one of the four young pupils of the Rev. Thomas Ellison, rector of the church.  Dr. Ellison was an Englishman and a graduate of Oxford—­a rare scholar and a king’s man.  From him came Cooper’s strong preference for English church government and equally strong feeling against the Puritans of Old and New England.  While the Puritan’s character was not pleasing to Cooper, he himself was called a “Puritan of Puritans,” and it was to them he referred in the following:  “Whatever else I may think of the Yankees,—­a calmer, firmer, braver people do not walk this earth.”  Of this sentiment “The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish,” published in 1829, gives ample proof.

[Illustration:  DR. THOMAS ELLISON.]

The Rev. Joseph Hooper, author of the “History of St. Peter’s Church, Albany, N.Y.,” related an incident of Cooper’s old Rectory school days there.  The story came to Dr. Hooper from Mr. Edward Floyd de Lancy, son of Bishop de Lancy of Western New York, and is as follows: 

It was the custom of the Rev. Thomas Ellison when he became too feeble to personally direct his workmen, to sit upon the stoop of the Rectory and watch the removal of the sandbank which covered the chosen site for the new church, corner of State and Lodge streets.  Hundreds of loads had to be carted away before the foundation could be laid, and some of the carter’s pay tickets on quartered playing-cards are preserved in St. Peter’s archives.  But the great hole in the ground had a great attraction for the boys of Albany, and they would leap into it to play tag and leap-frog until the stern voice of the Dominie called them to order, when they would scamper away or hide in some corner out of sight of the piercing eyes of Dr. Ellison.  Sometimes they would answer him mockingly, to his great annoyance.  He could not pursue them, but he could, when his own pupils joined with the other boys, as they often did, give them stern and severe lectures upon their conduct, for they were playing on ground to be used for a sacred purpose.  Even the rod of correction was used without curing them of this habit.  Young Cooper was often a ringleader, and their pranks would often continue until darkness concealed them from the watchful and angry Rector, to whom, nevertheless, they gave due honor and respect.

[Illustration:  ST. PETER’S CHURCH, ALBANY, N.Y.]

[Illustration:  STATE STREET, ALBANY, N.Y., 1802.]

From one of his “Sketches of England,” written to William, Judge John Jay’s second son, comes, in part, Cooper’s graphic description of Dr. Ellison:  “Thirty-six years ago you and I were school fellows and classmates in the home of a clergyman of the true English school.  This man entertained a most profound reverence for the King and the nobility; was not backward in expressing his contempt for all classes of dissenters and all ungentlemanly sects; was particularly severe on the immoralities of the French Revolution, and, though eating our bread,