Chapter VII: Front Matter (7)

The village which afterwards became important as Coventry (_Coventreu_, _Coventre_) owed its existence to the foundation of a Benedictine monastery by Earl Leofric and his wife Godgyfu, the famous Lady Godiva (q.v.), in 1043. The manor, which in 1066 belonged to the latter, descended to the earls of Chester and to Robert de Montalt, and from him passed to Isabella queen of Edward II. and the crown. Ranulf, earl of Chester, granted the earliest extant charter to the town in 1153, by which his burgesses were to hold of him in free burgage as they held of his father, and to have their portmote. This, with further privileges, was confirmed by Henry II. in 1177, and by nearly every succeeding sovereign until the 17th century. In 1345 Edward III. gave Coventry a corporation, mayor and bailiffs empowered to hold pleas and keep the town prison. Edward the Black Prince granted the mayor and bailiffs the right to hold the town in fee farm of L50 and to build a wall. In 1452 Henry VI. formed the city and surrounding hamlets into a county, and James I. incorporated Coventry in 1622. It first sent two representatives to parliament in 1295, but the returns were irregular. The prior's market on Fridays was probably of Saxon origin; a second market was granted in 1348, while fairs, still held, were obtained in 1217 for the octave of Holy Trinity, and in 1348 and in 1442 for eight days from the Friday after Corpus Christi. As early as 1216 Coventry was important for its trade in wool, cloth and caps, its gilds later being particularly numerous and wealthy. In 1568 Flemish weavers introduced new methods, but the trade was destroyed in the wars of the 17th century. During the middle of the 16th century there was a flourishing manufacture of blue thread, but this decayed before 1581; in the 18th century the manufacture of ribbon was introduced.

The popular phrase "to send to Coventry" (i.e. to refuse to associate with a person) is of uncertain derivation. The _New English Dictionary_ selects the period of the Civil War of the 17th century as that in which the origin of the phrase is probably to be found. Clarendon (_History of the Great Rebellion_, 1647) states that the citizens of Birmingham rose against certain small parties of the king's supporters, and sent the prisoners they captured to Coventry, which was then strongly parliamentarian.

See _Victoria County History, Warwick_; William Dugdale, _The
Antiquities of Coventre, illustrated from records_ (Coventry, 1765).

COVER (from the Fr. _couvert_, from _couvrir_, to cover, Lat. _cooperire_), that which hides, shuts in or conceals, a lid to a box or vessel, &c., the binding of a book or wrapper of a parcel; as a hunting term, the wood or undergrowth which shelters game. As a commercial term, the word means in its widest sense a security against loss, but is employed more particularly in connexion with stock exchange transactions to signify a "deposit made with a broker to secure him from being out of pocket in the event of the stocks falling against his client and the client not paying the difference" (_In re Cronmire_, 1898, 2 Q.B. 383). It is a mode of speculation engaged in almost entirely by persons who wish to limit their risk to a small amount, and, as a rule, the transactions are largely carried out in England with "outside" brokers, i.e. those dealers in securities who are not members of the Stock Exchange. The deposit is so much per cent or per share, usually 1% on the market value of the securities up to about twice the amount of the turn of the market; the client being able to close the transaction at any time during the currency of the cover, but the broker only when the cover is exhausted or has "run off." Cover is not money deposited to abide the event of a wager, but as security against a debt which may arise from a gaming contract, and it may be recovered back, if unappropriated.

COVERDALE, MILES (1488?-1569), English translator of the Bible and bishop of Exeter, was born of Yorkshire parents about 1488, studied philosophy and theology at Cambridge, was ordained priest at Norwich in 1514, and then entered the convent of Austin friars at Cambridge. Here he came under the influence of the prior, Robert Barnes, made the acquaintance of Sir Thomas More and of Thomas Cromwell, and began a thorough study of the Scriptures. He was one of those who met at the White Horse tavern to discuss theological questions, and when Barnes was arrested on a charge of heresy, Coverdale went up to London to assist him in drawing up his defence. Soon afterwards he left the convent, assumed the habit of a secular priest, and began to preach against confession and the worship of images. In 1531 he graduated bachelor of canon law at Cambridge, but from 1528 to 1534 he prudently spent most of his time abroad. No corroboration has, however, been found for Foxe's statement that in 1529 he was at Hamburg assisting Tyndale in his translation of the Pentateuch. In 1534 he published two translations of his own, the first Dulichius's _Vom alten und newen Gott_, and the second a _Paraphrase upon the Psalms_, and in 1535 he completed his translation of the Bible. The venture seems to have been projected by Jacob van Meteren, who apparently employed Coverdale to do the translation, and Froschover of Zurich to do the printing. No perfect copy is known to exist, and the five or six which alone have title-pages give no name of publisher or place of publication. The volume is dedicated to the king of England, where Convocation at Cranmer's instance had, in December 1534, petitioned for an authorized English version of the Scriptures. As a work of scholarship it does not rank particularly high. Some of the title-pages state that it had been translated out of "Douche" (i.e. German) "and Latyn": and Coverdale mentions that he used five interpreters, which are supposed to have been the Vulgate, the Latin version of Pagninus, Luther's translation, the Zurich version, and Tyndale's Pentateuch and New Testament. There is no definite mention of the original Greek and Hebrew texts; but it has considerable literary merit, many of Coverdale's phrases are retained in the authorized version, and it was the first complete Bible to be printed in English. Two fresh editions were issued in 1537, but none of them received official sanction. Coverdale was, however, employed by Cromwell to assist in the production of the Great Bible of 1539, which was ordered to be placed in all English churches. The work was done at Paris until the French government stopped it, when Coverdale and his colleagues returned to England early in 1539 to complete it. He was also employed in the same year in assisting at the suppression of superstitious usages, but the reaction of 1540 drove him once more abroad. His Bible was prohibited by proclamation in 1542, while Coverdale himself defied the Six Articles by marrying Elizabeth Macheson, sister-in-law to Dr John MacAlpine.

For a time Coverdale lived at Tubingen, where he was created D.D. In 1545 he was pastor and schoolmaster at Bergzabern in the duchy of Pfalz-Zweibrucken. In March 1548 he was at Frankfort, when the new English Order of Communion reached him; he at once translated it into German and Latin and sent a copy to Calvin, whose wife had befriended Coverdale at Strassburg. Calvin, however, does not seem to have approved of it so highly as Coverdale.

Coverdale was already on his way back to England, and in October 1548 he was staying at Windsor Castle, where Cranmer and some other divines, inaccurately called the Windsor Commission, were preparing the First Book of Common Prayer. His first appointment had been as almoner to Queen Catherine Parr, then wife of Lord Seymour; and he preached her funeral sermon in September 1548. He was also chaplain to the young king and took an active part in the reforming measures of his reign. He was one of the most effective preachers of the time. A sermon by him at St Paul's on the second Sunday in Lent, 1549, was immediately followed by the pulling down of "the sacrament at the high altar." A few weeks later he preached at the penance of some Anabaptists, and in January 1550 he was put on a commission to prosecute Anabaptists and all who infringed the Book of Common Prayer. In 1549 he wrote a dedication to Edward for a translation of the second volume of Erasmus's _Paraphrases_; and in 1550 he translated Otto Wermueller's _Precious Pearl_, for which Protector Somerset, who had derived spiritual comfort from the book while in the Tower, wrote a preface. He was much in request at funerals: he preached at Sir James Wilford's in November 1550, and at Lord Wentworth's before a great concourse in Westminster Abbey in March 1551.

Perhaps it was his gift of oratory which suggested his appointment as bishop of the refractory men of Devon and Cornwall. He had already, in August 1549, at some risk, gone down with Lord Russell to turn the hearts of the rebels by preaching and persuasion, and two years later he was appointed bishop of Exeter by letters patent, on the compulsory retirement of his predecessor, Veysey, who had reached an almost mythical age. He was an active prelate, and perhaps the vigorous Protestantism of the West in Elizabeth's reign was partly due to his persuasive powers. He sat on the commission for the reform of the canon law, and was in constant attendance during the parliaments of 1552 and 1553. On Mary's accession he was at once deprived on the score of his marriage, and Veysey in spite of his age was restored. Coverdale was called before the privy council on the 1st of September, and required to find sureties; but he was not further molested, and when Christian III. of Denmark at the instance of Coverdale's brother-in-law, MacAlpine, interceded in his favour, he was in February 1555 permitted to leave for Denmark with two servants, and his baggage unsearched; one of these "servants" is said to have been his wife. He declined Christian's offer of a living in Denmark, and preferred to preach at Wesel to the numerous English refugees there, until he was invited by Duke Wolfgang to resume his labours at Bergzabern. He was at Geneva in December 1558, and is said to have participated in the preparation of the Geneva version of the Bible.

In 1559 Coverdale returned to England and resumed his preaching at St Paul's and elsewhere. Clothed in a plain black gown, he assisted at Parker's consecration, in spite of the facts that he had himself been deprived, and did not resume his bishopric, and that his original appointment had been by the uncanonical method of letters patent. Conscientious objections were probably responsible for his non-restoration to the see of Exeter, and his refusal of that of Llandaff in 1563. He objected to vestments, and in his living of St Magnus close to London Bridge, which he received in 1563, he took other liberties with the Act of Uniformity. His bishop, Grindal, was his friend, and his vagaries were overlooked until 1566, when he resigned his living rather than conform. He still preached occasionally, and always drew large audiences. He died in February 1568, and was buried on the 19th in St Bartholomew's behind the Exchange. When this church was pulled down in 1840 to make room for the new Exchange, his remains were removed to St Magnus.

Coverdale's works, most of them translations, number twenty-six in
all; nearly all, with his letters, were published in a collected
edition by the Parker Soc., 2 vols., 1846. An excellent account is
given in the _Dict. Nat. Biog._ of his life, with authorities, to
which may be added R. W. Dixon's _Church History_, Bishop and
Gasquet's _Edward VI. and the Book of Common Prayer_; Acts of the
Privy Council; Letters and Papers of Henry VIII.; _Lit. Rem. of Edward
VI._ (Roxburghe Club); Whittingham's _Brief Discourse of Troubles at
Frankfort_; Pocock's _Troubles connected with the Prayer-Book_ (Camden
Soc.). (A. F. P.)

COVERTURE (a covering, an old French form of the modern _couverture_), a term in English law applied to the condition of a woman during marriage, when she is supposed to be under the cover, influence and protection of her husband, and so immune in certain cases from punishment for crime committed in the presence and on the presumed coercion of her husband. (See further HUSBAND AND WIFE.)

COVILHA, a town of Portugal, in the district of Castello Branco, formerly included in the province of Beira; on the eastern slope of the Serra da Estrella, and on the Abrantes-Guarda railway. Pop. (1900) 15,469. Covilha, which has been often compared with a collection of swallows' nests clinging to the rugged granitic mountain side, is shaped like an amphitheatre of closely crowded houses, overlooking the river Zezere and its wild valley from a height of 2180 ft. Over 4000 operatives are employed in the manufacture of _saragoca_, a coarse brown cloth worn by the peasantry throughout Portugal. The village of Unhaes da Serra (1507), 6 m. W.S.W., is noted for its sulphurous springs and baths.

COVILHAM (COVILHAO, COVILHA), PERO or PEDRO DE Portuguese explorer and diplomatist (fl. 1487-1525), was a native of Covilha in Beira. In early life he had gone to Castile and entered the service of Alphonso, duke of Seville; later, when war broke out between Castile and Portugal, he returned to his own country, and attached himself, first as a "groom," then as a "squire," to King Alphonso V. and his successor John II. On the 7th of May 1487, he was despatched, in company with Alphonso de Payva, on a mission of exploration in the Levant and adjoining regions of Asia and Africa, with the special object of learning where "cinnamon and other spices could be found," as well as of discovering the land of Prester John, by "overland" routes. Bartholomeu Diaz, at this very time, went out to find the Prester's country, as well as the termination of the African continent and the ocean route to India, by sea. Covilham and Payva were provided with a "letter of credence for all the countries of the world" and with a "map for navigating, taken from the map of the world" and compiled by Bishop Calcadilha, and doctors Rodrigo and Moyses. The first two of these were prominent members of the commission which advised the Portuguese government to reject the proposals of Columbus. The explorers started from Santarem and travelled by Barcelona to Naples, where their bills of exchange were paid by the sons of Cosimo de' Medici; thence they passed to Rhodes, where they lodged with two other Portuguese, and so to Alexandria and Cairo, where they posed as merchants. In company with certain Moors from Fez and Tlemcen they now went by way of Tor to Suakin and Aden, where (as it was now monsoon time) they parted, Covilham proceeding to India and Payva to Ethiopia--the two companions agreeing to meet again in Cairo. Covilham thus arrived at Cannanore and Calicut, whence he retraced his course to Goa and Ormuz, the Red Sea and Cairo, making an excursion on his way down the East African coast to Sofala, which he was probably the first European to visit. At Cairo he heard of Payva's death, and met with two Portuguese Jews--Rabbi Abraham of Beja, and Joseph, a shoe-maker of Lamego--who had been sent by King John with letters for Covilham and Payva. By Joseph of Lamego Covilham replied with an account of his Indian and African journeys, and of his observations on the cinnamon, pepper and clove trade at Calicut, together with advice as to the ocean way to India. This he truly represented as quite practicable: "to this they (of Portugal) could navigate by their coast and the seas of Guinea." The first objective in the eastern ocean, he added, was Sofala or the Island of the Moon, our Madagascar--"from each of these lands one can fetch the coast of Calicut." With this information Joseph returned to Portugal, while Covilham, with Abraham of Beja, again visited Aden and Ormuz. At the latter he left the rabbi; and himself came back to Jidda, the port of the Arabian holy land, and penetrated (as he told Alvarez many years later) even to Mecca and Medina. Finally, by Mount Sinai, Tor and the Red Sea, he reached Zeila, whence he struck inland to the court of Prester John (i.e. Abyssinia). Here he was honourably received; lands and lordships were bestowed upon him; but he was not permitted to leave. When the Portuguese embassy under Rodrigo de Lima, including Father Francisco Alvarez, entered Abyssinia in 1520, Covilham wept with joy at the sight of his fellow-countrymen. It was then forty years since he had left Portugal, and over thirty since he had been a prisoner of state in "Ethiopia." Alvarez, who professed to know him well, and to have heard the story of his life, both "in confession and out of it," praises his power of vivid description "as if things were present before him," and his extraordinary knowledge of "all spoken languages of Christians, Moors and Gentiles." His services as an interpreter were valuable to Rodrigo de Lima's embassy; but he never succeeded in escaping from Abyssinia.

See Francisco Alvarez, _Verdadera Informacam das terras do Preste
Joam_, esp. chs. 73, 89, 98, 102-103, 105 (pp. 177, 224, 254, 264,
265-270, 275, of the Hakluyt Society's English edition, _The
Portuguese Embassy to Abyssinia ... 1520-1727_, London, 1881); an
abstract of this, with some inaccuracies, is given in Major's _Prince
Henry the Navigator_ (London, 1868), pp. 339-340.

COVIN (from the Fr. _covine_, or _couvine_, from Lat. _convenire_, to come together), an association of persons, so used in the Statute of Labourers of 1360, which, _inter alia_, declared void "all alliances and covins of masons and carpenters." The more common use of the term in English law was for a secret agreement between persons to cheat and defraud, but the word is now obsolete, and has been superseded by "collusion" or "conspiracy to cheat and defraud."

COVINGTON, a city and one of the two county-seats of Kenton county, Kentucky, U.S.A., on the Ohio river opposite Cincinnati, with which it is connected by bridges; and at the mouth of the Licking river (also spanned by bridges), opposite Newport, Ky. Pop. (1890) 37,371; (1900) 42,938, of whom 5223 were foreign-born and 2478 were negroes; (1910) 53,270. In 1900 it ranked second in population among the cities of Kentucky. The city is served by the Chesapeake & Ohio, and the Louisville & Nashville railways, by interurban electric railways, and by steamboat lines to the Ohio river ports. It is built on a plain commanding good views and partly shut in by neighbouring hills. Its streets, mostly named from eminent Kentuckians, are paved chiefly with asphalt, macadam and brick. There are numerous fine residences and several attractive public buildings, including that of the United States government--modern Gothic in style--the court-house and city hall combined, and the public library. Covington is the seat of a Roman Catholic bishopric, and its cathedral, in the flamboyant Gothic style, is one of the finest church buildings in the state. In the city are the Academy of Notre Dame and St Joseph's high school for boys, both Roman Catholic. The principal charitable institutions are the hospital of Saint Elizabeth, a German orphan asylum, a Protestant children's home, a home for aged women and a Wayfarers' Rest. Covington is the trade centre of an extensive district engaged in agriculture and stock raising, and as a manufacturing centre it ranked second in the state in 1905 (value of factory products $6,099,715), its products including tobacco, cotton goods, structural iron and steel, foundry and machine shop products, liquors and cordage. A settlement was established here in 1812, and three years later a town was laid out and named in honour of Gen. Leonard Covington (1768-1813), who was mortally wounded at Chrystler's Field during the War of 1812. In 1834 Covington was chartered as a city; and in 1908 it annexed Central Covington (pop. in 1900, 2155).

COWARD, a term of contempt for one who, before danger, pain or trouble, shows fear, whether physical or moral. The derivation of the word has been obscured by a connexion in sense with the verb "cow," to instil fear into, which is derived from old Norse _kuga_, a word of similar meaning, and with the verb "cower," to crouch, which is also Scandinavian in origin.[1] The true derivation is from the French _coe_, an old form of _queue_, a tail, from Lat. _cauda_, hence _couart_ or _couard_. The reference to "tail" is either to the expression "turn tail" in flight, or to the habit of animals dropping the tail between the legs when frightened; in heraldry, a lion in this position is a "lion coward." In the fable of _Reynard the Fox_ the name of the hare is Coart, Kywart, Cuwaert or other variants.

COWBRIDGE, a market town and a municipal and contributory parliamentary borough of Glamorganshire, Wales, with a station on the Taff Vale railway branch from Llantrisant to Aberthaw on the coast, distant by rail 162-1/2 m. from London, 12 m. W. of Cardiff, 7 m. S.E. of Bridgend, and 6 m. S. of Llantrisant station. The population in 1901 was 1202, a decrease of over 12% since 1891. Less than one-third of the number was Welsh-speaking. The town mainly consists of one long street running east and west, and is in a wide valley through which runs the river Thaw (Welsh, _Ddawan_), here crossed by a stone bridge.

Cowbridge is probably situated on the Roman road from Cardiff westwards, which seems to have kept nearly the course of the present main road. Roman coins have been discovered here. It has in fact been suggested, mainly on etymological grounds, that the town occupies the site of the Roman _Bovium_: the modern Welsh name, y Bontfaen ("stone bridge") is probably a corruption of the medieval, Pont y fon, the precise equivalent of "Cowbridge," which is first found in documents of the second half of the 13th century as Covbruge and Cubrigg. Others place Bovium on a vicinal road, at Boverton near Llantwit Major, about 6 m. to the south near the coast, though the most likely site is near Ewenny, 5 m. to the west of Cowbridge. After the Norman conquest of Glamorgan, the town grew up as an appanage of the castle of St Quentin, which occupies a commanding position half a mile south-west of the town. It was walled round before the 13th century. A tower is mentioned in 1487 when it was granted away by the burgesses. Leland in his itinerary (c. 1535) describes the town wall as three-quarters of a mile round and as having three gates. There was even then a considerable suburb on the west bank of the river and outside the walls. The south wall and gateway are still standing.

The town was a borough by prescription until 1682, when it received a charter of incorporation from Charles II. confirming its previous privileges. Under the Unreformed Corporations Act of 1883 the corporation was dissolved, but on the petition of the inhabitants a new charter was granted in March 1887. During the Tudor and Stuart periods Cowbridge was almost if not quite the chief town of Glamorgan, its importance being largely due to its central and accessible position in a rich agricultural district where a large number of the county gentry lived. The great sessions were held here alternately with Cardiff and Swansea from 1542 till their abolition in 1830, and the quarter sessions were held here once a year down to 1850. From 1536 to 1832 it was one of the eight contributory boroughs within the county which returned a member to parliament, but since 1832 it has been contributory with Cardiff and Llantrisant in returning a member. It has a separate commission of the peace. Sir Edward Stradling (1529-1609) established a grammar school here, but died before endowing it; it was refounded in 1685 by Sir Leoline Jenkins, who provided that it should be administered by Jesus College, Oxford, which body erected the present buildings in 1847. It has throughout its existence been one of the leading schools in Wales. An intermediate school for girls was established here by the county in 1896. The church of St Mary (formerly chapelry to Llanblethian) is of early English style and has a fine embattled tower, of the same military type as the towers of Llamblethian and Ewenny. There are three Nonconformist chapels. There are a town hall and market place. The town is now wholly dependent on agriculture, and has good markets and cattle fairs, that on the 4th of May being a charter fair.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] A connexion has also been imagined with cow (O. Eng. _cu_; common
in Scandinavian languages, and of similar root to Skr. _go_, whence
also Gr. [Greek: bous], Lat. _bos_), the female bovine animal, on
account of its timidity.

COWDENBEATH, a police burgh, Fifeshire, Scotland, 5-3/4 m. N.E. of Dunfermline by the North British railway. Pop. (1891) 4249; (1901) 7908. The principal industry is coal-mining, and the public buildings include churches, schools and a hall. Meetings in connexion with the adoption and promulgation of the Covenant were held in the old parish church of Beath.

COWELL, JOHN (1554-1611), English jurist, was born at Ernsborough, Devonshire. He was educated at Eton, and King's College, Cambridge, ultimately becoming professor of civil law in that university, and master of Trinity Hall. In 1607 he compiled a law dictionary, _The Interpreter_, in which he exalted the king's prerogative so much that he was prosecuted before the House of Commons by Sir Edward Coke, and saved from imprisonment only by the interposition of James I. His book was burnt by order of the House of Commons. Dr Cowell also wrote a work entitled _Institutiones Juris Anglicani_. He died at Oxford on the 11th of October 1611.

COWEN, FREDERIC HYMEN (1852- ), English musical composer, was born at Kingston, Jamaica, on the 29th of January 1852. At four years old he was brought to England, where his father became treasurer to the opera at Her Majesty's theatre, and private secretary to the earl of Dudley. His first teacher was Henry Russell, and his first published composition appeared when he was but six years old. He studied the piano with Benedict, and composition with Goss; in 1865 he was at Leipzig under Hauptmann, Moscheles, Reinecke and Plaidy. Returning home on the outbreak of the Austro-Prussian War, he appeared as a composer for the orchestra in an overture played at the Promenade Concerts at Covent Garden in September 1866. In the following autumn he went to Berlin, where he was under Kiel, at Stern's conservatorium. A symphony and a piano concerto were given in St James's Hall in 1869, and from that time Cowen has been recognized as primarily a composer, his talents as a pianist being subordinate, although his public appearances were numerous for some time afterwards. His cantata, _The Rose Maiden_, was given in London in 1870, his second symphony by the Liverpool Philharmonic Society in 1872, and his first festival work, _The Corsair_, in 1876 at Birmingham. In that year his opera, _Pauline_, was given by the Carl Rosa Company with moderate success. In 1884 he conducted five concerts of the Philharmonic Society, and in 1888, on the resignation of Arthur Sullivan, became the regular conductor of the society, resigning the post in 1892. In the year of his appointment, 1888, he went to Melbourne as the conductor of the daily concerts given in connexion with the Exhibition there. In 1896 Cowen was appointed conductor of the Liverpool Philharmonic Society and of the Manchester orchestra, in succession to Sir Charles Halle. In 1899 he was reappointed conductor of the Philharmonic Society. His works include:--Operettas: _Garibaldi_ (1860) and _One Too Many_ (1874); operas: _Pauline_ (1876), _Thorgrim_ (1890), _Signa_ (Milan, 1893), and _Harold_ (1895); oratorios: _The Deluge_ (1878), _St Ursula_ (1881), _Ruth_ (1887), _Song of Thanksgiving_ (1888), _The Transfiguration_ (1895); cantatas: _The Rose Maiden_ (1870), _The Corsair_ (1876), _The Sleeping Beauty_ (1885), _St John's Eve_ (1889), _The Water Lily_ (1893), _Ode to the Passions_ (1898), besides short cantatas for female voices; a large number of songs, ranging from the popular "ballad" to more artistic lyrics, anthems, part-songs, duets, &c.; six symphonies, among which No 3, the "Scandinavian," has had the greatest success; four overtures; suites, _The Language of Flowers_ (1880), _In the Olden Times_ (1883), _In Fairyland_ (1896); four English dances (1896); a concerto for piano and orchestra, and a fantasia for the same played by M. Paderewski (1900); a quartet in C minor, and a trio in A minor, both early works; pianoforte pieces, &c. Cowen is never so happy as when treating of fantastic or fairy subjects; and whether in his cantatas for female voices, his charming _Sleeping Beauty_, his _Water Lily_ or his pretty overture, _The Butterfly's Ball_ (1901), he succeeds wonderfully in finding graceful expression for the poetical idea. His dance music, such as is to be found in various orchestral suites, is refined, original and admirably instrumented; and if he is seldom as successful in portraying the graver aspects of emotion, the vogue of his semi-sacred songs has been widespread.

COWEN, JOSEPH (1831-1900), English politician and journalist, son of Sir Joseph Cowen, a prominent citizen and mine-owner of Newcastle-on-Tyne, was born in 1831, and was educated at Edinburgh University. In 1874 he was elected member of parliament for the borough on the death of his father, who had held the seat as a Liberal since 1865. Joseph Cowen was at that time a strong Radical on domestic questions, an advocate of co-operation, an admirer of Garibaldi, Mazzini and Kossuth, a sympathizer with Irish Nationalism, and one who in speech, dress and manner identified himself with the North-country mining class. Short in stature and uncouth in appearance, his individuality first shocked and then by its earnestness impressed the House of Commons; and his sturdy independence of party ties, combined with a gift of rough but genuine eloquence (of which his speech on the Royal Title Bill of 1876 was an example), rapidly made him one of the best-known public men in the country. He was, moreover, an Imperialist and a Colonial Federationist at a time when Liberalism was tied and bound to the Manchester traditions; and, to the consternation of the official wire-pullers, he vigorously supported Disraeli's foreign policy, and in 1881 opposed the Gladstonian settlement with the Boers. His independence (which his detractors attributed in some degree to his alleged susceptibility to Tory compliments) brought him into collision both with the Liberal caucus and with the party organization in Newcastle itself, but Cowen's personal popularity and his remarkable powers as an orator triumphed in his own birthplace, and he was again elected in 1885 in spite of Liberal opposition. Shortly afterwards, however, he retired both from parliament and from public life, professing his disgust at the party intrigues of politics, and devoted himself to conducting his newspaper, the _Newcastle Daily Chronicle_, and to his private business as a mine-owner. In this capacity he exercised a wide influence on local opinion, and the revolt of the Newcastle electorate in later years against doctrinaire Radicalism was largely due to his constant preaching of a broader outlook on national affairs. He continued behind the scenes to play a powerful part in forming North-country opinion until his death on the 18th of February 1900.

His letters were published by his daughter in 1909.

COWES, a seaport and watering-place in the Isle of Wight, England, 12 m. S.S.E. of Southampton. West Cowes is separated from East Cowes by the picturesque estuary of the river Medina, the two towns (each of which is an urban district) lying on opposite sides of its mouth at the apex of the northern coast of the island. Pop. (1901) West Cowes, 8652; East Cowes, 3196. The port between them is the chief on the island, and is the headquarters of the Royal Yacht Squadron (founded in 1812); it is in regular steamship communication with Southampton and Portsmouth. West Cowes is served by the Isle of Wight Central railway. A steam ferry and a floating bridge across the Medina, here 600 yds. broad, unite the towns. Behind the harbour the houses rise picturesquely on gentle wooded slopes, and numerous villas adorn the vicinity. The towns owe their origin to two forts or castles, built on each side of the mouth of the Medina by Henry VIII. in 1540, for the defence of the coast; the eastern one has disappeared, but the west castle remains and is used as the club-house of the Yacht Squadron. The marine parade of West Cowes, and the public promenade called the Green, are close to the castle. The industrial population is chiefly employed in the shipbuilding yards, in the manufacture of ships' fittings, and in engineering works. The harbour is under an elective body of commissioners. On the opposite side of the Medina a broad carriageway leads to East Cowes Castle, a handsome edifice built by John Nash, the favourite architect of George IV., in 1798, and immediately beyond it are the grounds surrounding Osborne House (see OSBORNE), built in 1845 after the property had been purchased by Queen Victoria, the church of St Mildred, Whippingham, lying a mile to the south.

COWL (through Fr. _coule_, from Lat. _cucullus_ or _cuculla_, a covering; the word is found in various forms in most European languages, cf. Ger. _Kugel_ or _Kigel_, Dutch _kovel_, Irish _cochal_ or _cochull_; the ultimate origin may be the root _kal_, found in Lat. _clam_, secretly, and Gr. [Greek: kalyptein], to hide, cover up), an outer garment worn by both sexes in the middle ages; a part of the monastic dress, hence the phrase "to take the cowl," signifying entry upon the religious life. The _cucullus_ worn by the early Egyptian anchorites was a hood covering the head and neck. Later generations lengthened the garment until it reached to the heels, and St Benedict issued a rule restricting its length to two cubits. Chapter 55 of his _Institute_ prescribes the following dress in temperate climates: a cowl and tunic, thick in winter and thin in summer, with a scapular for working hours and shoes and stockings, all of simple material and make. In the 14th century the cowl and the frock were frequently confounded, but the council of Vienne defined the former as "a habit long and full without sleeves," and the latter as "a long habit with long and wide sleeves." While the term thus seems strictly to imply a hooded gown it is often applied to the hood alone. It is also used to describe a loose vestment worn over the frock in the winter season and during the night office.

The word "cowl" is also applied to a hood-shaped covering to a chimney or ventilating shaft, to help down-draught, and to clear the up-current of foul air (see VENTILATION).

COWLEY, ABRAHAM (1618-1667), English poet, was born in the city of London late in 1618. His father, a wealthy citizen, who died shortly before his birth, was a stationer. His mother was wholly given to works of devotion, but it happened that there lay in her parlour a copy of _The Faery Queen_. This became the favourite reading of her son, and he had twice devoured it all before he was sent to school. As early as 1628, that is, in his tenth year, he composed his _Tragicall History of Piramus and Thisbe_, an epical romance written in a six-line stanza, of his own invention. It is not too much to say that this work is the most astonishing feat of imaginative precocity on record; it is marked by no great faults of immaturity, and possesses constructive merits of a very high order. Two years later the child wrote another and still more ambitious poem, _Constantia and Philetus_, being sent about the same time to Westminster school. Here he displayed the most extraordinary mental precocity and versatility, and wrote in his thirteenth year yet another poem, the _Elegy on the Death of Dudley, Lord Carlton_. These three poems of considerable size, and some smaller ones, were collected in 1633, and published in a volume entitled _Poetical Blossoms_, dedicated to the head master of the school, and prefaced by many laudatory verses by schoolfellows. The author at once became famous, although he had not, even yet, completed his fifteenth year. His next composition was a pastoral comedy, entitled _Love's Riddle_, a marvellous production for a boy of sixteen, airy, correct and harmonious in language, and rapid in movement. The style is not without resemblance to that of Randolph, whose earliest works, however, were at that time only just printed. In 1637 Cowley was elected into Trinity College, Cambridge, where he betook himself with enthusiasm to the study of all kinds of learning, and early distinguished himself as a ripe scholar. It was about this time that he composed his scriptural epic on the history of King David, one book of which still exists in the Latin original, the rest being superseded in favour of an English version in four books, called the _Davideis_, which he published a long time after. This his most grave and important work is remarkable as having suggested to Milton several points which he afterwards made use of. The epic, written in a very dreary and turgid manner, but in good rhymed heroic verse, deals with the adventures of King David from his boyhood to the smiting of Amalek by Saul, where it abruptly closes. In 1638 _Love's Riddle_ and a Latin comedy, the _Naufragium Joculare_, were printed, and in 1641 the passage of Prince Charles through Cambridge gave occasion to the production of another dramatic work, _The Guardian_, which was acted before the royal visitor with much success. During the civil war this play was privately performed at Dublin, but it was not printed till 1650. It is bright and amusing, in the style common to the "sons" of Ben Jonson, the university wits who wrote more for the closet than the public stage.

The learned quiet of the young poet's life was broken up by the Civil War; he warmly espoused the royalist side. He became a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, but was ejected by the Parliamentarians in 1643. He made his way to Oxford, where he enjoyed the friendship of Lord Falkland, and was tossed, in the tumult of affairs, into the personal confidence of the royal family itself. After the battle of Marston Moor he followed the queen to Paris, and the exile so commenced lasted twelve years. This period was spent almost entirely in the royal service, "bearing a share in the distresses of the royal family, or labouring in their affairs. To this purpose he performed several dangerous journeys into Jersey, Scotland, Flanders, Holland, or wherever else the king's troubles required his attendance. But the chief testimony of his fidelity was the laborious service he underwent in maintaining the constant correspondence between the late king and the queen his wife. In that weighty trust he behaved himself with indefatigable integrity and unsuspected secrecy; for he ciphered and deciphered with his own hand the greatest part of all the letters that passed between their majesties, and managed a vast intelligence in many other parts, which for some years together took up all his days, and two or three nights every week." In spite of these labours he did not refrain from literary industry. During his exile he met with the works of Pindar, and determined to reproduce their lofty lyric passion in English. At the same time he occupied himself in writing a history of the Civil War, which he completed as far as the battle of Newbury, but unfortunately afterwards destroyed. In 1647 a collection of his love verses, entitled _The Mistress_, was published, and in the next year a volume of wretched satires, _The Four Ages of England_, was brought out under his name, with the composition of which he had nothing to do. In spite of the troubles of the times, so fatal to poetic fame, his reputation steadily increased, and when, on his return to England in 1656, he published a volume of his collected poetical works, he found himself without a rival in public esteem. This volume included the later works already mentioned, the _Pindarique Odes_, the _Davideis_, the _Mistress_ and some _Miscellanies_. Among the latter are to be found Cowley's most vital pieces. This section of his works opens with the famous aspiration--

"What shall I do to be for ever known,
And make the coming age my own?"

It contains elegies on Wotton, Vandyck, Falkland, William Hervey and Crashaw, the last two being among Cowley's finest poems, brilliant, sonorous and original; the amusing ballad of _The Chronicle_, giving a fictitious catalogue of his supposed amours; various gnomic pieces; and some charming paraphrases from Anacreon. The _Pindarique Odes_ contain weighty lines and passages, buried in irregular and inharmonious masses of moral verbiage. Not more than one or two are good throughout, but a full posy of beauties may easily be culled from them. The long cadences of the Alexandrines with which most of the strophes close, continued to echo in English poetry from Dryden down to Gray, but the _Odes_ themselves, which were found to be obscure by the poet's contemporaries, immediately fell into disesteem. _The Mistress_ was the most popular poetic reading of the age, and is now the least read of all Cowley's works. It was the last and most violent expression of the amatory affectation of the 17th century, an affectation which had been endurable in Donne and other early writers because it had been the vehicle of sincere emotion, but was unendurable in Cowley because in him it represented nothing but a perfunctory exercise, a mere exhibition of literary calisthenics. He appears to have been of a cold, or at least of a timid, disposition; in the face of these elaborately erotic volumes, we are told that to the end of his days he never summoned up courage to speak of love to a single woman in real life. The "Leonora" of _The Chronicle_ is said to have been the only woman he ever loved, and she married the brother of his biographer, Sprat.

Soon after his return to England he was seized in mistake for another person, and only obtained his liberty on a bail of L1000. In 1658 he revised and altered his play of _The Guardian_, and prepared it for the press under the title of _The Cutter of Coleman Street_, but it did not appear until 1663. Late in 1658 Oliver Cromwell died, and Cowley took advantage of the confusion of affairs to escape to Paris, where he remained until the Restoration brought him back in Charles's train. He published in 1663 _Verses upon several occasions_, in which _The Complaint_ is included.

Wearied with the broils and fatigues of a political life, Cowley obtained permission to retire into the country; through his friend, Lord St Albans, he obtained a property near Chertsey, and here, devoting himself to the study of botany, and buried in his books, he lived in comparative solitude until his death. He took a great and practical interest in experimental science, and he was one of those who were most prominent in advocating the foundation of an academy for the protection of scientific enterprise. Cowley's pamphlet on _The Advancement of Experimental Philosophy_, 1661, led directly to the foundation of the Royal Society, to which body Cowley, in March 1667, at the suggestion of Evelyn, addressed an ode which is the latest and one of the strongest of his poems. He died in the Porch House, in Chertsey, on the 28th of July 1667, in consequence of having caught a cold while superintending his farm-labourers in the meadows late on a summer evening. On the 3rd of August Cowley was buried in Westminster Abbey beside the ashes of Chaucer and Spenser, where in 1675 the duke of Buckingham erected a monument to his memory. His _Poemata Latina_, including six books "Plantarum," were printed in 1668.

Throughout their parallel lives the fame of Cowley completely eclipsed that of Milton, but posterity instantly and finally reversed the judgment of their contemporaries. The poetry of Cowley rapidly fell into a neglect as unjust as the earlier popularity had been. As a prose writer, especially as an essayist, he holds, and will not lose, a high position in literature; as a poet it is hardly possible that he can enjoy more than a very partial revival. The want of nature, the obvious and awkward art, the defective melody of his poems, destroy the interest that their ingenuity and occasional majesty would otherwise excite. He had lofty views of the mission of a poet and an insatiable ambition, but his chief claim to poetic life is the dowry of sonorous lyric style which he passed down to Dryden and his successors of the 18th century.

The works of Cowley were collected in 1668, when Thomas Sprat,
afterwards bishop of Rochester, brought out a splendid edition in
folio, to which he prefixed a graceful and elegant life of the poet.
There were many reprints of this collection, which formed the standard
edition till 1881, when it was superseded by A. B. Grosart's privately
printed edition in two volumes, for the Chertsey Worthies library. The
Essays have frequently been revived with approval. (E. G.)

COWLEY, HANNAH (1743-1809), English dramatist and poet, daughter of Philip Parkhouse, a bookseller at Tiverton, Devonshire, was born in 1743. When about twenty-five years old she married Mr Cowley, of the East India Company's service, who died in 1797. Some years after her marriage, being at the theatre with her husband, she expressed the opinion that she could write as good a piece as the one being performed, and within a fortnight she had written her first play, _The Runaway_. She sent it to Garrick, who produced it at Drury Lane in 1776. Between then and 1795 she wrote twelve more plays, all of which (with one exception) were produced at Drury Lane or Covent Garden; and _The Belle's Stratagem_ (1782), with one or two others, still survives in the list of acting plays. Among other, pieces were _Albina_, _Countess Raimond_, _A Bold Stroke for a Husband_, _More Ways than One_, and _A School for Greybeards, or The Mourning Bride_. Mrs Cowley was the author of a number of indifferent poems, mainly historical, and under the name of "Anna Matilda," which has since become proverbial, she carried on a sentimental correspondence in the _World_ with Robert Merry. She died at Tiverton on the 11th of March 1809.

COWLEY, HENRY RICHARD CHARLES WELLESLEY, 1ST EARL (1804-1884), British diplomatist, was the eldest son of Henry Wellesley, 1st Baron Cowley (1773-1847), and Charlotte, daughter of Charles, 1st Earl Cadogan, and was consequently a nephew of the duke of Wellington and of the marquess Wellesley. Born on the 17th of June 1804, he entered the diplomatic service in 1824, receiving his first important appointment in 1848, when he became minister plenipotentiary to the Swiss cantons; and in the same year he was sent to Frankfort to watch the proceedings of the German parliament. This was followed by his appointment as envoy extraordinary to the new Germanic confederation, a position which he only held for a short time, as he was chosen in 1852 to succeed the 1st marquess of Normanby as the British ambassador in Paris. Baron Cowley, as Wellesley had been since his father's death in 1847, held this important post for fifteen years, and the story of his diplomatic life in Paris cannot be separated from the general history of England and France. As minister during the greater part of the reign of Napoleon III., he conducted the delicate negotiations between the two countries during the time of those eastern complications which preceded and followed the Crimean War, and also during the excitement and unrest produced by the attempt made in 1858 by Felice Orsini to assassinate the emperor of the French; while his diplomatic skill was no less in evidence during the war between France and Austria and the subsequent course of events in Italy. In 1857 he had been created Earl Cowley and Viscount Dangan; in 1866 he was made a knight of the Garter; and having assisted Richard Cobden to conclude the commercial treaty between Great Britain and France in 1860, he retired in 1867 from a position which he had filled with distinction to himself and with benefit to his country. In 1863 Cowley had inherited the estate of Draycot in Wiltshire from his kinsman the 5th earl of Mornington, and he lived in retirement until his death on the 15th of July 1884. He had married in 1833 Olivia Cecilia (d. 1885), daughter of Charlotte, baroness de Ros and Lord Henry Fitzgerald, by whom he had three sons and two daughters, and was succeeded in his titles by his eldest son, William Henry, 2nd Earl Cowley (1834-1895), father of Henry Arthur Mornington, 3rd earl (b. 1866).

COWLEY FATHERS, the name commonly given to the members of the Society of Mission Priests of St John the Evangelist, an Anglican religious community, the headquarters of which are in England, at Cowley St John, close to Oxford. The society was founded in 1865 by the Rev. R. M. Benson "for the cultivation of a life dedicated to God according to the principles of poverty, chastity and obedience." The society, which is occupied both with educational and missionary work, has a house in London and branch houses at Bombay and Poona in India, at Cape Town and at St Cuthbert's, Kaffraria, in South Africa; and at Boston in the United States of America. The costume of the Cowley Fathers consists of a black frock or cassock confined by a black cord and a long black cloak.

COWPENS, a town of Spartanburg county, South Carolina, U.S.A., in the N. part of the state. Pop. (1900) 692; (1910) 1101. It is served by the Southern railway. In colonial days cattle were rounded up and branded here--whence the name. Seven miles N. of the town is the field of the battle of Cowpens, fought on the 17th of January 1781, during the War of American Independence, between the Americans under Gen. Daniel Morgan and the British under Gen. Banastre Tarleton, the British being defeated. A monument was erected on the battlefield in 1859, but was much defaced during the Civil War. The town of Cowpens was founded in 1876, and was incorporated in 1880.

COWPER, WILLIAM COWPER, 1ST EARL (c. 1665-1723), lord chancellor of England, was the son of Sir William Cowper, Bart., of Ratling Court, Kent, a Whig member of parliament of some mark in the two last Stuart reigns. Educated at St Albans school, Cowper was called to the bar in 1688; having promptly given his allegiance to the prince of Orange on his landing in England, he was made recorder of Colchester in 1694, and in 1695 entered parliament as member for Hertford. He enjoyed a large practice at the bar, and had the reputation of being one of the most effective parliamentary orators of his generation. He lost his seat in parliament in 1702 owing to the unpopularity caused by the trial of his brother Spencer on a charge of murder. In 1705 he was appointed lord keeper of the great seal, and took his seat on the woolsack without a peerage. In the following year he conducted the negotiations between the English and Scottish commissioners for arranging the union with Scotland. In November of the same year (1706) he succeeded to his father's baronetcy; and on the 14th of December he was raised to the peerage as Baron Cowper of Wingham, Kent.