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 tiary to the state of Columbia. He married Yolande, daughter of the Vicomte de Vignier. His only son, Alexander James Edmund, was born on 24 Dec. 1802. He was privately educated, both at home and abroad. His mother being a foreigner, both of his sisters marrying Italians, and being himself brought up on the continent, he became a fluent linguist, and was an admirable scholar in French, German, Spanish, and Italian. In 1822 he entered at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he was a contemporary of the first Lord Lytton. He was distinguished in Latin prose, and in his second year won the prizes for English and Latin exercises. He subsequently gained the English essay prize, and was a prominent speaker in debating societies. In 1825 he became a fellow commoner. In 1829 he took the degree of bachelor of civil law in the first class, and was elected to a fellowship, which he long continued to hold. He was an honorary fellow till his death. He was a candidate for the mastership of Trinity Hall in 1852, when Dr. Geldart was elected, and on Geldart's death in 1877 would have been willing, if he had been elected, to accept the office. Sir Henry Maine, however, was elected. A portrait of Cockburn was presented to the college in June 1876 (, Life of Fawcett, pp. 113, 132). He had entered at the Middle Temple in 1825, and on 6 Feb. 1829 was called to the bar. Though well known for his cleverness and the associate of Dalling and Bulwer, he was at this time far from industrious. There was then a greater opportunity of establishing a reputation at sessions than now, and Cockburn joined the western circuit and the Devon sessions, which had then a strong bar. It was led by Follett. Here he soon attained a good practice, but he was so little employed in London that he was with difficulty induced to keep his chambers open there at all. In 1832, in collaboration with Mr. Howe of the western circuit, afterwards knight and recorder of Plymouth, he published a volume of reports of election cases decided in election committees of the House of Commons. The reports, which were of an admirable kind, were found at that moment, just after the reform of 1832, of such importance that they were issued in parts, but not more than one volume was published in all. This brought him a considerable quantity of election petition practice. He received on 26 March 1833 his first parliamentary brief for the sitting members for Coventry, Henry Lytton Bulwer and Edward Ellice, and, led by Sir William Follett, he also appeared in the Lincoln and Dover petitions for the sitting members. All three seats were successfully defended. On 18 July 1834 he was appointed a member of the commission of inquiry into the state of corporations in England and Wales, and with Messrs. Whitcombe and Rushton he was allotted to report upon the northern midland towns, and Leicester, Warwick, and Nottingham. The reports on Bridgenorth, Derby, Newark, Newcastle-under-Lyne, Retford, Stafford, Shrewsbury, and Wenlock, which are the joint work of Cockburn and Rushton, are very full and clear. Those on Coventry, Leicester, Nottingham, and Warwick, which are his and Whitcombe's, and Bewdley, Kidderminster, Newport, Sutton Coldfield, Tamworth, and Walsall, which are his alone, though very impartial, are not so full as those executed with Rushton. The mode in which his work as a commissioner was performed brought him a client in the person of Mr. Joseph Parkes, the chief parliamentary agent of the whig party. In 1835 and 1838 he appeared in election petitions. In 1838 he appeared for the first time as leading counsel in the Taunton election petition. At the same time he was diligent in his attention to his circuit, became recorder of Southampton, and in 1841 was made a queen's counsel by Lord Cottenham. Though of a very distinguished courtesy at all times, he was often a little testy in his advocacy. He appeared to the best advantage when conducting a defence, and in 1843, when Sir William Follett, the solicitor-general, appeared for the crown, was leading counsel for McNaughten, who shot Mr. Drummond, Sir Robert Peel's secretary, and, in spite of the discredit cast on the plea by its employment in the case of Oxford, procured his acquittal on the ground of insanity. His speech, which was made on a Saturday, was reported at the length of ten columns on the following Monday, one reporter only being employed. It occupied the largest space which had till then been supplied by a single hand to one day's newspaper. In the same year he appeared with Sir Cresswell Cresswell against Campbell, the attorney-general, Wilde, the solicitor-general, Dundee, and Phillimore, for his uncle, Dr. Cockburn, the dean of York, in a proceeding against the archbishop of York for illegally depriving the dean by his commissary, Dr. Phillimore, upon a charge of simony. After a three days' argument in the queen's bench the rule for prohibition against the archbishop was made absolute. In 1844 he appeared for its owners in the remarkable case about the racehorse Running Rein. In this case he made a fierce attack on Lord George Bentinck, who had personally prepared all the details of the case for the other side, the owners of Orlando. Lord George wrote to him expostulating and begging that he might be sworn and have an