Page:Men of the Time, eleventh edition.djvu/313

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296

COUSINS— COWEN.

last edition of the " Encyclopeedia Britannica " an article on " Bank- ing." The fact is that he revised the article and brought it down to recent times, and that he never asserted or professed that he had done otherwise.

COUSINS, Samtel, E.A. (re- tired), mezzo-tint engraver, born in May, 1801, was a pupil of the late Mr. Samuel Reynolds. The plates by which he is best known to the public are the portrait of " Master Lambton," after Sir T. Lawrence, generally regarded as Mr. Cousins' finest production ; " Bolton Abbey in the Olden Time," "A Midsummer Night's Dream," the Marquis of Stafford and the Lady Evelyn Gower, the children of the Marquis of Abercom, and Miss Eliza Peel, after pictures by Sir E. Landseer;

    • The Eoyal Family," and " The

Sailor Prince," after Winterhalter. He was elected A.R.A. in 1838, and promoted to the full honours of the Academy in 1855. He retired in Dec. 1879, when he was placed on the list of Retired Academicians.

COUTTS. (See Bubdbtt-

COUTTS.)

COWEN, Fbedbric Hymbn, composer, born Jan. 29, 1852, at Kingston, in Jamaica, exhibited as an infant an extraordinary love of music. He came to England at the age of four, and from that time showed so much musical talent, both in composition and playing, as to render it advisable to place him under the tuition of Sir Julius (then Mr.) Benedict and Sir John (then Mr.) Goss, whose pupil he remained until the winter of 1865. He then studied at the conservatoires of Leipzig and Berlin, and returned to London in 1868. His first essay in composition was a waltz, written at six years old. This was followed by numerous small pieces, including an operetta entitled "Garibaldi. On his return from Berlin he wrote a f antasie sonata, a trio, a quartet, a concerto for piano, and a sym- phony in C minor, the latter played |

firstly at the composer's own con- cert, and then at the Crystal Palace. Mr. Cowen's later works from 1870 comprise two cantatas, " The Rose Maiden" and "The Corsair" (the latter written for the Birmingham Festival, 1876) ; an opera, " Pau- line ; " an oratorio, " The Deluge j " Symphonies No. 2 and No. 3 (Scan- dinavian) ; a sacred cantata, " Saint Ursula " (produced at the Norwich Festival, 1881) ; and also several overtures, a sinf onietta, a suite de ballet, pieces for the pianoforte, and between sixty and seventy songs and ballads, many of which have attained great popularity.

COWEN, JosBPH, M.P., eldest son of the late Sir Joseph Cowen (who represented Newcastle-on- Tyne from 1865 till his death in Dec. 1873), by Mary, daughter of Mr. Anthony Newton, of Winlaton, CO. Durham, was born at Blaydon Bum, in that county, in 1831. He received his education at the Uni- versity of Edinburgh, where he was elected president of a college de- bating society. Early in life he contracted a strict friendship with Mazzini, and he started a private press of his own, to which constant employment was given in printing the revolutionary manifestoes of political exiles. A fluent speaker from his youth upwards, Mr. Cowen was unceasing in his public advo- cacy of the cause of the oppressed nationalities represented by his banished friends. Mr. Cowen is an extensive coal-owner and a fire-brick and clay retort manufacturer. He is also proprietor of the IfewcaMe Daily and Weekly Chronicle, and has written much for that newspaper and for other advanced Liberal jour- nals. He was first returned to the House of Commons in Jan. 1874, as one of the members for Newcastle, and he has sat for that constituency down to the present time. As a " Radical Keformer " he is pledged to vote for the disestablishment of the Church, the abolition of the game laws^ ^ort Parliaments^ and a