COOPER, an artificer who makes casks and coops, tubs, barrels, and all kinds of wooden vessels which are bound together with hoops. It would appear that the art [7:7:305]of the cooper is of great antiquity, and that it soon attained all the perfection which it at present possesses.

But although this art is very ancient, there are some countries in which it is as yet unknown, and in others, from the scarcity of wood, or from different causes, earthen vessels and skins lined with pitch are used for containing liquors. The Latin word dolium is usually translated a cask; but it was employed by the Romans to denote earthen vessels used for the same purposes. The word dolare, to plane or smooth, 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 the same tree 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 the year 70 of the Christian era, 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 description which they have given accords exactly with the construction of casks. 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. As the place where the junction seems to be made is the most capacious, it is commonly called the belly of the cask. In the choice of wood, old, thick, and straight trees are preferred, from which thin planks are hewn, which are 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 parts of the work, and it is at the same time one of the most important in the fabrication of casks. In dressing staves with the plane, the workman is directed to cut across the wood, the reason of which is 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 wrought 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.

Cooper, Anthony Ashley, first Earl of Shaftesbury, a very able statesman, was the son of Sir John Cooper, Baronet, of Rockburn, in Hampshire, and was born in 1621. He was elected member for Tewkesbury at nineteen years of age, in the short parliament which met in April 1640. He seems to have been well affected to the king’s service at the beginning of the civil wars, for he repaired to the king at Oxford with offers of assistance; but Prince Maurice having broken articles with a town in Dorsetshire, which he had got to receive him, this furnished him with a pretence for going over to the parliament, froip which he accepted a commission. When Richard Cromwell was deposed, and the Rump again came into power, they nominated Sir Anthony as one of the council of state, and a commissioner for managing the army. At that very time he had engaged in a secret correspondence for restoring Charles II., and, upon the king’s return, he was sworn of the privy council. He was one of the commissioners appointed for the trial of the regicides; and was soon afterwards made chancellor of the exchequer, and then a commissioner of the treasury. In 1672 he was created Earl of Shaftesbury, and he was subsequently raised to the office of lord chancellor. He filled this situation with great ability and integrity; and though the short time he was at the helm proved a tempestuous season, it is only doing him justice to say that nothing could either distract or terrify him. The great seal was taken from him in 1673, twelve months after he had received it; but though out of office, he still made a distinguished figure in parliament, for it was not in his nature to remain inactive. He drew upon' himself the implacable hatred of the Duke of York, by steadily promoting, if not originally inventing, the project of a bill of exclusion; and when his enemies came into power, he found it necessary to consult his safety by retiring into Holland, where he died about six weeks after his arrival, in 1683. Whilst his great abilities are confessed by all, it has been his misfortune to have his history recorded by enemies who have studied to render him odious. Butler has drawn a severe character of him in Hudibras. Cooper, Anthony Ashley, Earl of Shaftesbury, was son of Anthony Earl of Shaftesbury, and grandson of Anthony first Earl of Shaftesbury, lord high chancellor of England. He was born in 1671, at Exeter House, in London, where lived his grandfather, who from the time of his birth conceived so great an affection for him, that he undertook the care of his education; and young Cooper made so good a progress in learning that he could write with ease both the Latin and Greek languages when only eleven years old. In 1683 his father carried him to the school at Winchester, where he was often insulted on account of his grandfather, whose memory was odious to the zealots for despotic power; he therefore prevailed with his father to consent to his desire of going abroad. After three years stay abroad, he returned to England in 1689, and was offered a seat in parliament for some of those boroughs where his family had an interest. But this offer he declined accepting, in order that he might not be interrupted in the course of his studies, which he prosecuted five years more with great vigour and success; till, upon Sir John Trenchard’s death, he was elected burgess for Poole. Soon after his coming into parliament, he had an opportunity afforded him of evincing that spirit of liberty by which he uniformly directed his conduct on all occasions. This consisted of the bringing in and pro- . moting “the act for regulating trials in cases of high treason[7:7:306].” But the fatigues of attending the House of Commons in a few years so impaired his health, that he was obliged to decline coming again into parliament after the dissolution in 1698. He then went to Holland, where the conversation of Mr Bayle, Μ. le Clerc, and several other learned and ingenious men, induced him to reside a twelvemonth. During this time there was printed at London, in 8vo, an imperfect edition of Lord Ashley’s Inquiry concerning Virtue. It had been surreptitiously taken from a rough draught, sketched when he was not more than twenty years of age. His lordship, who was greatly chagrined at this event, immediately bought up the impression before many copies were sold, and set about completing the treatise as it afterwards appeared in the second volume of the Characteristics. Soon after Lord Ashley’s return to England, he became, by the decease of his father, Earl of Shaftesbury. But his own private affairs prevented his attending the House of Lords till the second year of his peerage, when he was very earnest in supporting the measures of King William, at that time projecting the grand alliance. So much was he in favour with the king, that he had the offer of the office of secretary of state; but his declining constitution would not allow' him to accept of it. Though he was disabled from engaging in business, the king consulted him on matters of very high importance; and it is pretty well known that he had the greatest share in composing that celebrated last speech of King William, delivered on the 31stDeeember 1701. Upon Queen Anne’s accession to the throne, he returned to his retired manner of life, being no longer advised with concerning the public; and he was also removed from the vice-admiralty of Dorset, which had been in the family for three generations. In 1703 he made a second journey to Holland, and returned to England the year following. The French prophets, soon after this, having by their enthusiastic extravagances made a great noise throughout the nation, and, among different opinions, some having advised a prosecution, the Lord Shaftesbury apprehended that such a measure would tend rather to inflame than to cure the disease. This was the origin of his Letter concerning Enthusiasm, which he sent to Lord Somers, then president of the council; and which being approved of by that nobleman, and other gentlemen to whom it was shown, was published in 1708, though without the name of the author, or that of the person to whom it was addressed. His Moralist, a philosophical rhapsody, being a recital of certain conversations on natural and moral subjects, appeared in January 1709; and in the May following. his Sensus Communis, an essay upon the freedom of wit and humour, in a letter to a friend. In the same year he entered into the married state with Mrs Jane Ewer, the youngest daughter of Thomas Ewer, Esq. of Lee, in Hertfordshire. By this lady, to whom his lordship was related, he had an only son, Anthony, afterwards Earl of Shaftesbury. In 1710 was published his Soliloquy, or Advice to an Author, London, 8vo. Whilst he was thus employing himself in literary composition, his health declined so fast that it was recommended to him to try the benefit of a warmer climate. Accordingly, in July 1711, he set out for Naples, and pursuing his journey by way of France, was obliged to pass through the Duke of Berwick’s army, which at that time lay encamped near the borders of Piedmont. Here he was entertained by that celebrated captain in the most friendly manner, and every assistance was afforded to conduct him in safety to the Duke of Savoy’s dominions. But our author’s removal to Italy proved of no service to the re-establishment of his health; for after having resided at Naples about a year and a half, he departed this life on the 15th of February 1713, being then in the forty-second year of his age. The only pieces which lie finished after he arrived at this city were the Judgment of Hercules, and the Letter concerning Design, which last was added to the impression of the Characteristics which appeared in 1732. It was in 1711 that the first complete edition of the Characteristics was published, in the order in which they now stand. But this publication not being entirely to his lordship’s satisfaction, he chiefly employed the latter part of his life in preparing his writings for a more elegant edition, which was given to the world in 1713, soon after his decease∙ The several prints which were then first interspersed throughout the volumes were all invented by himself, and designed under his immediate inspection; and for this purpose he was at the pains of drawing up a most accurate set of instructions, the manuscript of which is still preserved in the family. That no mistakes might be committed, the earl did not leave to any other hands so much as the drudgery of correcting the press. In the three volumes of the Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, and Times, he completed the whole of his works which he intended for the public eye. Not long before his death he had formed a scheme of writing a discourse on painting, sculpture, and the other arts of design, which, if he had lived to finish it, might have proved a very pleasing and useful work, as he had a fine taste in subjects of this kind; but his premature demise prevented his making any great progress in the undertaking. The Earl of Shaftesbury had an esteem for the works of the best English divines, one remarkable instance of which was displayed in Ids writing a preface to a volume of Dr Whichcot’s Sermons, published in 1698. Copies of these sermons had been taken in short·hand, as they were delivered from the pulpit; and the earl had so high an opinion of them, that he not only introduced them to the world by his preface, but had them printed under his own particular inspection. In his Letters to a Young Man at the University, he speaks of Bishop Burnet and Dr Hoadley in terms of great applause, and he has done justice to the merits of Tillotson, Barrow, Chillingworth, and Hammond, as the chief pillars of the church against fanaticism. For a further account of his character as a philosopher and writer, we refer to Sir James Mackintosh’s Discourse, in the first volume of this work.

Cooper or Couper, Thomas, a pious and learned prelate in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, was born at Oxford about the year 1517. He was educated in the school adjoining to Magdalene College, of which he was a chorister, and where also, in 1539, he was elected probationer, and fellow the following year. About the year 1546, having quitted his fellowship, he applied himself to the study of physic, took the degree of bachelor in that faculty in 1556, and practised as a physician at Oxford. Being inclined to the Protestant religion, this probably was only a prudent suspension of his final intentions during the reign of Queen Mary; for on the accession of Elizabeth he resumed the study of divinity, became a celebrated preacher, and was made dean of Christ-Church and vice-chancellor of the university, having taken the degrees of bachelor and doctor in divinity. In 1569 he was made Dean of Gloucester, and the year following Bishop of Lincoln; but in 1584 he was translated to the see of Winchester, in which city he died, on the 28th of April 1594. The several writers who have mentioned Dr Cooper unanimously describe him as an eloquent preacher, a learned divine, and a good man. He wrote, 1. The Epitome of Chronicles, from the seventeenth year after Christ to 1540, and thence to 1560; 2. Thesaurus I.inguae Ilomanoe et Britannicae, and Dictionarium Historicum et Poeticum, 1565, folio; which was so much valued by Queen Elizabeth, that she determined tα promote the author; 3. A Brief Exposition of*such Chapters of the Old Testament as are usu∙
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ally read in the church at common prayer on Sundays throughout the year, 1573, 4to; 4. An Admonition to the People of England, 1589, 4to; 5. Some Sermons.

Cooper, John Gilbert, a miscellaneous writer, was born in 1723, and descended from an ancient family in the county of Nottingham, whose fortune was injured in the last century by their attachment to the principles of monarchy. He resided atThurgarton Priory, in Nottinghamshire, which had been granted by King Henry VIII. to William Cooper, one of his ancestors. This mansion Mr Cooper inherited from his father, who in 1739 was high sheriff of the county, and transmitted it to his son, who filled the same respectable office in 1783. After passing through Westminster school under Dr John Nicol, along with Lord Albemarle, Lord Buckinghamshire, Major Johnson, Mr George Ashby, and many other eminent and ingenious persons, he became, in 1743, a fellow commoner of Trinity College, Cambridge, and resided there two or three years; but he quitted the university on his marriage with Susanna, the daughter of William Wrighte, Esq. son of the lord Reeper of that name, and also recorder of Leicester from 1729 to 1763. In the year 1745 he commenced author, by the publication of The Power of Harmony, a poem, in 4to; and in 1746 and 1747 he produced several essays and poems under the signature of Philalcthes, in a periodical work called The Museum, published by Mr Dodsley. In the same year he came forward as an author, under his own name, in a work which received much assistance from his friend the llev. John Jackson of Leicester, who communicated several learned notes, in which he contrived to manifest his dislike to his formidable antagonist Mr Warburton. It was entitled The Life of Socrates, collected from the Memorabilia of Xenophon and the Dialogues of Plato, and illustrated further by Aristotle, Diodorus Siculus, Cicero, Proclus, Apuleius, Maximus Tyrius, Boethius, Diogenes Laertius, Aulus Gellius, and others, 1749, 8vo. In this work Mr Cooper gave evident marks of a superior genius, warm, impetuous, and impatient of restraint. In 1754 Mr Cooper published his Letters on Taste, 8vo; an elegant little volume, on which no small share of his reputation is founded: and in 1755 appeared The Tomb of Shakspeare, a Vision, 4to; a tolerable performance, in which, however, there is more of wit and application than of nature or genius. In 1756 he assisted Mr Moore, by writing some numbers of the World ; and he attempted to rouse the indignation of his countrymen against the Hessians, who had recently been brought over to defend the nation, in a poem called The Genius of Britain, addressed to Mr Pitt. In 1758 he published Epistles to the Great, from Aristippus in Retirement, 4to; The Call of Aristippus, Epistle IV. to Mark Akenside, M.D.; and also, A Father s Advice to his Son, in 4to. In the Annual Register of the same year appeared his Translation of an Epistle from the King of Prussia to Monsieur Voltaire. In 1759 he published Ver Vert, or the Nunnery Parrot, an Heroic Poem, in four cantos, inscribed to the Abbess of D. translated from the French of Monsieur Cresset, 4to, and reprinted in the first volume of Dilly’s Repository, 1777; and, in 1764, Poems on Several Subjects, by the Author of the Life of Socrates, with a prefatory advertisement by Mr Dodsley. In this little volume were included all the separate poetical pieces which have been already mentioned, excepting Ver Vert, which is a sprightly composition. Mr Cooper died at his father’s house in May Fair, on the 17th of April 1769, after a long and excruciating illness arising from calculus in the bladder.