offence at
others for that enjoyment of the present, which can only subsist upon
ignorance, and the hope of the future that MUST BE disappointed. To this
vivacity, he, perhaps, owed as much as to those endowments, which are
deemed more solid qualifications for the bar. It imparted itself to his
eye, his mouth, his tone, and his action, and held his hearers engaged,
when his periods were such as pronounced by an ordinary speaker, would
not have preserved the audience from that listnessness, which is
instantly seen and felt by the speaker, and soon adds embarrassment and
confusion to feebleness. In private society, to the last months of his
existence, it gave him rather the air of a youth inexperienced in the
realities of life, and entering it under the ardour of hope, than of a
man who had almost reached the limits of human existence, in the exercise
of a profession, which lays the human breast naked to inspection. It was
said of Pope, from his primitive habits of reflection and gravity, that
he was never young; and, on the contrary, it may be said with equal
justice, from the playfulness and vivacity of Erskine, that he was never
old. At the age of he entered the navy as a midshipman, and served in
the ---, commanded by Captain ---, in America. While in this station he
was employed in making a survey under one of the lieutenants of the ship,
off the coast of Florida. He had some acquaintance with geometry; and,
as he tells us himself in his "Armata," always retained a fondness for
that science. Whether this fondness grew in acquiring the knowledge of
navigation, indispensable to his profession, or subsequently at the
university in which it forms so much the greater part of education, I am
ignorant; but that he was versed to a degree both in geometry and
astronomy, is evident, from the work I have named, and some pieces of his
poetry, which I have had access to. The cause that led him to leave the
navy and enter the army is unknown; it is most likely to have been
disgust and impatience of the subordination, which in our fleets is rigid
in the extreme, and never softened by that alternation of social
intercourse, at a common table at which in the army, all the officers of
the regiment meet daily, and from which they rise with a feeling, not
only that insulting and overbearing command upon duty would be a
violation of an implied pledge of kindness, but injury to themselves, as
diminishing in the gloom that would spread over their next meeting, the
common stock of enjoyment. The condition of our naval service is, in
some respects, improved since Erskine was a member of it; but then all
knowledge beyond that of the conduct of a ship, was deemed unnecessary,
impertinent, and even adverse to the attainment of nautical skill. The
intercourse of the officers even on the shore, was confined almost
entirely to one another, for not to speak of the uncouthness of their
habits, which made them as incapable of mingling in society on land, as
the beings of their element on which their avocation lay, are of living
in the air, their language was technical to a degree that rendered it to
all, except themselves, almost unintelligible. With such persons for
companions, and to use Terence's expression, quotidian and tedious
sameness of a life at sea, we need look no further for Erskine's desire
to change his profession. When we consider the great capacity which he
possessed for observation, and his extraordinary power of combining the
knowledge that he so acquired, the period which he gave to the naval
service must have been, to a spirit so active, a period of painful
constraints. I remember that in a conversation upon Lord Erskine, with
Mr. Capel Loft, after enumerating the many great causes in which the
great advocate had been engaged, he exclaimed, "what an infinite
multitude of ideas must have passed through that man's mind." The remark
is not an empty one; I doubt whether there ever was a man who exercised
the faculty of reasoning more, who drew a greater number of distinct
conclusions, or whose materials of thought were more the collection and
property of his own observation. Cicero, in his speech for Archias,
appeals to the judges whether he could possibly supply the demands upon
him for daily exertions of eloquence, unless he assidiously refreshed his
mind with studies, in which he was assisted by Archias and other
rhetoricians, and that he read copiously is manifested in all his works.
The accomplished academician, the able balancer of the different schools
of philosophy and morals, and the studied Rhetor is obtruded upon us. He
was, in every sense of the term, learned; Erskine, on the contrary,
cannot be discovered by any of his speeches, or writings, to have read
much, and most probably had read very little. He was in no sense of the
word learned. He has, indeed by acuteness of observation, vigour of
combination, and the ready power of deduction that he possessed, been
able to produce and leave behind him what will become the learning of
others, but he was not learned himself. His qualities, from his earliest
years were quickness and acuteness, unchecked and insatiable curiosity,
retentive memory, and busy reflection; his mind was never still. In the
coffee-room he conversed and indulged in humour with all round him.
However important or heavy the causes which were to occupy him in court,
they never oppressed his mind with a load of anxiety; his was not like
ordinary minds under great affairs, so absorbed that he could perceive
nothing round him; his, till the hour of solemn exertion arrived, was
disengaged and indulged in pleasantry; after the toil of the day, the
passion of eloquence and the intensity of technical argument, he was full
of spirits and waggery at dinner and in the evening. And light as his
topics sometimes were, his thoughts were always distinct, and his
expressions full; you never from him heard any imperfect thoughts
expressed, that (like tadpoles, before they are complete, must go through
other processes of animation) required the exertion of your own
conceptions to attain their sense and spirit. The activity of his mind
was like that of the swallow, which either in sport or pursuit is upon
the wing for ever. With this character it may readily be believed that
young Erskine received his discharge with feelings like those that attend
the cessation of a long and painful disease from a state which called for
no exercise of his great talents, and, neither yielded scope for the
communication of his own attainments nor opportunity to increase them
from the communications of others.
He became an ensign of the Royals and married not long after. He was
sent with his corps to the Mediterranean, and stationed either with his
regiment or a detachment of his regiment, at Minorca; there, under the
influence of an ardent feeling of religion, which he owed to the anxious
inculcations of his mother, from whom he received the rudiments of
education, he is said in the absence of the chaplain, to have composed
more than one sermon, and to have delivered them to the assembled
officers and privates of his regiment. It never occurred to me to ask
him whether there was truth in this report; but he has frequently talked
to me of anecdotes which were circulated of him, some of which he
confirmed while he contradicted others, and never spoke of this as
unfounded; from my knowledge of his character it is highly probable, and
I believe it is true. About three years ago he was at Tunbridge Wells
with Mr. Coutts, and while there, pointed out to a friend of mine a
building, and said, "There, when it was a public room, I preached a
sermon of my own composition to the company;" this was for a wager. He
returned to England in 17-- with his regiment, the father of three
children. The anxiety of his mother, whose affections and care for her
family rendered her most estimable, and have endeared her memory to her
descendants, was excited by Thomas, who had nothing but his pay for the
support of his wife and his children, likely soon to become more
numerous. Her prudence suggested to her another profession for him by
the gains of which he might avoid the destitution which she saw hanging
over his head. With this design, she sent for Mr. Adam, the barrister
(now the Commissioner of the Scotch jury courts), that she might receive
the assistance of his experience and advice. On his arrival she said,
"My son Tom has been thoughtless enough to marry a woman without fortune,
and she has brought him a family which he cannot support himself, nor I
for him,--what is to be done? And I have been thinking that he must sell
his commission, go to the bar, and be Lord Chancellor." It is
interesting to reflect, that while this excellent woman was endeavouring
to conceal the bitterness of an affectionate mother's anguish for her
son's imprudence, she was unconsciously pronouncing a prophecy. Nor will
it be less to see how trifling an event would have prevented its
accomplishment; Mr. Adam told her that there were a great many steps from
the entrance of the profession and the very high rank which she purposed,
many of which he should be happy to congratulate her son on attaining.
The conference proceeded, the obstacles to success at the bar were
weighed against the certainty of domestic calamities if he remained in
his present profession, and they parted, both of opinion, that in the
direction of the bar, Thomas Erskine was most likely to leave behind his
present embarrassment and reach prosperity. It remained, however, to
procure the consent of her son; that was not easy: he had no predilection
for the bar, and was attached to the army, and his regiment, to the
officers of which his sprightly and amiable manners had endeared him, and
in which he was soliciting promotion and expecting it. At last, however,
his conditional consent was drawn from him. He agreed to let his mother
dispose of him as she wished, if he should be unsuccessful in his
application for the vacant captaincy in the Royals. This was far from
satisfying his mother, but he was peremptory, and she could not induce
him to more positive terms; thus, if Erskine could have gained the rank
of captain in the Royals, the destination of which was, then, an American
colony, by which he might have gained the privilege of being scalped by
the savages, or perishing in the swamps or forests of North America, the
country would never have known that splendid eloquence, which is its
boast and its pride; Tooke, Thelwall, Hardy, and the rest of those
unfortunate men who were held so long under the terror of death, would
probably have been hanged, and the country oppressed by a gloomy
precedent of constructive treason, under which no man who has raised
himself in opposition to a corrupt and sinister government could have
been safe; one is inclined to shudder, like a man whom a shot has missed
only by the breadth of a hair, in contemplating how near so much danger
was incurred, and so much benefit lost. But it is not on the magnitude,
but continuity of the chain, that great results depend; on examining the
past, we shall find that as small a link struck out at one point or other
of succession, would have disappointed the most important events of
history. Happily for Erskine and his country, his claims from the merit
of his services were eluded, and though he was more urgent in his
applications, since the alternative was to be the bar, he was refused
promotion. There was a singular coincidence in the fortune of the late
Lord Chatham and Erskine: the former was sent into parliament and driven
into violent opposition to Sir Robert Walpole, because that minister had
deprived him of a company of horse, and dismissed him the service, an act
of which the minister had reason to repent. He was like the emblem of
envy with the recoiled dart in his own bosom; except Charles I., who
stopped Hampden and Cromwell from embarking upon the Thames to follow
liberty into the wilderness of America, no man had ever so much reason to
curse himself for his own acts. In the same manner a slight of Erskine's
claims to promotion sent him to display an eloquence that had never yet
been heard at the English bar. His fame as an advocate, drew the notice
of the Whig party on him; he was enlisted in their ranks and added an
importance to the opposition, which not unfrequently increased the
embarrassment of the minister. While he was held in suspense by those
who had the disposal of commissions, he was quartered at Maidstone, and
entering the court during the assizes there, was placed in his military
uniform upon the bench, beside the great Lord Mansfield, to whom he was
distantly related, and who at intervals of business, conversed with him
on the proposed change of arms for the gown. This was another of the
accidents which, by minds of a certain frame would be regarded as an
omen. After relating this anecdote, he added, "Only four years from that
time, I was at the place in the lead of that very circuit." All his
hopes of promotion at an end, the commission so unequal to the demands
for subsistance upon it, was disposed of, and he was at once entered a
student of the Law Society of Lincoln's Inn, and a Commoner at ---
College, Cambridge
* * * * *
A few days before he was called to the bar, a friend came and invited him
to accompany him to dine at the villa of a wine merchant, a few miles
from London. The allurements were a good dinner, and wine not to be
procured but by a dealer, who could cull his own stock from thousands of
pipes, and they were not to be resisted by a young man fond of pleasure,
to whom such luxuries must come gratuitously, if they come at all.
Economy, which was important to Erskine, was not quite beneath the regard
of his friend, and after many proposals of several modes of conveyance,
which were all rejected, either for their expense, or their humbleness,
they agreed to walk; I have heard playful exertions of the mind or body
attributed to what was denominated an excessive flow of animal spirits, a
phrase that sounds significantly in the ear, but gives no information to
the understanding. Those who use it, mean, I suppose, to express that
when the body has received more nutriment than is necessary to promote
its growth, or maintain it the redundancy is thrown off in almost
involuntary exertions of the limbs or of mind. If this physiology be
just, Erskine had an extraordinary surplus of supply,--that regular
discharge like the back water of a mill, and it found vent in various
gambols and effusions of humour on the way to the wine merchant's. While
Erskine, buoyed by high health and ardent hope, scarcely felt the ground
that he trod, the sight of a ditch by the side of the road, tempted him
to exercise his agility. The impulse, and obedience to the impulse, were
the same. He made the attempt, but the ditch was too wide for his
spring, and he leaped a little short of the opposite bank. His dress
above was splashed with foul water, and his legs booted in mud. Nothing
was to be done on his part but to return, and his companion with a
kindness that does him honour, would have returned with him, but this,
Erskine was too generous to allow; and while his friend continued his
journey to the wine merchant's house and sumptuous dinner, Erskine
solitary and in pain (for he had severely sprained his leg) returned to
town; on reaching his lodgings Mrs. Erskine proposed a change of dress,
and urged him yet to go to dinner at the wine merchant's. He objected
his lameness from the sprain, which she answered by proposing a coach and
the expense, which he hinted, was not to be weighed against the benefit
he might derive from the friends which his manners and spirits were
likely to make him in the mixed and numerous company he would meet there.
This was a consideration so important to a young man on the verge of the
bar, that Erskine's disinclination was overcome by these reasonings of
his wife. A coach was procured, and he again set out, but he did not
arrive till dinner was half over, and found himself placed by this
accident by the side of Captain Bailey, of Greenwich Hospital. With the
modesty which is always united with true genius, Lord Erskine always
spoke of this event as the greatest instance of good fortune which ever
befel him. But for this, he said to me, "I might have waited years for
an opportunity to show that I had any talent for the bar; and when it
occurred I should not have pleaded with such effect, depressed and
mortified as I might have been by long expectation, and its attendant
evils, instead of seizing it with all the energy and confidence of youth
elated with hope." I record this to show how little he was actuated by
arrogance or presumption; I by no means assent to his opinion, on the
contrary, I think he would have waited a very short time for occasion to
exert his prominent talents. He slipt from high ground into the
profession. His rank would have drawn notice upon him, and he had
friends full of eagerness, and not altogether without power. No more is
the partiality which, it is said, was manifestly shown him by Lord
Mansfield, to be deemed a main cause of his success. On the contrary I
am so little inclined to attribute such an effect to it, that I believe
even the hostility of the bench could not have kept Erskine from rising.
His mind was not of the ordinary mould,--he was excited by obstacles.
Such was his temperament, that the damp slight of discouragement which
would have quenched common spirits, by the ardour of his mind would have
been converted into fuel, and have increased the splendour with which he
burst forth at once at the English bar. How was the delay of
opportunity, or the frown of the judge to suppress the eloquence whose
first essay excelled, both in matter and delivery, the latest efforts of
the most experienced speakers in our courts? when he rose Dunning,
Bearcroft, Wallace and others, were in the height of their reputation as
speakers in Westminster Hall. They were even eloquent, according to the
judgment of the day gazed at as the luminaries of the profession; but,
brilliant as they were, they were combust in the splendour of Erskine, on
his first appearance as an orator. This considered, it is in vain to
pretend, that, but for favourable conjunctions which have happened to him
and not to others, the prosperous and devious career on which he
immediately entered, could have been prevented or even long
delayed.--[Alas, no more!]
BRIDGE STREET BANDITTI, _v._ THE PRESS.
REPORT OF THE TRIAL
OF
MARY-ANNE CARLILE,
FOR PUBLISHING A NEW YEAR'S ADDRESS
TO THE
REFORMERS OF GREAT BRITAIN;
WRITTEN BY
RICHARD CARLILE;
AT THE INSTANCE OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL ASSOCIATION:
BEFORE
MR. JUSTICE BEST, AND A SPECIAL JURY,
AT THE
_Court of King's Bench_, _Guildhall_, _London_, _July_ 24, 1821.
WITH THE NOBLE AND EFFECTUAL SPEECH OF
MR. COOPER,
IN DEFENCE, AT LARGE.
LONDON:
PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY R. CARLILE, 55, FLEET STREET.
1821.