It is there also said that 'the modern stage affords few efforts of genius superior to his acting in the last scene of "Thirty Years of a Gambler's Life."' A coloured print of Cobham as Richard III was published in Dublin, presumably in 1821. In his later life he rarely quitted the transpontine stage. He died on 3 Jan. 1842, leaving a son and a daughter on the stage. The latter acted under the name of Mrs. Fitzgerald.
[Authorities cited; Oxberry's Dramatic Biography, vol. i.; Gent. Mag.; Era newspaper; Notes and Queries, 7th ser. ii. 318; Doran's Her Majesty's Servants; private recollections supplied.]
COCHRAN, WILLIAM (1738–1785), painter, born at Strathaven in Clydesdale, N.B., 12 Dec. 1738, came of a family of distinction in Glasgow. He received his first instruction in art in 1754 at the academy founded in Glasgow by the well-known printers, Robert and Andrew Foulis. Towards the close of 1761 he went to Italy, and became a pupil of Gavin Hamilton; there he painted several historical and mythological pictures, of which the best known were 'Daedalus and Icarus' and 'Diana and Endymion.' Not having any very great ambition, he returned to Glasgow, and devoted himself to portrait-painting, practising both in oil and in miniature; in this line of art he attained great proficiency. Among the portraits painted by him was that of William Cullen, professor in Edinburgh University, and first physician to his majesty in Scotland, which was engraved in mezzotint by Valentine Green. Cochran never exhibited his works, and seldom put his name to them; hence he is not so well known as he deserves to be. He continued to reside at Glasgow, and died there on 23 Oct. 1785, aged 47. He was buried in the cathedral in that city, where a monument was erected to his memory.
[Redgrave's Dict. of English Artists; Gent. Mag. (1786), lvi. 82; Cooper's Biog. Dict.; Bryan's Dict. of Painters and Engravers; J. Chaloner Smith's British Mezzotinto Portraits.]
COCHRANE, Sir ALEXANDER FORRESTER INGLIS (1758–1832), admiral, younger son of Thomas Cochrane, eighth earl of Dundonald, was born on 22 April 1758, entered the navy at an early age, and was made lieutenant in 1778. In 1780 he was a junior lieutenant of the Montagu, with Captain Houlton, and was wounded in the action off Martinique on 17 April. In the following December he was made commander, and, continuing on the West Indian station under Sir George Rodney, was advanced to post rank on 17 Dec. 1782. Returning to England at the peace, he was placed on half-pay, and had no further employment till 1790, when he was appointed to the Hind frigate, which he still commanded when the war with France broke out in 1793, during the spring and summer of which year he cruised with distinguished success against the enemy's privateers. He was afterwards transferred to the Thetis of 42 guns, which he commanded for several years on the North American station. On 17 May 1795, having the Hussar in company, he fell in with five large French storeships, of which he captured two, frigates armed en flûte after a well-contested action [see Beresford, Sir John Poo]. In 1799 he was appointed to the Ajax of 80 guns, which he commanded during the following year in the Channel fleet, under Lord St. Vincent, and was especially engaged in the detached squadrons under Sir Edward Pellew and Sir John Borlase Warren [q.v.] in the expeditions to Quiberon Bay and against Ferrol. The Ajax afterwards joined the Mediterranean fleet under Lord Keith, with whom she sailed to the coast of Egypt, where Cochrane was appointed to superintend the landing of the troops and to support them with a flotilla of armed boats on Lake Marcotis. His performance of these duties called forth high praise from both Lord Keith and General Hutchinson. At the peace of Amiens the Ajax returned to England and was paid off, when Cochrane was elected member of parliament for the Stirling boroughs. In the following year, however, when the war again broke out, he was appointed to the Northumberland of 74 guns, and on his advancement to be rear-admiral on 23 April 1804, hoisted his flag on board the same ship, and for some time commanded the squadron of Ferrol, from which station he was able to send the news of the Spanish armament, which led to the seizure of the treasure ships off Cape Santa Maria on 5 Oct. [see Moore, Sir Graham]. James (Naval History, 1860, iii. 287) implies that the intelligence was incorrect, and that the Spanish armament and war preparations at Ferrol existed only in Cochrane's imagination, a view which appears untenable, though it is quite possible that their immediate importance was exaggerated, and such, indeed, was Lord Nelson's opinion at the time (Nelsomn Despatches, vi. 241).
Cochrane was still off Ferrol in February 1805 when he heared of the sailing of Missiessy with a strong squadron from Rochefort, and at the same time received orders to follow in pursuit. Missiessy, carrying out
