the best course that my
father could take would be to apply to Mr. John Harvey, to induce his
brother, Onley Harvey, Esq. (a brother barrister of my father too), to
ask it of the Home Department; if he asked it (supposing the gift to
be there), I think, without doubt it would be given. [The rest of the
letter relates to family matters, and concludes my love to William. He
attributes too much honour to me by looking to me with any
admiration.] My duty to my father.

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

My task is all but accomplished. I have but now to lay before the reader
the promised verses; those on Buonaparte are characteristic of the
writer, who, with his high intellectual powers, possessed to the last, a
noble and independent spirit, which despised even the appearance of
servility. I shall then add the notices that appeared in the _Morning
Chronicle_, and _Gentleman's Magazine_, soon after his decease, which
clearly show that He, whose death they record, was no common person; as,
also, the high estimation he was held in by the profession, to which he
was an honour; and by the public who admired him for his eloquence, and
prized him for his independence of character. In the sketches I have
given of the two lives, which were, of necessity intermingled,--it is
true, I have given but a rough outline of each, and my hope is they will
portray the lineaments and character as effectually as a more lengthened
biography; as I have seen, and often the character of a friend's face
better given in a few mere outlines, than in the finished likeness. In
looking at a small duodecimo edition I possess of Plutarch's lives, I
perceive that the lives of his greatest heroes and statesmen, are
comprised within a hundred pages, and yet how clearly does he portray
their lives to the reader. He gives a few anecdotes of their youth, a
few salient points of their character in manhood, and then concludes with
their actions and their deaths; and leaves the rest to the imagination
and "the mind's eye;" and who, after, reading them, does not see clearly
before him the man whose life has been so ably delineated? I mean not,
by this, to compare myself for an instant, with that great writer; but,
having, as I said before, such slender materials to deal with, I have, as
far as I was able, and after re-perusing the writer referred to, done my
best, with my small abilities to follow his example,