Read Ebook: Crimson Clover: Growing the Crop by Westgate J M John Minton

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 91 lines and 15511 words, and 2 pages

This letter is dated,

To the same,--

I am scarcely warm in my place in London before I have to thank you for your present to me; you hardly give me time, in the short intervals of these marks of your kindness to me, to frame my thanks to you for each. I have exhausted all my common-place forms and am forced to rack my invention to give anything like a turn to the expression in which to convey my thanks. Mr. Pope calls enjoyment obedience: now if enjoyment be thankfulness, too, then never was a being more completely thanked than yourself; for the ducks were devoured with the most devout gust and appetite; they were the most superb fowls that ever suffered martyrdom of their lives to delight the palate and appease the hunger of the Lords of the creation. You should have sent them to some imitator of the Dutch school, who could have painted them before he ate them; the hare, too, is as good as it can be, and you are agreeably thanked for it by an equal portion of enjoyment.

I must beg you to excuse a very short, dull, and hasty letter, from me. If I were not impatient at the thought of letting any longer time elapse without expressing my lively sense of your frequent mark of kind consideration of me, I should not write at all to day. I have something to do at my chambers, and in ten minutes I must run down to Westminster Hall; and whilst I am thus engaged, I am as much disqualified for writing, by a dark fit of low spirits, as prevented by want of leisure. I resist as much as I can these attacks of the night-mare by day, but I cannot wholly succeed against them; my circumstances may possibly change, and, if not, such gloominess is unreasonable; if Fortune is never weary of persecuting me, I shall at last be past the sense of her persecutions. In the meantime, whatever is the colour of my life, I shall, if I can, continue to hope the future cannot be the worse, and the present will be the more tolerable for it. I shall, therefore, cling to her while I live, and to apply a beautiful thought of Tibullus--

'Dying, clasp her with my failing hand.'

In endeavouring to recollect me of the many fine things that have been said of hope to crown my declaration of attachment to that first place of our lives, I remember Cowley has observed 'that it is as much destroyed by the possession of its object as by exclusion from it.' This is very ingenious and very true, and though not to the purpose for which I was seeking it yet will very well serve another. I wish my dear Madam, very sincerely, that the former mode of destruction may speedily befall all your present hopes, and that in future you will be surrounded by so many blessings as will leave you no room for the exercise of any hope but their continuance, My duty to my father, and my love to William, I trust that he improves in Latin; pray tell him that I was vexed not to find him so good a scholar in that language as I expected; when I next see him I hope my expectations will be exceeded.

I am, my dear Madam, Yours very truly, HENRY COOPER."

The following letter I have previously made reference to. It is written, evidently, in despondency, and heartfelt sorrow, under the shock of the frightful calamity. It relates to the disastrous death of poor Alfred, his youngest brother. It is dated from, and bears date

To the same,--

I received your letter yesterday, but I was so ill I could not answer it. To-day, nothing less than the urgency of the subject could prevail upon me to make the smallest exertion, for I am scarcely able to drag one limb up to the other. I have a violent catarrh, the glands of my throat are further inflamed and ulcerated, and I am burning with fever.

With regard to divulging to Harriet the disastrous event, for which, when once known to her, she can never be consoled; I am in a very unfit state to give advice. I am as I have always been of opinion, that it should be concealed from her as long as it can. It is a more generous cause of grief than the loss of a lover; and as Harriet's mind is built, I think more likely to shock and destroy her. You state only one reason for breaking the secrecy which has hitherto been observed--that it appears strange, the event public, that you are not in mourning for it. I cannot but think that if any good can reasonably be expected from withholding the knowledge of this dreadful incident, it would be wrong and trifling to forego it, for the senseless custom of putting yourself in black for a few months. I have no crape about me. If any one were to ask the cause of my disregard of a paltry decorum, I should either turn on my heel from him, or explain to him that I did not put on the mockery of sorrow, lest it should get to my sister's ear; that I was in outward mourning, and she had to be discovering for whom.

It is, surely, easy for you to say that you do not put on black for the same reason, to all who may enquire, or to all those to whom you wish to appear decorous. It is known to several with whom I am acquainted in London; but, it is easy, as Harriet restricts herself to a very narrow intercourse, to keep it still from her knowledge, till she has recovered strength of body to contend anew with severe and heavy affliction. How much I have suffered from the intelligence I shall not attempt to describe to you. I had but little interest in life before; it is now heavy and sickening to me. I feel as if I never should smile again; every circumstance of aggravation attends it. To perish on the verge of the shore, when he was just about to embark, after six years in the climate, when we thought the danger past. With letters from him full of felicitation of himself, and rapture at the hope of soon meeting us again, and when we were expecting him every moment in our embrace, to be struck cold to the heart with the news that we should never see him again. I owe little to man--I shall soon owe nothing to any other being. I hate the cant of the doctrine of Providence 'your brother may be snatched by a merciful power from impending evil.' Bah! why not the merciful being continue life to my brother, and destroy the impending evil? Well, I shall soon be as he is, and though there is no consolation in that feeling, it is some assuagement of grief, because sorrow will then be at an end. My duty to my father. I write in great pain.

I am, dear Madam, Yours very truly, HENRY COOPER."

The following makes the last of the letters I possess, and is written six months previous to his death; and in answer to a letter, of my mother to him, respecting the appointment of a paid chairman, and he, a barrister of some standing, to preside at Quarter Sessions, and to have besides some civil power. This was then in the contemplation of the Ministry; and as the poet says "coming events cast their shadows before" evidently the shadow of the present county courts. The letter is dated from and bears date,

To the same,--

"I did not return to Town till Sunday morning, when I found your letter at my chambers. I hope you will accept, as a sufficient excuse, the extreme fatigue and languor which I felt all yesterday for not answering it immediately.

I lament exceedingly, that my father should not have been early enough in his application to the Lieutenant of the County, in whose gift, by the frame of the bill, the appointment is placed, and in whose hand, I fear, by the act itself it will remain.

I cannot conjecture to whom it has been promised by Col. Wodehouse. To Alderson is not at all probable, from the part he has taken against the Wodehouse's, who are the most bigoted and relentless Tories in existence. To Preston , ought not to be probable, because he is not competent either in law or common sense to fill the office; and the favour to him would be an injury to the public. My father has every claim to it, and I think that it would have been no more than what was due from Col. Wodehouse, both to the county and my father, to offer it to him before he promised it to another.

I wish you might be right in your surmise, that the patronage will be placed in another quarter; but, of that there is the faintest chance, I should advise you to press my father to exert himself to procure the appointment, as it will be an office of the most agreeable kind, affording considerable profit at very little trouble. I, myself, know not a soul in the world who could influence any one of the present government: and any enquiries or attempt by me would have, in all probability, an adverse operation. I am of no importance whatever to any party, but my opinions, humble and insignificant as they are, have been noticed and recorded; and I am down in the black book for persecution, rather than in the red for favour. Of little note and importance as I am, such is the consciousness, in their own infirmity, in those who rule us, that the very lowest who have denounced their system, are objects of their hatred, for they are the objects of their fear; and those who have put them to the pain of apprehension, are marks for their revenge. I should think that the best course that my father could take would be to apply to Mr. John Harvey, to induce his brother, Onley Harvey, Esq. , to ask it of the Home Department; if he asked it , I think, without doubt it would be given. My duty to my father.

I am, dear Madam, Yours very truly, HENRY COOPER."

After the notices referred to, I shall end by laying before the reader the verses written on my brother, after his death, by my mother and Mr. Wing; and in the appendix I shall refer the reader to the life of Erskine before alluded to; as, also, to the trial of Mary Ann Carlile, which will show, and clearly, the style of the eloquence of her advocate on the occasion, combined as it is with powerful argument, and that clearness and lucid order which were his forte. And now, reader, to use the words of Cicero, in concluding one of his epistles to a friend, "vale et valeas."

"IN BONAMPARTEM."

He ne'er shall be extoll'd by me, Whom wealth and fortune raise to power; But he, alone who will be free From sordid shame, or live no more. Let him with wreaths of song be crown'd, Who life, deflower'd of glory, spurn'd, And breaking from his kindred round, To Carthage and to death return'd.

With him, who when his righteous hand, In vain the splendid blow had given, The tyrant, only chang'd, disdain'd The light of unregarded Heaven. And Cato--thou, who tyranny All earth besides enslaved, withstood; And failing to high liberty, Pour'd fierce libation of thy blood.

Oh, Godlike men! you leave no praise For him who to the king could bend, To add a few unhonor'd days To life, at latest--soon to end. Nor him self-raised to Gallia's throne, Who, rushing with his martial hordes, Cast Europe's ancient sceptres down, And made his slaves her sov'reign lords.

For his was not the heart that dar'd When with the battle all was lost, Plunge in the whirlpool of the war, And share the slaughter of his host; Nor his, the indignant soul with brave And Roman arm, his life to shed; But still he sought by flight to save His outlaw'd and unlaurell'd head.

With face to earth his vet'rans' lay In ruins all who bore his name; His mighty Empire past away, And blasted, as a Chief, his fame. Yet--yet-- content The sentence of his foes he bore, Like a vile felon to be sent An exile to a wretched shore.

FROM THE PORTUGUESE.

Where silver hairs no reverence meet, Where to the weary stranger's feet To cross the threshold 'tis denied. And at the genial board, her place No kerchief'd matron takes to grace Her savage husband's haughty side; Where Niger hides, or on the shore Of dark and stormy Labrador. O Castres,--I with thee would rove, And, blest, thus wand'ring, if my mind Could leave her galling bonds behind; The bonds of an unworthy love. Not like a Gambian slave that fled From Rio, strives in fearful haste The mountain's woody side to gain; But with him drags the clinking chain, Lock'd at his waist or ancle fast.

THE WOES OF THE RIVERS.

"To each his suff'rings." Heaps of dead Trojans were Scamander's bane, Dead dogs, dead cats, and dung-boats shame the Seine, Ten thousand shores and jakes the Thames defile, And gradual mud is working woe to Nile; Yet harder Duddon's fate, her hapless stream Of fifty strains by Wordsworth is the theme.

"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."

"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.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet