A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country/Cockburn, (Catherine)
COCKBURN, (CATHERINE) Daughter of Captain Trotter, a Scotchman, and naval Commander in the Reign of Charles II. Born at London, 1679.
In her seventeenth year produced a tragedy, called Agnes de Castro, which was acted in 1695. This performance, and some verses addressed to Mr. Congreve, upon his Mourning Bride, in 1697, laid the foundation of her acquaintance with that writer. In 1698, she brought a second tragedy upon the stage, and, in 1701, a third tragedy and a comedy. She also joined about the same time, with several other ladies, in paying a tribute to Mr. Dryden, then lately dead, and their poems were published together, under the title of The Nine Muses.
Bnt poetry and dramatic writings were the least of this lady's talents. She had a great and philosophic turn of mind, and began to project a defence of Mr. Locke's Essay on the Human Understanding, against some remarks which had been made upon it at several times, by Dr. Burnet, of the Charter-house. This Defence was finished as early as the beginning of December, 1701, when she was but twenty-two, and drawn up in so masterly a way, and so much to the satisfaction of Mr. Locke, that he desired Mr. King, (afterwards lord high chancellor) to make her a visit and a present of books. Though born a protestant, she had, when very young, an intimacy with several considerable Popish families, and became a catholic for many years. But, about the year 1707, quitted that communion. In 1708, she was married to Mr. Cockburn, son of Dr. Cockburn, an eminent and learned divine of Scotland; and entirely diverted from her studies for many years, by attending to the duties of a wife and mother. However, her zeal for Mr. Locke's character and writings drew her again into public light, when she vindicated his principles concerning the resurrection of the same body, against the injurious imputations of Dr. Holdsworth. She wrote two pieces on this occasion, the latter of which was not published till after her death.
Her remarks upon some writers of the controversy concerning the foundation of moral Duty and moral Obligation, were begun in 1739, finished the year following, and published in 1743, in The Works of the Learned, inscribed to Alexander Pope, esquire, by an admirer of his moral character. Dr. Rutherford's Essays on the Nature and Obligation of Virtue, published in 1744, soon engaged Mrs. Cockburn's attention, and she drew up a confutation of it with perspicuity, and transmitted her manuscript to Mr. Warburton, who published it with a preface of his own, in 1747. The title of it runs thus; Remarks upon the Principles and Reasonings of Dr. Rutherford's Essay on the Nature and Obligation of Virtue, in Vindication of the contrary Principles and Reasonings enforced in the Writings of the late Dr. Samuel Clarke.
Mrs. Cockburn died in 1749, in her seventy-first year, and was interred at Long Horsley, near her husband, who died a year before her, with this short sentence on their tomb, "Let their works praise them in their graves." Prov. xxx. 31. She was indeed an incomparable lady; no less celebrated for her beauty in her younger years, than for her genius and fine accomplishments. She was small of stature, but had a remarkable liveliness in her eye, and a delicacy of complexion, which continued to her death.
The collection of her works, lately exhibited to the world, is a proof of the excellency of her genius; but her abilities as a writer, and the merit of her performances, will not have full justice done them, without duly attending to the circumstances in which they were produced: her early youth, for instance, when she wrote some; her very advanced age, and ill state of health, when she drew up others; the uneasy situation of her fortune, during the whole course of her life, and an interval of near twenty years in the vigour of it, spent in the cares of a family, without the least leisure for reading or contemplation; after which, with a mind so long diverted and incumbered, resuming her studies, she instantly recovered its intire power; and in the hours of relaxation from her domestic employments, pursued to their utmost limits some of the deepest enquiries of which the human understanding is capable.