Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 65, No. 402, April, 1849

The work before us came under our notice at the time when it was published – early in the year 1843; and the very first passage which attracted our attention was the following, lying on the threshold – in the first page of the Preface. It appeared to us to indicate a writer who had formed strange notions of the objects and uses of biography. Speaking of the "moral benefit" to be derived from perusing memoirs of those whose exertions had raised them to eminence, Mr Cooper proceeds to make these edifying and philosophical observations: – "Those who are in the meridian of their career, endeavour to discover a gratifying parallel in themselves; whilst the aged may still be reconciled to the result of their pilgrimage, if less successful, by adopting the comfortable (!) self-assurance that the frowns of fortune, or some unlooked-for fatality, have alone prevented them from enjoying a similar distinction, or becoming equally useful members of society."28 Indeed! if these be the uses of biography, – thus to pander to a complacent overweening vanity, or "minister" poison to minds diseased, embittered, and darkened by disappointment and despair, let us have no more of it. No, no, Mr Cooper, such are not the uses of biography, which are to entertain, to interest, to instruct; and its "moral benefit" is to be found in teaching the successful in life humility, moderation, gratitude; and stimulating them to a more active discharge of their duties, – to higher attainments, and more beneficial uses of them on behalf of their fellow-creatures; and also to remind them that their sun, then glittering at its highest, is thenceforward to descend the horizon! And as for those who have failed to attain the objects of their hopes and wishes, the contemplation of others' success should teach lessons of resignation and self-knowledge; set them upon tracing their failure to their faults– faults which have been avoided by him of whom they read; cause them to form a lower estimate of their own pretensions and capabilities; and if, after all, unable to account for failure, bow with cheerful resignation —not beneath the "frowns of fortune," or yielding to "fatality," but to the will of God, who gives or withholds honour as He pleaseth, and orders all the events of our lives with an infinite, an awful wisdom and equity. We regard this use of the words "frowns of fortune," and "unlooked-for fatality," as inconsiderate and objectionable, and capable of being misunderstood by younger readers. Mr Cooper is a gentleman of perfectly orthodox opinions and correct feeling, and all that we complain of, is his hasty use of unmeaning or objectionable phraseology. In the very next paragraph to that from which we have been quoting, he thus laudably expresses himself upon the subject. "It will be a useful lesson to observe that such distinction is the reward of early assiduous application, determined self-denial, unwearied industry, and high principle, without which, talents, however brilliant, will be of slight avail, or prove to be only the ignes fatui which betray to danger and destruction." And let us here place conspicuously before our readers – would that we could write in letters of gold! – the following pregnant sentences with which Sir Astley Cooper was wont, as President of the College of Surgeons, to address those who had successfully passed their arduous examination, in announcing to them that happy event: —

"Now, gentlemen, give me leave to tell you on what your success in life will depend.

Firstly, upon a good and constantly increasing knowledge of your profession.

Secondly, on an industrious discharge of its duties.

Thirdly, upon the preservation of your moral character.

Unless you possess the first, Knowledge, you ought not to succeed, and no honest man can wish you success.

Without the second, Industry, no one will ever succeed.

And unless you preserve your Moral Character, even if it were possible that you could succeed, it would be impossible you could be happy."29

Peace to your ashes, good Sir Astley! honour to your memory, who from your high eminence addressed these words of warning and goodness to those who stood trembling and excited before you, and in whose memory those words were engraved for ever!

The passage which we have above first quoted from the preface of the work before us, was, we own, not without its weight in disinclining us to read that work with care, or notice it in Maga. Our attention, after so long an interval, was recalled to the work quite accidentally, and we have lately read it through, in an impartial spirit; rising from the perusal with a strong feeling of personal respect for Mr Cooper, and of regret that he had not given himself time to make more of his invaluable materials – thereby doing something like justice to the memory of his illustrious relative, and making a strong effort, at the same time, to "render the history of a surgeon a matter of interest and amusement to the general public." While, however, we thus censure freely, let us do justice. Mr Cooper writes in the spirit of a gentleman, with singular frankness and fidelity. His manly expressions of affection and reverence for the memory of Sir Astley, are worthy of both. When, too, Mr Cooper chooses to make the effort, he can express himself with vigour and propriety, and comment very shrewdly and ably on events and characters. One of the chief faults in his book is that of showing himself to be too much immersed in his subject: he writes as though he were colloquially addressing, in the world at large, a party of hospital surgeons and students. For this defect, however, he scarcely deserves to be blamed; the existence of it is simply a matter of regret, to the discriminating and critical reader.

The two volumes before us are rich in materials for the biographer. We can hardly imagine the life of a public man more varied, interesting, and instructive, than that of the great surgeon who is gone; and we have resolved, after much consideration, to endeavour to present to our innumerable readers, (for are they not so?) as distinct and vivid a portraiture of Sir Astley Cooper as we are able, guided by Mr Bransby Cooper. If our readers aforesaid derive gratification from our labour of love, let them give their thanks to that gentleman alone, whose candour and fidelity are, we repeat it, above all praise. We are ourselves not of his craft, albeit not wholly ignorant thereof, knowing only so much of it as may perhaps enable us to select what will interest general readers. Many portions of these volumes we shall pass over altogether, as unsuitable for our purposes; and those with which we thus deal, we may indicate as we go along. And, finally, we shall present some of the results of our own limited personal knowledge and observation of the admirable deceased.

Astley Paston Cooper came of a good family, long established in Norfolk, and there is reason for believing that there ran in his veins some of the blood of the immortal Sir Isaac Newton.30 He was born on the 23d August 1768, at a manor-house called Brooke Hall, near Shottisham, in Norfolk. He was the sixth of ten children, and the fourth son. His father was the Rev. Samuel Cooper, D.D., (formerly a pensioner of Magdalen College, Cambridge,) then rector of Yelverton in that county, and afterwards perpetual curate of Great Yarmouth – a large cure of souls, numbering sixteen thousand, among whom he discharged his pastoral duties with exemplary faithfulness and vigilance, and was universally beloved and respected. He was also a magistrate, in which capacity he was conspicuous in suggesting and supporting schemes of public utility and benevolence. He was one of two sons of Mr Samuel Cooper, a surgeon at Norwich, a person of considerable professional reputation, and possessed of some literary pretensions. He left a handsome fortune to each of his sons, Samuel and William, and spent the evening of his life in the house of his elder son, at Yarmouth, but died at Dunston, in Norfolk, in 1785. The younger son became an eminent surgeon in London, and exercised, as will be presently seen, considerable influence on the fortunes of his celebrated nephew. Dr Cooper was the author of various works on the religious and political subjects principally discussed at that eventful period.31 In the year 1761, while yet a curate, he married a lady of large fortune, Maria Susannah, the eldest daughter and heiress of James Bransby, Esq., of Shottisham, who was descended from an ancient Yorkshire family, the head of which was Geoffrey de Brandesbee. She appears to have been a lovely woman, equally in person, mind, and character, and possessed also of some literary reputation, as the author of several works of fiction, of a moral and religious character. She was an exemplary and devoted mother, and exercised a powerful and salutary influence over all her children, especially her son Astley, the dawn of whose eminence she lived to see, with just maternal pride and exultation; dying in the year 1807, when he was in his thirtieth year. Several of her letters to him are given in these volumes, and they breathe a sweet spirit of piety and love. Thus, on both sides, he was well born, and his parents were also in affluent circumstances, enabling them to educate and provide satisfactorily for their large family.

Astley took his Christian name from his godfather, Sir Edward Astley, then M.P. for the county of Norfolk, and the grandfather of the present Lord Hastings. His second name,

Paston, was the maiden name of his maternal grandmother, who was related to the Earl of Yarmouth. As his mother's delicate health would not admit of her nursing him, as she had nursed all her other children, the little Astley was sent, for that purpose, to a Mrs Love, the wife of a respectable farmer, a parishioner of Dr Cooper's;32 and on returning home he received the zealous and affectionate attentions of his exemplary mother, who personally instructed him, as soon as he was able to profit by her exertions, in English grammar and history, for the latter of which he always evinced a partiality. He was initiated by his father into Greek and Latin; but his classical acquirements never enabled him to do more than read a little in Horace and the Greek Testament. As soon, in fact, as his boyish attention had ceased to be occupied with the classics, he seems to have bade them farewell, and never, at any period of his life, did he renew or increase his acquaintance with them. His only other preceptor, at this early period, was Mr Larke, the village schoolmaster, who taught writing, arithmetic, and mathematics to Dr Cooper's children, of all of whom Astley seems to have done him the least credit. Astley was about thirteen years old when he ceased to receive the instructions of Mr Larke, and was of a gay, volatile disposition, full of fun and frolic, and utterly reckless of danger. He had a charming deportment from his earliest youth; his manners were so winning, and his disposition was so amiable, that he was a universal favourite, even with those who were most frequently the victims of his frolicsome pranks. Wherever danger was to be found, there was Astley sure to be – the leader in every mischievous expedition which he and his companions could desire. His adventurous disposition frequently placed his limbs, and even his life, in danger. He would often, for instance, drive out the cows from a field, himself mounted on the back of the bull; and run along the eaves of lofty barns, from one of which he once fell, but luckily on some hay lying beneath. He once climbed to the roof of one of the aisles of the church, and, losing his hold, fell down, to the manifest danger of his life – escaping, however, with a few bruises only. Once he caught a horse grazing on a common, mounted him, and with his whip urged the animal to leap over a cow lying on the ground. Up jumped the cow at the moment of the startling transit, and overthrew both horse and rider; the latter breaking his collarbone in the fall. If vicious and high-mettled horses were within his reach, he would fearlessly mount them, without saddle or bridle, guiding them with a stick only. Was there a garden or orchard to be robbed, young Astley was the chieftain to plan the expedition, and divide the spoil. "Who can say," observes his biographer,33 "that the admiration and applause which young Astley obtained from his fellows for his intrepidity in these youthful exploits, were not, in truth, the elements of that love of superiority, and thirst for fame, which prevented him over afterwards from being contented with any but the highest rank in every undertaking with which he associated himself?" There may be some truth in this remark; but let it also be borne in mind – (that youth may not be led astray by false notions) – that this love of adventure and defiance of danger have often been exhibited in early years, by those who have turned out very differently from Astley Cooper, and proved themselves to be the silliest, most mischievous, and most degraded of mankind – the very curses of society.

One of the earliest incidents in young Astley's life, was one which exposed him to great danger. While playing with an elder brother, who happened to have an open knife in his hand, Astley ran heedlessly against it; the blade entering the lower part of his cheek, passing upwards, and being stopped only by the socket of the eye. The wound bled profusely, and the injury sustained was so great, as to keep him a close prisoner, and under surgical treatment, for a long time; and Sir Astley bore with him to the grave the scar which had been made by the wound. Two other incidents happening about the same time, when he was in his twelfth or thirteenth year, present young Astley in an interesting and striking point of view. Some of the scholars belonging to a boarding-school in the village, were playing together one day near a large pond, when the bell had summoned them to return to their duties. As they were going, one of them snatched off the hat of one of his companions, and flung it into the pond. The latter cried bitterly for the loss of his hat, and from fear of being punished for not returning with the others to school. At this moment came up a young gentleman dressed, according to the fashion of that day, in a scarlet coat, a three-cocked hat, a glazed black collar or stock, nankeen small-clothes, and white silk stockings, his hair hanging in ringlets down his back. This was no other than Astley Cooper, returning from a dancing-school held at a neighbouring inn, by a teacher of the art, who used to come from Norwich. Observing the trouble of the despoiled youngster, Astley inquired the cause; and having his attention directed to the hat in the water, he marched in with great deliberation, and succeeded in obtaining the hat, having waded above his knees, and presenting a somewhat droll object as he came out, his gay habiliments bedaubed with mud and water. The other circumstance alluded to is certainly very remarkable, when coupled with his subsequent career. One of his foster-brothers, while conducting a horse and cart conveying coals to some one in the village, unfortunately stumbled in front of the cart, the wheel of which passed over his thigh, and, among other severe injuries, lacerated the principal artery. The danger was of course imminent. The poor boy, sinking under the loss of blood, which the few bystanders ineffectually attempted to stop by applying handkerchiefs to the wound, was carried into his mother's house, whither young Astley, having heard of the accident, quickly followed. He alone, amidst the terror and confusion which prevailed, had his wits about him, and after a few moments' reflection took out his pocket handkerchief, encircled with it the thigh above the wound, and bound it round as tightly as possible, so as to form a ligature upon the wounded vessel. This stopped the bleeding, and kept the little sufferer alive till the arrival of a surgeon. The self-possession, decision, and sagacity displayed by little Astley Cooper on this occasion, are above all praise, and must have produced a deep impression on the minds of his parents, and indeed upon any one who had heard of the occurrence. It is barely possible that he might have originally caught the hint through overhearing such subjects mentioned by his grandfather or his uncle, the surgeons. This is hardly likely; but, even were it so, it leaves the self-possessed and courageous youth entitled to our highest admiration. In after years, Sir Astley Cooper frequently spoke of this circumstance as a very remarkable event in his life, and that which had first bent his thoughts towards the profession of surgery.34 This is very probable. The inward delight which he must have experienced at having saved the life of his foster-brother, and receiving the grateful thanks and praises of his foster-mother and her family, must have contributed to fix the occurrence in his mind, and to surround it with pleasing associations.

In the year 1781, Dr Cooper and his family quitted Brooke for Yarmouth, on his being appointed to the perpetual curacy of the latter place. Astley was then in his thirteenth year. Sixty years afterwards, the great surgeon, who had a strong attachment to particular places, made a pilgrimage to the scene of his gay and happy boyhood at Brooke, at that time a pretty and retired village, and hallowed by every early and tender association. He found it, however, strangely altered, as he gazed at it, doubtless with a moistened eye and a throbbing heart. Let him speak for himself; for he has left on record his impressions. Having dined at the village inn, he says, —

"I walked down the village, along an enclosed road, dull and shadowed by plantations on either side; instead of those commons and open spaces, ornamented here and there by clean cottages. The little mere35 was so much smaller than in my imagination, that I could hardly believe my eyes; the great mere was half empty, and dwindled also to a paltry pond. On my right were the plantations of Mr Ketts, overshading the road, and for which numerous cottages had been sacrificed; on my left, cottages enclosed in gardens. Still proceeding to the scenes of my early years, on the right was a lodge leading to Mr Holmes's new house, and water with a boat on it – a fine mansion, but overlooking the lands of Mr Ketts. I then walked on to the vicar's, Mr Castell, but he was out. I looked for the church mere, and it was filled up, planted, and converted into a garden. I looked for the old Brooke Hall, the place of my nativity, and the seat of the happiness of my early years; for the road which led to it and its forecourt – its flower-gardens and kitchen-gardens, its stable-yard and coach-houses – and all were gone. The very place where they once were is forgotten. Here we had our boat, our swimming, our shooting – excellent partridge-shooting – in Brooke wood tolerable pheasant-shooting – woodcocks; in Seething Fen abundance of snipes – a good neighbourhood, seven miles from Norwich, almost another London, where my grandfather lived; we knew everybody, kept a carriage and chaise, saw much company, and were almost allowed to do as we liked; but the blank of all these gratifications now only remains.

"The once beautiful village is swallowed up by two parks – cottages cut down to make land for them – commons enclosed," &c.36

On the page opposite to that on which these remarks are written, Sir Astley has roughly sketched the village as it had stood in his childhood, and as he found it on the occasion of his revisiting it.

On reaching his new residence at Yarmouth, this apparently incorrigible Pickle betook himself with renewed energy to mischief and fun; "indulging more easily," says Mr Cooper, "and on a larger scale, in those levities, the offspring of a buoyant heart and thoughtless youth, which had already distinguished him in the more limited sphere which he had just quitted… These irregularities, however, were never strictly opposed to the interests of virtue and honesty – nor, indeed, ever exhibited anything but repugnance to those mean, though less serious faults, which often intrude into schoolboy sports and occupations. They were, on the contrary, characterised by cheerfulness of temper, openness of character, sensibility of disposition, and every quality of an ingenuous mind."37 Very soon after his arrival, his temerity led him into a most perilous adventure – one which might have been expected to cure his propensity to court danger.

"Soon after Dr Cooper's arrival in Yarmouth, the church underwent certain repairs, and Astley having constant access to the building from his influence with the sexton, used frequently to amuse himself by watching the progress of the improvements. Upon one occasion he ascended by a ladder to the ceiling of the chancel, (a, height of seventy feet,) and with foolish temerity walked along one of the joists – a position of danger to which few but the workmen, who were accustomed to walk at such an elevation, would have dared voluntarily to expose themselves. While thus employed, his foot suddenly slipped, and he fell between the rafters of the ceiling. One of his legs, however, fortunately remained bent over the joist on which he had been walking, while the foot was caught beneath the next adjoining rafter, and by this entanglement alone he was preserved from instant destruction. He remained for some time suspended with his head downwards, and it was not until after repeated and violent efforts, that he succeeded in jerking his body upwards, when, by catching hold of the rafter, he was enabled to recover his footing. I believe, from the manner in which Sir Astley used to refer to this adventure, that he always re-experienced to a great degree the horror which filled his mind at seeing the distance between him and the floor of the chancel, when he was thus suspended from its ceiling." – (Pp. 70-1.)

Very soon afterwards he nearly lost his life in an adventure on the sea, characterised by his usual semi-insane recklessness.38 By-and-by he betook himself to pranks seriously annoying to his neighbours and towns-folk – breaking lamps and windows, ringing the church bells at all hours, slyly altering the town clock, and so forth – whereby "Master Astley Cooper" became, as lawyers would style it, the "common vouchee" whenever any mischief had been perpetrated. Mr Cooper gives an account of several whimsical exploits of young Astley at this period, one of which we shall quote; but all display an amusing sense of the humorous on the part of their perpetrator.

"Having taken two pillows from his mother's bed, he carried them up to the spire of Yarmouth church, at a time when the wind was blowing from the north-east, and as soon as he had ascended as high as he could, he ripped them open, and, shaking out their contents, dispersed them in the air. The feathers were carried away by the wind, and fell far and wide over the surface of the marketplace, to the great astonishment of a large number of persons assembled there. The timid looked upon it as a phenomenon predictive of some calamity – the inquisitive formed a thousand conjectures – while some, curious in natural history, actually accounted for it by a gale of wind in the north blowing wild-fowl feathers from the island of St Paul's! It was not long, however, before the difficulty was cleared up in the doctor's house, where it at first gave rise to anything but those expressions of amusement which the explanation, when circulated through the town, is reported to have excited. I think my uncle used to say that some extraordinary account of the affair, before the secret was discovered, found its way into the Norwich papers!" – (Pp. 73-4.)

On one occasion he was imprisoned in his own room by his father, as a punishment for a very thoughtless joke which had occasioned serious alarm to his mother. Shortly after locking the door upon the young scapegrace, his father, walking with a friend in his favourite walk near the house, was astonished at hearing, from above, a cry of "Sweep – sweep!" in the well-known voice of a neighbouring chimney-sweeper. On looking up, he beheld his hopeful son in the position of a sweep, who had reached the summit of the chimney! and was calling out to attract the attention of the passers-by in the street below. "Ah," quoth the good doctor to his friend, "there is my boy Astley, again! He is a sad rogue, – but, in spite of his roguery, I have no doubt that he will yet be a shining character!"39

Though thus partial to rough sports and adventures, he was, even at this early age, very susceptible of the effect of female beauty, and the charms of female society. A lad so handsome as he, and of such elegant and winning manners and address, could not fail to be a great favourite with the softer sex. So, indeed, he was. And as a proof of his attachment to them, – shortly after he had left Brooke for Yarmouth, being then only thirteen years old, he borrowed his father's horse, and rode a distance of forty-eight miles in one day, to pay, unknown to his parents, a visit to a girl of his own age, a Miss Wordsworth, the daughter of a clergyman residing in a village near that which the Coopers had quitted for Yarmouth. In after life, he never mentioned this little circumstance without lively emotion; and Mr Cooper expresses himself as at a loss to explain how this early intimacy had failed of leading to the future union of the youthful couple. Such was young Astley Cooper in his early years: blessed with an exemplary mother, who sedulously instilled into his mind, as into those of all her children, the precepts of virtue and religion; equally blessed with an amiable and pious father, and happy in the society of his brothers and sisters; with cheerful, buoyant animal spirits, whose exuberance led him into the pursuit of comparatively innocent adventure, untinged by mean or vicious characteristics; and exhibiting, under all his wild love of fun, an under-current of intellectual energy, warranting that prediction of future distinction which, as we have seen, was uttered by his father about the period of which we are speaking. It was not likely that a boy of this character should always remain satisfied with the position which he then occupied. He must have felt inward promptings to something worthy of the capabilities of which he was secretly conscious; and it is interesting and satisfactory to be able to point out the circumstances which determined him to enter that particular walk of life, and department in science, which he afterwards occupied with such transcendent distinction. The very interesting incident which first bent his thoughts in that direction has been already mentioned. It has been already stated that he had an uncle, Mr Samuel Cooper, an eminent surgeon in London, the senior surgeon of Guy's Hospital. This gentleman was in the habit of visiting his brother, Dr Cooper, at Yarmouth; and with his varied and animated conversation young Astley became more and more delighted, as he recounted the exciting incidents of London social and professional life. The uncle seems, in turn, to have been pleased with the vivacity and spirit of his nephew; and thus it was that Astley conceived an intense desire to repair to the great metropolitan scene of action, of which he was hearing so much, and could so easily imagine much more. It does not seem to have been any particular enthusiasm for surgery and anatomy that actuated him at this early period, but probably nothing more than a taste for pleasure and excitement,40 which he felt could be gratified to an indefinite extent in London life. He had even committed himself to the adoption of his uncle's profession, without having indicated any desire to achieve excellence or eminence in it. The spark of ambition seems to have fallen into his ardent temperament, on witnessing the terrible operation for stone, performed by a Dr Donnee, of Norwich. This fact we have on his own authority.41 In the year 1836, he payed a visit to Norwich, and on quitting it, wrote the following letter, enclosing £30 for the hospital, to Dr Yelloly.