Page:Two Sussex archaeologists, William Durrant Cooper and Mark Antony Lower.djvu/27

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WILLIAM CURRANT COOPER.
17

the Sussex arms, and the family arms of Mr. Cooper." This memorial was presented to Mr. Cooper at the Society's Meeting, at Pulborough, in August, 1865, by the hands of the late Bishop of Chichester, Dr. Gilbert, and it, of course, bore a suitable inscription.[1]

To the Camden Society's publications Mr. Cooper contributed as under: To Vol. Iv. The Trelawny Papers, extending in date from 1644 to 1711, and having reference to the famous West Country bishop, Jonathan Trelawny, of Cornish celebrity. To Vol. lxxii. he contributed The Expenses of the Judges of Assize riding the Western and Oxford Circuits, temp. Elizabeth, 1596-1601. From the MS. account-book of Judge Walmysley. Besides the expenses of the Judges, these extracts contain "lists of the numerous presents of provisions for their table, and of the places and persons which entertained them." And Vol. lxxxii. which was the only entire volume of the series edited by him, was, as Sussex readers know, on a subject he had already made his own: Lists of Foreign Protestants, and Aliens, resident in England, 1618-1688, from Returns in the State Paper Office. The Introduction to this volume contains much valuable information.

In commenting on the loss the Camden Society had sustained in Mr. Cooper's death, the Council speak of their departed colleague as a constant attendant at their meetings, "always ready to contribute valuable advice and criticism; his learning and his practical acquaintance with business will be often missed by those with whom he so heartily co-operated in the interests of the Society." Although a service-rendering member both of the Percy Society, and the Shakespeare Society, Mr. Cooper would seem not to have been a contributor to the Percy Society volumes, while one volume only of the kindred Society claims him as its editor. The truth is that the staple commodity with which these Societies dealt belonged rather to the region of fancy than of fact, Still, the one volume for which the Shakespeare Society is indebted

  1. See, for a fuller account of this interesting proceeding, the Report prefixed to 17 S. A. C.