very much admired, though not numerous, as he never relinquished his trade. They were chiefly coast scenes, rather weak in colour, especially his early works, but they possessed quiet simplicity and truth and real artistic feeling. There is a view of Stonehouse, Plymouth, in the South Kensington Museum.
[Redgrave's Dict. of English Artists; Art Journal, 1861; Bryan's Dictionary of Painters and Engravers (ed. Graves).]
COOK, SAMUEL EDWARD (d. 1856), writer on Spain. [See Widdrington.]
COOK, THOMAS (1744?–1818), engraver, of London, was a pupil of Simon François Ravenet, the well-known French engraver, when resident in London. Cook was very industrious, and, soon reaching a high position in his art, was employed by Boydell and other art publishers on works which had a large circulation. He is best known from having copied the complete engraved work of Hogarth, to which he devoted the years 1795–1803, and which was published in 1806 under the title of ‘Hogarth Restored.’ This is a very valuable collection, as many of Hogarth's prints were of great rarity, and had not been made public before. He was employed also in engraving portraits, history, architecture, plates for magazines, &c. Among his best known works are ‘Jupiter and Semele’ and ‘Jupiter and Europa,’ after Benjamin West; ‘The English Setter,’ after J. Milton, engraved with S. Smith in 1770 as a pendant to ‘The Spanish Pointer,’ by Woollett; ‘The Wandering Musicians,’ a copy of Wille's engraving, after Dietrich; ‘St. Cecilia,’ after Westall, and several views after Paul Sandby for the ‘Copperplate Magazine.’ He engraved many portraits, especially for the ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ and others, and as frontispieces. Among the persons engraved in this way were Thomas Howard, earl of Arundel; George Washington, Samuel Johnson, Oliver Goldsmith, Charles Churchill, John Cunningham, William Harvey, David Hume, Joseph Spence, and others. Cook executed a reduced set of his Hogarth engravings for Nichol and Stevens's edition of Hogarth's works. He died in London in 1818, aged 74.
[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Nagler's Künstler-Lexikon; Gent. Mag. (1818) lxxxviii. 475; Bromley's Catalogue of Engraved Portraits.]
COOK, WILLIAM (d. 1824), dramatist and miscellaneous writer, was descended from an old family originally from Cheshire, but for some time settled in Cork. He was educated at Cork grammar school, and afterwards by a private tutor. At the age of nineteen he married a lady of considerable fortune, but squandered a large portion of it in pleasure, and lost nearly all the remainder in his business, that of a woollen manufacturer. In 1766 he left Cork for London with strong recommendations to the Duke of Richmond, the Marquis of Lansdowne, Edmund Burke, and Dr. Goldsmith, whose friendship he retained through life. He was called to the bar at the Middle Temple in 1777, and for one or two years went on the home circuit, but already occupied himself chiefly with literature. His earliest publication was a poem on ‘The Art of Living in London,’ which met with some success, and in 1807 he published another of greater pretension, entitled ‘Conversation,’ in the 4th edition of which, published in 1815, he introduced the characters of several of the members of the well-known literary club in Gerrard Street, Soho, such as Burke, Johnson, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Goldsmith. He was also the author of ‘Elements of Dramatic Criticism,’ 1775; ‘Memoirs of Hildebrand Freeman, Esquire,’ n. d.; ‘The Capricious Lady,’ a comedy, altered from Beaumont and Fletcher's ‘Scornful Lady,’ 1783; ‘Memoirs of C. Macklin,’ the actor, including a history of the stage during Macklin's lifetime; ‘Memoirs of Samuel Foote, with some of his Writings,’ 1805, in three volumes. He died at his house in Piccadilly 3 April 1824 at a very advanced age.
[Gent. Mag. xciv. pt. i. 374–5; Annual Register, lxvi. 218; Biographia Dramatica, i. 147–8; Dict. of Living Authors, 74.]
COOKE. [See also Coke and Cook.]
COOKE, ALEXANDER (1564–1632), vicar of Leeds, Yorkshire, was the son of William Gale, alias Cooke, of Beeston in that parish, where he was baptised on 3 Sept. 1564 (Thoresby, Ducatus Leodiensis, ed. 1816, p. 209). After studying at Leeds grammar school he was admitted a member of Brasenose College, Oxford, in Michaelmas term 1581, and after graduating B.A. in 1585 he was elected to a Percy fellowship at University College in 1587. In the following year he commenced M.A., and he took the degree of B.D. in 1596 (Wood, Fasti, ed. Bliss, i. 230, 243, 273). On 5 Feb. 1600–1 he was inducted into the vicarage of Louth, Lincolnshire, by virtue of letters mandatory from the bishop on the presentation of the queen (Lansd. MS. 984, f. 120). On the death of his brother, Robert Cooke [q. v.], he was collated, upon lapse, to the vicarage of Leeds, by Tobie Mathew, archbishop of York, on 30 May 1615 (Hobart, Reports, ed. 1724, p. 197). He was buried in Leeds church on
