."

See I. Woodbridge Riley, _American Philosophy: the Early Schools_ (New
York, 1907).

COOPER, THOMAS (1805-1892), English Chartist and writer, the son of a
working dyer, was born at Leicester on the 20th of March 1805. After his
father's death his mother began business as a dyer and fancy box-maker
at Gainsborough. Young Cooper was apprenticed to a shoemaker. He had a
passion for knowledge; studied Greek, Latin and Hebrew in his spare
time; and in 1827 gave up cobbling to become a schoolmaster, and, later,
a Methodist preacher. His affairs did not prosper, and after going to
Lincoln, where he obtained work on a local newspaper, he came to London
in 1839. Here he became assistant to a second-hand bookseller, but in
1840 he joined the staff of the _Leicestershire Mercury_. His support of
the Chartist movement obliged him to resign his position, but he
undertook to edit _The Midland Counties Illuminator_, a Chartist
journal, in 1841. He became a leader of the extreme Chartist party, and
for his action in urging on the strike of 1842 he was imprisoned in
Stafford gaol for two years. Here he produced _The Purgatory of
Suicides_, a political epic in ten books, embodying the radical ideas of
the time. In his efforts to publish this work after his liberation he
came under the notice of Benjamin Disraeli and Douglas Jerrold. Through
Jerrold's help it appeared in 1845, and Cooper then turned his attention
to lecturing upon historical and educational subjects. In 1856 he
suddenly renounced the free-thinking doctrines which he had held for
many years, and became a lecturer on Christian evidences. He died at
Lincoln on the 15th of July 1892. Among his other works may be mentioned
the _Bridge of History over the Gulf of Time_ (1871) and the _Life of
Thomas Cooper, written by Himself_ (1872).

COOPER, THOMAS SIDNEY (1803-1902), English painter, was born at
Canterbury on the 20th of September 1803. In very early childhood he
showed in many ways the strength of his artistic inclinations, but as
the circumstances of his family did not admit of his receiving any
systematic training, he began before he was twelve years old to work in
the shop of a coach painter. A little later he obtained employment as a
scene painter; and he alternated between these two occupations for about
eight years. But the desire to become an artist continued to influence
him, and all his spare moments were given up to drawing and painting
from