(Dutch kuiper), an artificer who makes casks and coops, tubs, barrels, and all kinds of wooden vessels which are bound together with hoops.

The art of the cooper is of great antiquity, and soon attained all the perfection which it at present possesses.

There are some countries, however, in which it is as yet unknown; and in others, from the scarcity of wood and other causes, earthen vessels and skins lined with pitch are used for containing liquors. The Latin word dolium, usually translated a cask, was employed by the Romans to denote earthen vessels used for the same purposes. The word dolare, to chip with an axe, to hew, from which dolium is derived, and the word dolarius, a cooper, may naturally enough be applied, the former to the construction of casks, which are made of several pieces of wood planed and fitted for joining together, and the latter to the artificer himself.

Pliny ascribes the invention of casks to the people who lived at the foot of the Alps. In his time they lined them with pitch. From A.D. 70, in the time of Tiberius and Vespasian, the art of constructing vessels of different pieces of wood seems to have been well known. Indeed, previous to this period, Varro and Columella, in detailing the precepts of rural economy, speak distinctly of vessels formed of different pieces, and bound together with circles of wood, or hoops. The fabrication of casks, on account of the great abundance of wood, was probably very early introduced into France. It is uncertain when this art was first practised in Britain; but it seems not improbable that it was derived from the French.

The figure of a cask is that of two truncated cones, or rather conoids, joined together; for the lines are not straight, as in the cone, but are curved from the vertex to the base. The part of greatest circumference is called the belly of the cask. In the choice of wood, old, thick, and straight trees are preferred, from which thin planks are hewn, and then formed into staves. In France the wood is prepared in winter: the staves and bottoms are then formed, and they are put together, or, in the language of the artificer, the cask is mounted, in summer. Planing the staves is one of the most difficult, and at the same time most important parts of the work. In dressing staves with the plane, the workman is directed to cut across the wood, in order probably to prevent the instrument following the course of the fibres, which may not always be in the same plane with the surface of the stave, and thus render it of unequal thickness.

In the formation of the staves, it ought to be recollected that each must constitute part of a double conoid. It must therefore be broader at the middle, and gradually become narrower, but not in straight lines, towards the extremities. The outside of the staves across the wood must be brought into the segment of a circle, and it must be thickest near the middle, growing gradually thinner towards the ends. Great experience is requisite for the nice adjustment of the different curves to the size and shape of the cask; but less attention is paid to the rounding or dressing of the inside of the stave.

After the staves have been dressed and are ready to be arranged in a circular form, it might be supposed necessary, for the purpose of making the seams tight, to trim the thin edges in such a manner that the contiguous staves may be brought into firm contact throughout the whole joint, or sloped similar to the arch-stones of a bridge. But this is not the practice usually followed by the artificer. Without attempting to slope them so that the whole surface of the edge may touch in every point, he brings the contiguous staves into contact only at the inner surface; and in this way, by driving the hoops hard, he can make a closer joint than could be done by sloping them from the outer to the inner side. In this, perhaps, and in giving the proper curvature to the staves, consist the principal part of the cooper's art. Machinery is now frequently employed in preparing the staves.

Cooper, Antony Ashley, first Earl of Shaftesbury, was the son of Sir John Cooper, Bart., of Rockburn, Hampshire, and was born at Wimborne, St Giles, July 22, 1621. He inherited the patrimonial estates when only ten years of age, and was entered at Exeter College, Oxford, in 1636. After studying law for a short time at Lincoln's Inn, he was chosen one of the representatives of Tewkesbury, when only nineteen, and took his seat in the short parliament of 1640. Although zealously attached to the royal interest, he did not sit in the long parliament. Having incurred the suspicions of the court during his government of Weymouth, he joined the parliamentarian party, accepted a commission during the civil war, and signalized himself by storming Wareham and reducing the surrounding country. As member for Wilshire he took his seat in Barebone's parliament; and though avowedly hostile to the measures of the protector, he formed one of his council of state. He continued his opposition unmolested for several parliaments, and after the death of Cromwell he joined his enemies in depreciating his memory. After the deposition of Richard Cromwell, Sir Antony lent his whole energies to the party who favoured the Restoration, and was one of the commissioners sent over to Breda with an invitation to the king. For his services on this occasion he was appointed chancellor of the exchequer, and made a privy-councillor; and these honours were quickly followed by his elevation to the peerage as Baron Ashley of Wimborne, St Giles. In his new situation he made himself conspicuous by the indelicate zeal with which he prosecuted his duties as commissioner for the trial of the regicides; but his fortunes, which rose with every tide of politics, gained him admiration even from the party which he had betrayed. With Clarendon he stood in the same relation in which he had formerly stood to Cromwell, resisting the favourite measures of the ministry, but never with such violence as to endanger his office or damage his chance of promotion. In this way, though opposing the Uniformity Bill, the French connection, and the Dutch war, he secured to himself a seat in the treasury; and ultimately sacrificing his views on the question of the French alliance to the inclination of Charles, he became one of the most powerful members of the famous Cabal administration. (See Britain, vol. v., p. 425.) In 1672 he was created Earl of Shaftesbury, and soon after raised to the post of lord high chancellor; but in 1673 he was dismissed from office, and on the fall of the Cabal he, along with Buckingham, made peace with the opposition, and appeared at the head of the stormy democracy of the city. Throwing himself into the current of the anti-popish agitation, he made the alleged martyrdom of his dismissal from office a means of swelling his influence with the people; and in the following sessions of parliament he found himself surrounded by a band of faithful supporters. The government, outvoted in the house, had recourse to frequent prorogations; and when at length compelled to meet for pressing business, Shaftesbury contended that such frequent interruptions amounted to a virtual dissolution. For this he was ordered humbly to beg the king's pardon, and refusing, was committed to the Tower. At the intercession of the lords he was soon after released, and in the trials of Titus Oates and his confederates he found a golden opportunity of gratifying his revenge, and extending his popularity. In the new council formed under Temple, Shaftesbury was appointed lord president; and had the honour of carrying through parliament the famous Habeas Corpus Act. He was, however, soon after dismissed from office; and placing himself at the head of the exclusionist party, he cited the Duke of York before the court of king's bench as a popish recusant. The trial failed, but the commons eagerly took up the cause, and the danger was averted only by repeated prorogations, which allowed time for a Tory reaction. In 1681 the government resolved to strike a decisive blow by bringing Shaftesbury to trial for his life. Fortunately for him the jurymen before whom he was arraigned were citizens of London, where the Whigs were still dominant, and the bill was thrown out. Foreseeing, however, that the ruin of his party was at hand, after a fruitless effort to raise an armed rebellion, he retired to Holland, where he died Jan. 21, 1683. In regard to the character of Shaftesbury we have the contemporary portraits of Butler and Dryden. The one depicts his wondrous versatility and perfidious restlessness; and dwells especially on his dexterity at every change of fortune in extricating himself from the snares in which he left his associates to perish. The other, writing at the close of his career, has blended these with the equally characteristic traits of implacable revenge, and boldness amounting to temerity.

Of these the false Achitophel was first; A name to all succeeding ages cursed; For close designs and crooked counsels fit; Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit; Restless, unfix'd in principles and place; In power unspleased, impatient of disgrace; A fiery soul, which, working out its way, Fretted the pigmy-body to decay, And o'er-inform'd the tenement of clay. A daring pilot in extremity; Assured with the danger, when the waves went high He sought the storms; but for a calm unfit, Would steer too nigh the rocks to boast his wit. Achitophel and Achitophel, 159-162.

Shaftesbury left behind him the Memoirs of his own Time; but the MS. is said to have been destroyed by his friend Locke, to whom it was confided. His Life was drawn up and published by his grand-son, under the editorial care of Dr Kippis and B. Manning. It has since been reprinted.

Cooper, Anthony Ashley, third Earl of Shaftesbury, and grandson of the preceding, was born in 1671, at Exeter House, London, where his grandfather then resided. In 1683 he was sent to Winchester school; but the memory of his grandfather subjected him to frequent insults, and he prevailed on his father to travel with him abroad. In 1689 he returned to England; and after an interval of five years spent in study, he was elected member of parliament for Poole. In the House of Commons he distinguished himself principally by the share which he had in promoting "the act for regulating trials in cases of high treason;" but his health was so much impaired by his attendance, that in 1698 he was induced to resign his seat and retire to Holland, where he enjoyed the friendship of Bayle, Le Clerc, and other learned men. During his absence there appeared at London an imperfect edition of his Inquiry concerning Virtue, surreptitiously taken from a rough sketch made when he was twenty years of age. He succeeded in buying up the impression before many copies were sold, but this circumstance induced him to complete the treatise, which afterwards appeared in the second volume of the Characteristics. Soon after his return to England, he became Earl of Shaftesbury, on the decease of his father. In the House of Lords he exerted himself in supporting the measures of King William, and would probably have been made secretary of state, but for the declining state of his health. He was, however, often consulted by the king on matters of the highest importance; and amongst other things he had the principal share in composing the celebrated last speech of King William, delivered Dec. 31, 1701. On the accession of Queen Anne he retired to private life; and in 1703 paid a second visit to Holland. It was during this tour that, in reference to the extravagancies of the French prophets, he wrote the Letter concerning Enthusiasm, which was published in 1708. His Morals, a philosophical rhapsody, appeared in January 1709; and in the May following his Sense Communis, an essay upon the freedom of wit and humour in a letter to a friend. In 1710 was published his Soliloquy, or Advice to an Author. While thus employed in literary composition, the declining state of his health rendered it necessary for him to try the benefit of a warmer climate. Accordingly, in 1711, he proceeded to Naples, where, after a brief interval of comparative convalescence, in which he was able to resume his literary pursuits, he died Feb. 15, 1713.

The first complete edition of the Characteristics was published in 1711; but after his death there appeared a more elegant edition, containing his final corrections, and embellished with prints designed by himself. In the three volumes of the Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, and Times, he included the whole of his works which he intended for the public eye. Not long before his death he commenced to write a discourse on painting, sculpture, and the other arts of design, but his premature death prevented him from making much progress in the undertaking. He had a high esteem for the works of the great English divines, and wrote a preface to a volume of Dr Whichcot's Sermons published in 1698. For an account of his ethical system and a critique on his works, see Sir James Mackintosh's Preliminary Dissertation to this work.

Cooper, Sir Astley, Bart., the celebrated surgeon, was the fourth son of the Rev. Dr Cooper, and was born at the village of Brooke, in Norfolk, Aug. 23, 1768. It is said that in early youth he was less distinguished for any precocity of intellect or love of study than for his vivacity and good humour. In his choice of surgery as a profession he seems to have received a bias from a circumstance that could scarcely fail to make a considerable impression on his youthful mind. One day he found a boy with his thigh severely lacerated by a cart-wheel, which had laid open the femoral artery, so that he was in danger of bleeding to death. With much presence of mind, young Astley Cooper bound his handkerchief tightly around the upper part of the thigh, and thus succeeded in arresting the circulation in the vessel until professional assistance could be procured.

In August 1784 he was sent to London and placed under Mr Cline, surgeon to St Thomas's Hospital, one of the most celebrated surgeons of the time. As he became early impressed with the necessity of a correct knowledge of anatomy, he assiduously attended the dissecting rooms, and seems to have profited largely from the lectures of the celebrated John Hunter. In 1787 he visited Edinburgh; and on his return was appointed demonstrator of anatomy at St Thomas's Hospital. In 1791 he was permitted to deliver part of the course of lectures on anatomy and surgery then given by Mr Cline. This year he married; and in the spring of 1792 visited Paris. The outbreak of the revolution on the 10th August obliged him to return to London, when he delivered a course of lectures on surgery distinct from the course of anatomy, with which it was then generally associated. He was also this year appointed professor of anatomy to Surgeons' Hall; a situation which he again filled in 1794 and 1795. In 1800 he was appointed surgeon to Guy's Hospital, on the death of his uncle William Cooper. Two years previously he had published a volume of papers entitled "Medical Records and Researches;" and in 1802 he received the award of the Copley medal for two papers read before the Royal Society of London on the effects resulting from the destruction of the membrana tympani. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1805. Having taken an active part in the formation of the Medico-Chirurgical Society, he published in the first volume of its Transactions an account of an unsuccessful attempt to tie the carotid artery. In 1804 he brought out the first, and in 1807 the second, part of his great work on Hernia; the operation for which, on account of the defective knowledge of the local anatomy, was then frequently unsuccessful. So greatly did this work add to his reputation, that in 1813 his annual professional income rose to £21,000 sterling. He was soon after appointed professor of Comparative Anatomy to the Royal College of Surgeons; and in 1817 he performed one of the most remarkable operations of surgery, that of tying the aorta. In the following year, along with Mr Travers, he commenced publishing a series of Surgical Essays, but only two parts of the work appeared. In 1820, having been called to attend on George IV. (although he held no official appointment at court), he removed a strangulated tumour from the head of the king. About six months afterwards he accepted a baronetcy, which, as he had no son, was to descend to his adopted son and nephew, Astley Cooper. In 1822 he was elected one of the Court of Examiners of the College of Surgeons; and the same year he brought out his great work on Dislocations and Fractures. In 1827 he was elected president of the Royal College of Surgeons; but grief for the loss of his wife, and his own previous ill health, induced him to resign his practice, and retire to his estates at Gadesbridge. He soon, however, tired of a country life; and returning to London, resumed his practice in the following year, when he married again, and was appointed sergeant-surgeon to the king.

In 1829 appeared the first part of his Treatise on the Anatomy and Diseases of the Breast, the publication of which extended to the year 1840. In 1830 he was elected a vice-president of the Royal Society; and in 1832 he published his Anatomy of the Thymus Gland. In 1837 he visited Edinburgh, when the freedom of the city was voted him, and he was entertained at a public dinner given by the Royal College of Surgeons. He also received the honorary degree of LL.D. from the University of Edinburgh.

For about a year previous to his death, Sir Astley was subject to frequent attacks of giddiness, accompanied with difficulty of breathing, which gradually increased till the 12th Feb. 1841, when he died at the advanced age of 73. He was interred, by his own desire, beneath the chapel of Guy's Hospital; and a colossal statue by Bailey was erected to his memory in St Paul's Cathedral. Cooper, James Fenimore, the American novelist, son of Judge Cooper, was born at Burlington, New Jersey, Sept. 15, 1789. At the age of thirteen he became a student in Yale College, and speedily distinguished himself by his classical acquirements. In 1805 he entered the American navy as a midshipman, and continued in that service for six years. This was the school in which he obtained that nautical knowledge which is conspicuous in his works, and in which he laid the foundation of his spirited descriptions of naval life. In 1810 he quitted the service, and settled on his patrimonial estate at Cooper's Town. He then married, and thenceforward devoted himself to literary pursuits. He had previously published Precaution, a novel, which fell nearly still-born from the press. This, however, did not discourage him; and in the fifteen succeeding years he poured forth other creations of his fancy, with almost unprecedented exuberance, as in The Pioneer, The Pilot, Lionel Lincoln, The Last of the Mohicans, &c. In 1826 he first visited Europe, where he remained a considerable time; and there he produced some of his most popular novels, as The Bravo, The Red Rover, and The Prairie. Everywhere in Europe he was cordially received by men of letters and by the public.

On returning to his native country he continued his literary avocations, and among other works he produced The Pathfinder, The Destroyer, The Two Admirals, Wing and Wing, works that well sustained his reputation; but some of his later productions exhibited strong marks of decaying powers. It is creditable to Cooper that the moral of his tales is always good, and that he proved himself the friend of virtue; and if he wants the exquisite knowledge of human nature that we recognise in Scott, he exhibits the same admiration for purity and magnanimity. (r.s.t.)

Cooper, John Gilbert (1723–1769), a miscellaneous writer, descended from a decayed family in the county of Nottingham, where his father was high sheriff in 1739. He was educated at Westminster school, and at Trinity College, Cambridge. His first attempts at authorship consisted in the publication anonymously, in 1745, of a poem entitled The Power of Harmony, and in contributing under the signature of Philalethes several essays and poems to Dodsley's Museum. These were soon after followed by the Lyfe of Socrates, compiled chiefly from Xenophon and Plato. In 1754 Cooper published his Letters on Taste, and in the following year The Tomb of Shakespeare, a Vision. In 1756 he assisted Moore in writing for the World, and published a variety of occasional pieces, including a translation of Gresset's Ver-Vert. His poems were afterwards collected and published with a preface by Dodsley.

Cooper, Samuel, a miniature painter of surpassing excellence, was born in London in 1609. He appears to have united great spirit and expression with careful finish. Among his finest productions is the head of Cromwell, engraved by Vertue, and the portrait of a Mr Swingfield, which gained him the highest applause and patronage at Paris, as well as in Holland, where he resided for some time. After the Restoration he returned to London, and was much employed by the court of Charles II. Cooper died there in 1672, and was buried in the church of St Pancras, where there is a monument to his memory.

Cooper, Samuel, F.R.S., was deservedly celebrated for the variety and extent of his surgical information. He was admitted a member of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1803, and soon afterwards entered the army and became staff surgeon. In 1807 he obtained the Jacksonian prize for an elaborate Treatise on the Joints; and in 1832 he delivered the annual oration in memory of the founder of the Hunterian Museum. In 1835 he was appointed an examiner, and in 1845 was elected president, of the Royal College of Surgeons. For 17 years he was connected with the London University College and Hospital, and obtained great popularity as a teacher. On the death of Mr Liston, in 1847, a misunderstanding arose between Mr Cooper and the senate in regard to the appointment of a successor, which induced him to resign his appointments. He retired to his country residence at Shipperton, where he died Dec. 3, 1848, in the 68th year of his age. He is the author of First Lines of the Practice of Surgery, and of a Dictionary of Surgery.

Cooper or Cooper, Thomas (1517–1594), bishop of Winchester in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, was born at Oxford. In 1540 he was elected fellow of Magdalene College; but on the accession of Mary he resigned his fellowship, and applied himself to the study of medicine. Having taken the degree of bachelor in that faculty in 1558, he continued to practise as a physician at Oxford till the accession of Elizabeth, when he resumed the study of divinity, and became a distinguished preacher. He was afterwards appointed dean of Christ-Church and vice-chancellor of the university, having previously taken the degrees of bachelor and doctor in divinity. In 1569 he was made dean of Gloucester, and in the following year bishop of Lincoln, whence in 1584 he was translated to the see of Winchester. He wrote, 1. The Epitome of Chronicles, from A.D. 17 to 1660; 2. Thesaurus Linguae Romanae et Britannicae, and Dictionarium Historicum et Poeticum, 1665, folio, which was highly valued by Queen Elizabeth, and procured his promotion; 3. A Brief Exposition of the Chapters of the Old Testament usually read in the Church on Sundays, 1573, 4to; 4. An Admonition to the People of England, 1589, 4to; besides some miscellaneous Sermons.