comedies, and the tragedy of the Mourning Bride, before he had passed his twenty-fifth year! It was Congreve, who recommended Addison to Lord Halifax; and by his Lordship's influence Addison was prevented from going into the Church. (See Steele's Dedication of the second edition of the Drummer to Mr. C.) Congreve had the character of a man of wit, who always pleased in his conversation, and never offended. It was said of him, that no one, after spending a joyful evening with him, could reflect on any expression used by Mr. C., that dwelt upon him with pain.'*-(Steele's Dedication of Poetical Miscellanies, 1714. See Voltaire's Remarks on Congreve, in Warton's Pope's Works, III. 307; also I. XLIX, 144; and VII. 311.) 6 When Jeremy Collier, in his View of the English Stage,' censured the dramatic compositions of Dryden, Congreve, and Sir John Vanbrugh, Dryden pleaded guilty, and retracted whatever could correctly be arraigned of profaneness and immorality. If the other two comic poets had adopted the same measure, they would have gained much greater credit than by attempting to defend themselves. For an account of this controversy, of the pieces written during * Of Mr. Sheridan it has thus been pronounced, with great beauty, that "His wit in the combat, as gentle as bright, "Never carried a heart-stain away on it's blade." the course of it, and of Mr. Collier himself, see Nichols' Literary Anecdotes, I. 341, 342. Mr. Pope esteemed Congreve as a gentleman, and a man of honour, and the sagest of the poetic tribe. He thought nothing wanting in his Comedies-but the simplicity of truth and nature. The following passage is deemed by Dr. Johnson to be superior to any in Shakspeare! ......All is hush'd, and still as death-'Tis dreadful! (Mourning Bride, II. 3.) Upon this play he received some complimentary verses from Miss Trotter (subsequently, Mrs. Cockburne) who in her seventeenth year had produced a Tragedy, called Agnes de Castro,' acted in 1695. His works were published by Mr. Baskerville in three vols. 8vo, in 1761. One of his Comedies had the honour of being in part, if not wholly, Locker into modern translated by the learned Greek. 24. COOK ALEXANDER, B. D., Vicar of Leeds. For some account of him, see Harleian Miscellany, IV. 62, and Thoresby's "Vicaria Leodiensis,' 71-79; and for one of his curious Letters, dated July 2, 1714, giving an account of the three Chancellors in the Court of Heaven in an Extract from a popish book, see Archbishop Usher's Letters, 32. 25. COOK JAMES. See the Annual Register for 1784-5, pp. 9, 10; Gent. Mag. 1785, 33; 1784, 483. with a Medal opposite to 529; and 1791, 318, 26. COOK ROBERT, B. D. Was born at Beeston near Leeds, 27. COOK WILLIAM, D. D. Master of Jesus College, Cambridge. Qu.? Was it to his pen, that the father of the singularly precocious Dr. William Wotton, in his Essay on the Education of Children, &c. was indebted for the subjoined testimonial of his son's attainments as a linguist? 28. COVERDALE MILES, Bishop of Exeter, A. D. 1551, was born at Coverdale. In the first year of Queen Mary's reign, he was deprived, and through the kind interposition of Frederick King of Denmark only banished the realm. After her death, he refused to resume his bishopric*, and lived privately to the age of eighty-one years. He died A. D. 1588, and was buried in St. Bartholomew's behind the Exchange. See Fuller's Church-History, IX. 61, 64, and his Worthies: and Bale de Script. Brit. IX. 61. Trifling as are the scruples concerning wearing the surplice, &c. we cannot forbear to regret the effect which they produced on the mind of this venerable prelate, who was the next translator of the Bible after Wickliff. He could not be in * For an account of another deprived Bishop, Dr. Bell, who died August 11, 1556, and was buried at Clerkenwell, see Strype's Memorials, III. 305. and Nichols' Literary Anecdotes, III. 110. In the last volume, at p. 517, in a Letter from J. Thorpe to Dr. Ducarel, is given a very minute description of Coverdale's New Testament, printed by Wolfe in 1550. As this copy is stated, in a MS. note upon the margin of one of it's leaves, to have been found in a hayloft at Canterbury, it had probably been concealed to escape the rigid Articles of Inquiry exhibited to Churchwardens by Cardinal Pole, who began his visitation at that city in May, 1556. duced to accept any benefice, while incumbered by that tunica molesta; and was, in consequence, reduced to extreme poverty, previously to his death. Fuller, however, justly contends that his honest Nolo episcopari implied no disapprobation of Episcopacy; as he was one of those Bishops, who solemnly consecrated Matthew Parker Archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth. "Nam quod efficit tale magis est tale, I understand thus; He, that makes another Archbishop, is abundantly satisfied in his judgement and conscience of the lawfulness thereof otherwise, such dissembling had been inconsistent with the sincerity of so grave and godly a person." 29. CRESSY HUGH, Son of Hugh Cressy, a Counsellor of Lincoln's Inn, was born at Wakefield * in 1605, educated at the Free Grammar School in that town, elected Fellow of Merton College, Oxford, in 1626 † ; and subsequently appointed Chaplain to Went *The arms of Cressy, an ancient family in Yorkshire, arg. a Lion Rampant sal. double queue. + In 1630, he delivered with great applause a Latin Oration at the funeral of his fellow countryman, Mr. Henry Briggs, the Savilian Professor of Geometry at Oxford. |