The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 145

COUTTS, THOMAS, a banker, born in Edinburgh, his father having been Lord Provost of that city; joint-founder and eventually sole manager of the London banking house, Coutts & Co.; left a fortune of 900,000 (1735-1822).

COUVADE, a custom among certain races of low culture in which a father before and after childbirth takes upon himself the duties and cares of the mother.

COUZA, PRINCE, born at Galatz, hereditary prince of Moldavia and Wallachia; reigned from 1858 to 1860; died in exile, 1873.

COVENANT, SOLEMN LEAGUE AND, an engagement, with representatives from Scotland, on the part of the English Parliament to secure to the Scotch the terms of their National Covenant, and signed by honourable members in St. Margaret's Church, Westminster, September 25, 1643, on the condition of a.s.sistance from the Scotch in their great struggle with the king.

COVENANT, THE NATIONAL, a solemn engagement on the part of the Scottish nation subscribed to by all ranks of the community, the first signature being appended to it in the Greyfriars' Churchyard, Edinburgh, on February 28, 1638, to maintain the Presbyterian Church and to resist all attempts on the part of Charles I. to foist Episcopacy upon it; it was ratified by the Scottish Parliament in 1640, and subscribed by Charles II. in 1650 and 1651.

COVENANTERS, a body of strict Presbyterians who held out against the breach of the Solemn League and Covenant.

COVENT GARDEN, properly Convent Garden, as originally the garden of Westminster Abbey, the great fruit, flower, and vegetable market of London; is one of the sights of London early on a summer morning.

COVENTRY (55), a town in Warwicks.h.i.+re, 18 m. SE. of Birmingham; famous for the manufacture of ribbons and watches, and recently the chief seat of the manufacture of bicycles and tricycles; in the old streets are some quaint old houses; there are some very fine churches and a number of charitable inst.i.tutions.

COVENTRY, SIR JOHN, a member of the Long Parliament; when, as a member of Parliament in Charles II.'s reign, he made reflections on the profligate conduct of the king, he was set upon by bullies, who slit his nose to the bone; a deed which led to the pa.s.sing of the Coventry Act, which makes cutting and maiming a capital offence (1640-1682).

COVERDALE, MILES, translator of the English Bible, born in Yorks.h.i.+re; his translation was the first issued under royal sanction, being dedicated to Henry VIII.; done at the instance of Thomas Cromwell, and brought out in 1535, and executed with a view to secure the favour of the authorities in Church and State, displaying a timid hesitancy unworthy of a manly faith in the truth; both he and his translation nevertheless were subjected to persecution, 2500 copies of the latter, printed in Paris, having been seized by the Inquisition and committed to the flames (1487-1568).

COVERLEY, SIR ROGER DE, member of the club under whose auspices the _Spectator_ is professedly edited; represents an English squire of Queen Anne's reign.

COWELL, JOHN, an English lawyer, author of "Inst.i.tutes of the Laws of England" and of a law dictionary burnt by the common hangman for matter in it derogatory to the royal authority; _d_. 1611.

COWEN, FREDERICK HYMEN, a popular English composer, born in Kingston, Jamaica; his works consist of symphonies, cantatas, oratories, as well as songs, duets, &c.; is conductor of the Manchester Subscription Concerts in succession to Sir Charles Halle; _b_. 1852.

COWES, a watering-place in the N. of the Isle of Wight, separated by the estuary of Medina into E. and W.; engaged in yacht-building, and the head-quarters of the Royal Yacht Club.

COWLEY, ABRAHAM, poet and essayist, born in London; a contemporary of Milton, whom he at one time outshone, but has now fallen into neglect; he was an ardent royalist, and catered to the taste of the court, which, however, brought him no preferment at the Restoration; he was a master of prose, and specially excelled in letter-writing; he does not seem to have added much to the literature of England, except as an essayist, and in this capacity has been placed at the head of those who cultivated that clear, easy, and natural style which culminated in Addison (1618-1667).

COWLEY, HENRY WELLESLEY, EARL, an eminent diplomatist, brother of the Duke of Wellington; served as a diplomatist in Vienna, Constantinople, and Switzerland, and was amba.s.sador to France from 1852 to 1867 (1804-1884).

COWPER, WILLIAM, a popular English poet, born at Great Berkhampstead, Hertford, of n.o.ble lineage; lost his mother at six, and cherished the memory of her all his days; of a timid, sensitive nature, suffered acutely from harsh usage at school; read extensively in the cla.s.sics; trained for and called to the bar; was appointed at 32 a clerk to the House of Lords; qualifying for the duties of the appointment proved too much for him, and he became insane; when he recovered, he retired from the world to Huntingdon beside a brother, where he formed an intimacy with a family of the name of Unwin, a clergyman in the place; on Mr. Unwin's death he removed with the family to Olney, in Buckinghams.h.i.+re, where he lived as a recluse and a.s.sociated with the Rev.

John Newton and Mrs. Unwin; shortly after he fell insane again, and continued so for two years; on his recovery he took to gardening and composing poems, his first the "Olney Hymns," the melancholy being charmed away by the conversation of a Lady Austin, who came to live in the neighbourhood; it was she who suggested his greatest poem, the "Task"; then followed other works, change of scene and a.s.sociates, the death of Mrs. Unwin, and the gathering of a darker and darker cloud, till he pa.s.sed away peacefully; it is interesting to note that it is to this period his "Lines to Mary Unwin" and his "Mother's Picture" belong (1731-1800).

c.o.x, DAVID, an eminent landscape painter, rated by some next to Turner, born at Birmingham; began his art as a scene-painter; painted as a landscapist first in water-colour, then in oil; many of his best works are scenes in N. Wales; his works have risen in esteem and value; an ambition of his was to get 100 for a picture, and one he got only 20 for brought 3602 (1793-1830).

c.o.x, SIR GEORGE, an English mythologist, specially distinguished for resolving the several myths of Greece and the world into idealisations of solar phenomena; he has written on other subjects, all of interest, and is engaged with W. T. Brande on a "Dictionary of Science, Literature, and Art"; _b_. 1827.

c.o.xCIE, MICHAEL, a celebrated Flemish painter, born at Mechlin (1497-1592).

c.o.xE, HENRY OCTAVIUS, librarian, became a.s.sistant-librarian of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, in 1838, and ultimately head-librarian in 1860; under his direction the catalogue, consisting of 720 folio volumes, was completed; held this post till his death; has edited several works of value; is one of Dean Burgon's "Twelve Good Men" (1811-1881).

c.o.xE, WILLIAM, a historical writer, heavy but painstaking, born in London; wrote "History of the House of Austria" and the "Memoirs of Marlborough," and on "Sir Robert Walpole and the Pelham Administrations"

(1747-1828).

c.o.xWELL, a celebrated English aeronaut; bred a dentist; took to ballooning; made 700 ascents; reached with Glaisher an elevation of 7 m.; _b_. 1819.

COZENS, JOHN ROBERT, a landscape painter, a natural son of Peter the Great; p.r.o.nounced by Constable the greatest genius that ever touched landscape, and from him Turner confessed he had learned more than from any other landscapist; his mind gave way at last, and he died insane (1752-1801).

CRABBE, GEORGE, an English poet, born at Aldborough, in Suffolk; began life as apprentice to an apothecary with a view to the practice of medicine, but having poetic tastes, he gave up medicine for literature, and started for London with a capital of three pounds; his first productions in this line not meeting with acceptance, he was plunged in want; appealing in vain for a.s.sistance in his distress, he fell in with Burke, who liberally helped him and procured him high patronage, under which he took orders and obtained the living of Trowbridge, which he held for life, and he was now in circ.u.mstances to pursue his bent; his princ.i.p.al poems are "The Library," "The Village," "The Parish Register,"

"The Borough," and the "Tales of the Hall," all, particularly the earlier ones, instinct with interest in the lives of the poor, "the sacrifices, temptations, loves, and crimes of humble life," described with the most "unrelenting" realism; the author in Byron's esteem, "though Nature's sternest painter, yet the best" (1754-1832).

CRACOW (75), a city in Galicia, the old capital of Poland; where the old Polish kings were buried, and the cathedral of which contains the graves of the most ill.u.s.trious of the heroes of the country and Thorwaldsen's statue of Christ; a large proportion of the inhabitants are Jews.

CRADLE MOUNTAIN, a mountain in the W. of Tasmania.

CRAIG, JOHN, a Scottish Reformer, educated at St. Andrews, and originally a Dominican monk; had been converted to Protestantism by study of Calvin's "Inst.i.tutes," been doomed to the stake by the Inquisition, but had escaped; the coadjutor in Edinburgh of Knox, and his successor in his work, and left a confession and catechism (1512-1580).

CRAIG, SIR THOMAS, an eminent Scottish lawyer, author of a treatise on the "Jus Feudale," which has often been reprinted, as well as three others in Latin of less note; wrote in Latin verse a poem on Queen Mary's marriage to Darnley (1538-1608).

CRAIGENPUTTOCK, a craig or whinstone hill of the puttocks (small hawks), "a high moorland farm on the watershed between Dumfriess.h.i.+re and Galloway, 10 m. from Dumfries," the property for generations of a family of Welshes, and eventually that of their heiress, Jane Welsh Carlyle, "the loneliest spot in all the British dominions," which the Carlyles made their dwelling-house in 1828, where they remained for seven years, and where "Sartor" was written. "It is certain," Carlyle says of it long after, "that for living and thinking in I have never since found in the world a place so favourable.... How blessed," he exclaims, "might poor mortals be in the straitest circ.u.mstances if their wisdom and fidelity to heaven and to one another were adequately great!"

CRAIK, GEORGE LITTLE, an English author, born in Fife, educated at St. Andrews; settled early in London as a litterateur; was a.s.sociated with Charles Knight in his popular literary undertakings; was author of the "Pursuit of Knowledge under Difficulties," and the "History of English Literature and Learning"; edited "Pictorial History of England,"

contributed to "Penny Cyclopaedia," and became professor of English Literature, Queen's College, Belfast (1799-1866).

CRAIK, MRS., _nee_ MULOCK, born at Stoke-upon-Trent; auth.o.r.ess of "John Halifax, Gentleman," her chief work, which has had, and maintains, a wide popularity; married in 1865 a nephew and namesake of the preceding, a partner of the publis.h.i.+ng house of Macmillan & Co.; wrote for the magazines, besides some 14 more novels (1826-1887).