Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 12.djvu/277

 advantage of knowing and receiving information from several friends and contemporaries of the bishop, it is but a meagre performance, and hardly worth the trouble of wading through in Latin, now that Canon Ornsby has given us the substance, and much more than the substance, in a graphic and interesting form in the vernacular. 

COSIN, RICHARD (1549?–1597), civil lawyer, born at Hartlepool about 1549, was the son of John Cosin of Newhall, lieutenant to Thomas Dudley at the battle of Musselburgh (1547), who was either killed by the Scots soon after that battle, or was drowned on his way home. Richard's mother remarried one Medhope, by whom Richard was brought up. He was educated at Skipton school, and evinced so much precocity that he became a pensioner of Trinity College, Cambridge, 12 Nov. 1561, before he was twelve years old, and was soon afterwards elected a scholar, and subsequently fellow. Whitgift was his tutor, and was much impressed with his abilities. He proceeded B.A. in 1565–6, M.A. in 1569, and LL.D. in 1580. He subscribed against the new university statutes in May 1572; became chancellor of Worcester diocese and visitor of Lichfield Cathedral (20 Jan. 1582–3), and was appointed dean of arches and vicar-general of the province of Canterbury by Archbishop Whitgift 10 Dec. 1583. Cosin was an ecclesiastical commissioner of the diocese of Winchester in 1583–4, a visitor for the diocese of Gloucester in 1584, a member of the Society of Advocates 14 Oct. 1585, M.P. for Hindon, Wiltshire, 29 Oct. 1586 and again for Downton 4 Feb. 1588–9, and master in chancery 9 Oct. 1588. He was also a member of the ecclesiastical commission court. He died at his lodgings in Doctors' Commons 30 Nov. 1597, and his body was removed for burial at Lambeth on 9 Dec. Lancelot Andrewes preached the funeral sermon, and, afterwards bishop of Lincoln [q. v.], for whose education Cosin had paid, wrote a biography in Latin, published in 1598. Barlow describes Cosin as learned and witty, and of powerful physique. With Barlow's biography was issued a collection of ‘Carmina Funebria’ in Greek, Latin, English, and Italian from the pens of Cosin's Cambridge friends. Cosin left 40l. to Trinity College Library, and 10l. to two poor scholars.

Cosin was the author of the following works on ecclesiastical law, all of which were treated as high authorities: 
 * 1) ‘An Apologie of and for sundrie proceedings by Jurisdiction Ecclesiasticall,’ London, 1591, 1593, a defence of the ex-officio oath, in reply to ‘A Brief Treatise of Oaths,’ by James Morice, attorney of the court of wards. Morice's reply to Cosin was not published, and is in MS. Cott. Cleop. F. i.
 * 2) ‘An Answer to the two first and principall treatises of a certeine factious libell put foorth latelie … under the title of An Abstract of certeine Acts of Parliament,’ 1584. The ‘Abstract’ was a collection of canons and statutes claimed to support the presbyterian system of church government.
 * 3) ‘Conspiracie for Pretended Reformation, viz. Presbyteriall discipline,’ with a life of Hacket, executed as a presbyterian in 1591, and accounts of the opinions of  [q. v.] and H. Arthington.
 * 4) ‘Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ Politeia in Tabulas digesta,’ 1604, 1634.

COSPATRIC, (1070?). [See .]

COSTA, EMANUEL MENDES (1717–1791), naturalist, was the sixth but second surviving son of Abraham, otherwise John, Mendes da Costa, a Jewish merchant who lived in the parish of St. Christopher-le-Stocks, London. He was born on 5 June 1717, and, being intended for the lower branch of the legal profession, served his articles in the office of a notary (Gent. Mag. vol. lxxxii. pt. i. pp. 22–4). From his early years he had applied himself with enthusiasm to the study of natural history; the branches he most excelled in were conchology and mineralogy. In November 1747 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, and from that period until his withdrawal in 1763 he enriched the ‘Philosophical Transactions’ with many papers upon his favourite studies. He was admitted fellow of the Society of Antiquaries on 16 Jan. 1751–2, and was also a member of several other scientific associations, English and foreign. Although he early obtained the reputation of being one of the best fossilists of his time, and was in correspondence with many of the most celebrated naturalists of Europe, his life appears to have been a continual struggle with adversity. In 1754