after studying classics in the college of St. Omer, entered the English college, Rome, for his higher course, as a convictor or boarder, under the name of Courtney, on 9 Oct. 1618 (Foley, Records, vi. 287). He joined the Society of Jesus at St. Andrew's in Rome in 1621, and was professed of the four vows in 1634 (Oliver, Jesuit Collections, p. 77). In the latter year he was arrested in London, and committed to the Gatehouse prison upon a charge of having written against the condemned oath of supremacy (Panzani, Memoirs, pp. 156, 162, 169, 177; Foley, Records, i. 251 et seq.) He was rector of the college of St. Omer (1646–9), twice rector of the English college, Rome, provincial of the English province of his order (1660–4), and then rector of the college of Liège. He died at St. Omer on 3 Oct. 1677.
He is the author of: 1. ‘Thysia Philosophica, sive læta Disciplinarum oblatio. Illustriss. Principi Gvidoni Bentivolio S.R.E. Card. Ampliss. Ad concentus musicos expressa, cum sub fœlicissimis illius auspiciis de vniuersa Philosophia disputaret in Collegio Anglicano,’ Rome, 1621, 4to. 2. ‘In fvnere Elisabethæ a Lotharingia Bavariæ Ducis Oratio,’ Liège, 1635, 4to. 3. ‘R. P. Petri Writi, Sacerdotis Angli è Soc. Jesu, Mors, quam ob fidem passus est Londini, 29 Maii 1651,’ Antwerp, 1651, 12mo (a translation of this biography of Peter Wright is printed in Foley's ‘Records,’ ii. 506–65). 4. ‘Manipulus regius Heroidum sanctarum Britanniæ Serenissimæ Suecorum Reginæ Christinæ oblatus cum Collegium Anglicanum inuiseret,’ Rome, 1656, fol. (Southwell, Bibl. Script. Soc. Jesu, 185). 5. ‘Regiis Angliæ Divis Dithyrambus præside Octavio Card. Bandino in Disput. Thomæ Grini Coll. Angl. Alum. emodulatus,’ 4to (Backer, Bibl. des Écrivains de la Compagnie de Jésus, ed. 1869, i. 1434).
[Authorities cited above.]
COUSE, KENTON (1721–1790), architect, received his training as an architect under Mr. Flitcroft of the board of works, and was subsequently introduced into that establishment; eventually he rose to be first clerk of the works and secretary to the board. In 1782, on the remodelling of the office, he was reappointed as examining clerk. For several years he was surveyor to the Goldsmiths' Company, and also enjoyed a very extensive practice as an architect both of a public and private character, gaining the esteem and credit of all parties with whom he was connected. Among the buildings designed by him may be noted the bridge over the Thames at Richmond (erected 1774–7); St. Paul's Church, Clapham Common; Botley House, Chertsey, &c. Couse married, 23 June 1750, at St. Mary Woolnoth, London, Miss Sarah Hamilton, and died in Scotland Yard 10 Oct. 1790 in his seventieth year. He left three children, Captain Charles Couse, R.N., and two daughters, the elder of whom was married to Sir C. Pegge.
[Redgrave's Dict. of English Artists; Gent. Mag. (1790), lx. 959; Chambers's Collections (MS.) for a Biography of British Architects; Registers of St. Mary Woolnoth.]
COUSEN, JOHN (1804–1880), line engraver, was born at Miryshaw near Bradford in Yorkshire 19 Feb. 1804. He was a pupil of John Scott, the animal engraver, but at an early period of his career he devoted himself to landscape engraving, and became one of the ablest engravers of the best period of the art. His exquisite taste is best displayed in his smaller book-plates, especially those after Turner for the ‘Rivers of France,’ viz. the ‘Light-Towers of the Hève,’ ‘Harfleur,’ ‘Honfleur,’ ‘Château-Gaillard,’ and the ‘Bridge of Meulan.’ These are full of artistic feeling and power of execution. Nearly equal to them are his plates after Stanfield in ‘Heath's Picturesque Annual’ for 1833 and 1834, and after Cattermole in that for 1835, and those after David Roberts, James D. Harding, and James Holland in the ‘Landscape Annual’ for 1834 to 1839. Besides these he engraved a plate of ‘Babylon’ for Finden's ‘Landscape Illustrations of the Bible;’ another for Stanfield's ‘Coast Scenery;’ two plates for White's ‘Views in India;’ and ‘Folkestone Beach,’ ‘St. Agatha's Abbey,’ ‘Whitby,’ and ‘The Abbey Pool,’ the last four after Turner, and published in ‘Art and Song’ in 1867. His larger works, ‘Mercury and Herse’ after Turner, and ‘Towing the Victory into Gibraltar’ and ‘The Morning after the Wreck,’ both after Stanfield, are of great excellence, as are also his plates for the Royal, Vernon, and Turner Galleries, issued in the ‘Art Journal.’ Those for the ‘Royal Gallery’ comprise ‘The Old Mill’ after Hobbema, ‘The Fountain at Madrid’ after David Roberts, and ‘The Harvest Field’ after Tschagenny; while those for the ‘Vernon Gallery’ include ‘A Woodland View’ after Sir David Wilkie, ‘Rest in the Desert’ after W. J. Müller, ‘The Cover Side’ after F. R. Lee, ‘Cattle: Early Morning on the Cumberland Hills’ after T. Sidney Cooper, ‘The Old Pier at Littlehampton’ and ‘Dutch Peasants returning from Market,’ both after Sir A. W. Callcott, ‘The Battle of Trafalgar’ and ‘The Canal of the Giudecca and Church of the Jesuits, Venice,’ both after Stanfield, and ‘The Mountain Torrent’ and ‘Peace’