Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 12.djvu/223

  for the pianoforte, and in 1796 he married Frances, daughter of the Rev. J. Davies, vicar of Padworth, Berkshire, by whom he had fourteen children. In 1804, on the resignation of his father, he succeeded him as organist of the cathedral, and by 1813 he had got the choir into a state of remarkable perfection, if we may believe the account given of the Salisbury service by a correspondent of the ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ of that date. In 1828 he organised and undertook at his own risk a festival at Salisbury, which took place with very great success on 19–22 Aug. of that year. He himself conducted the whole of the performances, and his eldest son, John Davis Corfe (1804–1876), who was organist of Bristol Cathedral for more than fifty years, played the organ for his father. Among the solo singers were Miss Paton, Mme. Caradori-Allan, and Braham. Corfe's work as a composer is not remarkable. He wrote a service and a few anthems, besides some pianoforte pieces. He published also a good many arrangements of different kinds, and a book on ‘The Principles of Harmony and Thorough-bass.’ Towards the end of his life his health showed signs of failing, but he attended the daily service regularly until the end. On 28 Jan. 1863 he was found in the early morning dead, kneeling by his bedside as if in prayer. He was buried in the cloisters of the cathedral. Several of his sons were choristers at Magdalen College, Oxford. His fourth son, George, became resident medical officer at the Middlesex Hospital, and wrote several medical treatises. His younger son, (b. 1814), took the degree of Mus. Doc. (Oxon. 1852), and was organist of Christ Church, Oxford, from 1846 to his retirement shortly before his death on 16 Dec. 1883. He was appointed choragus to the university in 1860, and published several glees, part-songs, anthems, &c.

 CORFE, JOSEPH (1740–1820), born at Salisbury in 1740, was in all probability a relation of the two musicians of that name who were lay vicars of Winchester Cathedral near the end of the seventeenth century, and of a James Corfe who published some songs under initials about 1730–50. Joseph Corfe received his early musical education from Dr. Stephens, the organist of the cathedral, and was for some time one of the choristers. On 21 Feb. 1783 he was appointed one of the gentlemen of the Chapel Royal. He had previously been made a lay vicar of Salisbury, and in 1792 was given the post of cathedral organist there. He had appointed his son, John Corfe, as his deputy in the Chapel Royal, on 2 April 1791. In 1804 he resigned the post of organist in favour of his son, Arthur Thomas Corfe [q. v.], and died in 1820, shortly before 1 Oct., on which date his successor was appointed to the Chapel Royal. His chief original production is a volume of church music, containing a well-known service in B flat, and eleven anthems. He wrote also thirty-six glees, mainly arranged from familiar melodies, selections of sacred musical compositions, a ‘Treatise on Singing,’ and ‘Thorough-bass simplified, or the whole Theory and Practice of Thorough-bass laid open to the meanest capacity.’ In estimating his works, it must be remembered that he was a contemporary of Jackson of Exeter, and that the influences which formed that most insipid composer were not unfelt by him. Though some of the verses and other portions of the anthems in his volume show the weaknesses which were prevalent at the time, they are more than made up for by the strength and interest of many of the grander numbers, in which a sound fugal style is frequently apparent.

 CORK,. [See, 1566–1643; , 1612–1697; , 1695–1753.]

CORK and ORRERY,. [See , 1707–1762.]

CORKER, JAMES or MAURUS (1636–1715), Benedictine monk, was a native of Yorkshire. He was brought up in the protestant religion, but was converted to Catholicism, and joining the Benedictine order was professed in the monastery of St. Adrian and St. Dionysius at Lambspring in Germany on 23 April 1656 (Hist. MSS. Comm. 3rd Rep. 236). He was sent on the English mission in the southern province in 1665, and for twelve years he was chaplain to a widow lady of distinction. Being alarmed at the narrative of Titus Oates, who had included him among those concerned in the pretended popish plot, he concealed himself for several months, but at last he was apprehended and committed prisoner to Newgate. On 18 July 1679 he was tried at the Old Bailey with Sir George Wakeman, William Marshall, and William Rumley; but their innocence was so evident that the jury returned a verdict of