Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 12.djvu/427

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Coxe
421
Coxe

nual supplement of five hundred guineas to his income, subscribed by his parishioners. In 1853 he obtained the archdeaconry of Lindisfarne with the vicarage of Eglingham annexed, and in 1857 he was appointed canon of Durham. He died at Eglingham vicarage, Northumberland, 25 Aug. 1865. Coxe enjoyed a high reputation as an eloquent preacher, and was a strenuous opponent of latitudinarianism in doctrine and practice, as well as a strong upholder of the rights and privileges of the clergy. His untiring energy is evidenced in his voluminous publications, the quantity of which has probably to some extent aided to modify their quality. Besides numerous single sermons and addresses he was the author of the following theological works: ‘Lectures on the Evidences from Miracles,’ 1832; ‘Practical Sermons,’ 1836; ‘Death disarmed of its Sting,’ 1836; ‘The Symmetry of Divine Revelation a Witness to the Divinity of Christ,’ 1845; and ‘Remorse: Remorse for Intellectual and Literary Offences: Retribution,’ 1864. He also published ‘Six Ballads,’ 1842; ‘The Mercy at Marsdon Rocks,’ 1844; ‘Poems, Scriptural, Classical, Miscellaneous,’ 1845; ‘The Snow Shroud, or the Lost Bairn o' Biddlestone Edge,’ 1845; ‘Leda Tanah, the Martyr's Child; Derwent Bank,’ 1851; ‘Woodnotes: the Silvitudia of M. Casimir Surbievius, with a translation in English verse; Musings at Tynemouth, ten sonnets; North and South, ten sonnets,’ 1848; and ‘Ballads from the Portuguese’ in the second part of Adamson's ‘Lusitania Illustrata.’ He married Louisa, daughter of Rev. J. Maule of Dover, and left a daughter and two sons.

Gent. Mag. xiv. new ser. (1865), pp. 513–14; Men of the Time, 6th ed.; Latimer's Local Records of Northumberland and Durham; Brit. Mus. Cat.]


COXE, THOMAS, M.D. (1615–1685), physician, a native of Somersetshire, was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. 1635, M.A. 1638. He took his M.D. degree, like Harvey, at Padua 12 Dec. 1641, and was afterwards incorporated at Oxford. He became a fellow of the College of Physicians 25 June 1649. In 1660 he delivered the Harveian oration, but did not print his composition. From 1676 to 1680 he was treasurer of the college, and in 1682 was elected president. He was one of the first list of fellows nominated by the council of the Royal Society in 1662. Of his practice nothing is known but that he was physician in the army of the parliament during the rebellion, and that at the bedside of Sydenham's brother he suggested the profession of physic to him, who became the greatest of English physicians. Coxe fell into difficulties in his old age, and flying from his creditors died of apoplexy in France in 1685.

[Munk's Coll. of Phys. 1878, i. 247; Wood's Athenæ Oxon.; Thomson's History of the Royal Society, 1812, p. 3.]

N. M.

COXE, WILLIAM (1747–1828), historian, born 7 March 1747, in Dover Street, Piccadilly, was the son of Dr. William Coxe, physician to the king's household. He was sent to the Marylebone grammar school when five years old, and in 1753 to Eton. In 1764 he was elected to King's College, Cambridge, of which he became a fellow in 1768. In 1771 he was ordained deacon, and took the curacy of Denham, near Uxbridge. He soon left this to become tutor to the Duke of Marlborough's eldest son. Two years later he left this post to become travelling tutor to the son of the Earl of Pembroke. He travelled through Switzerland and afterwards in Russia, and published the results of his inquiries. He made a later continental tour, from which he returned in May 1786, with Samuel Whitbread, and another afterwards with H. B. Portman. In 1794 he made a tour to Hungary with Lord Brome, eldest son of Lord Cornwallis.

He had meanwhile been receiving preferment. In 1786 he took the college living of Kingston-on-Thames, which he resigned in 1788 on his presentation by Lord Pembroke to the rectory of Bemerton. Here he chiefly resided until his death. About 1800 Sir Richard Colt Hoare presented him to the rectory of Stourton, which he held until 1811, when he was presented by Lord Pembroke to the rectory of Fovant, Wiltshire. He was appointed archdeacon of Wiltshire by Bishop Douglas in May 1804, and had been a prebendary of Salisbury from 1791. Coxe, after publishing his various travels, put out a prospectus in 1792 for an ‘Historical and Political State of Europe.’ This came to nothing, and he devoted himself chiefly to a series of memoirs, which are of great value for the history of the eighteenth century. He was entrusted with many valuable collections of papers, and was a laborious and careful editor. His books contain also original documents, though his own writing is of the dullest and shows no higher qualities than those of the conscientious annalist. He wrote a few professional works, but his chief article of faith seems to have been the impeccability of the whigs. In person he was short, stout, and erect, healthy and active; he clearly had the amiability which makes friends of fellow-travellers, not the less when they are patrons