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illustrations. She retired to Boulogne upon a small literary pension, and died there of virulent cancer, April 24, 1870. • COSWAY, Richard, R.A., miniature painter. Was born 1740, at Tiverton, where his family had been long settled, and his father was master of the public school. He early showed great ability in drawing, and was sent to London as the pupil of Hudson, and also became a student m Ship- ley's school. He received a premium for drawing in 1755 at the Society of Arts. He began his career by drawing heads for the shops and fancy miniatures — sometimes licentious in character — for snuff-boxes, and soon made himself known as a portrait miniaturist. He was a member of the In- corporated Society of Artists in 1766, and was admitted a student of the Royal Aca- demy in 1769. In the following year he was elected an associate, and in 1771 a full member of the Royal Academy. His career was rapid ; he had obtained a good know- ledge of the figure, and was a refined and powerful draftsman. His miniatures were not only fashionable, but the fashion itself. He drew small whole-lengths of the courtly beauties of his day in black-lead pencil, in an elegant easy style quite his own — the faces painted in miniature, and frequently highly finished. His miniatures on ivory are exquisite for their beauty and grace, and are highly esteemed. He painted the lovely Mrs. Fitzherbert, and gained the favour and even the intimacy of the Prince of Wales. The beauties of the prince's coterie sat to him, and he enjoyed the full tide of royal favour and good fortune which his art truly merited. He occasionally pro- duced a work in oil. Some angels' heads in this medium are admirable for their pure ideal beauty. He was only an occasional exhibitor at the Academy, and sent his last work in 1806. He gave one of his best works in oil to the parish church of his native town. His portraits have been en- graved by Bartolozzi, R.A., and by Valen- tine Green and others.
Cosway was mean in person. He assumed great airs ; his vanity led him to deck his portrait, ipsepinxit, in the most extrava- gant costume. His studio was most inter- esting, filled with the choicest specimens of art and virtu— in which he was not un- willing to deal — and he was in the habit of purchasing old pictures, which he repaired and sold. He left a very large collection of drawings. He married, at St. George's, Hanover Square, 1781, Maria Hadfield, a handsome, clever woman, and an artist. Together they kept a sumptuous house, lived in great style on the verge of Carlton House Gardens, and afterwards in Strat- ford Place. They affected high society; the prince was their visitor, and they made themselves the wonder and whisper of the 100
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town — the bitter mark for satirists and cari- caturists. Cosway's eccentricities and vani- ties were increased by his success. He be- lieved in Swedenborgianism and in animal magnetism; and whether he played the charlatan, or felt himself inspired— most probably the former — he professed his ability to raise the dead ; and asserted to Miss Coombe, his niece, that the Virgin Mary had appeared to him, and had sat to him several times for a half-length figure of the Virgin which he had just finished. He had for some time retired from the practice of his profession. He died while taking an airing in his carriage, July 4, 1821. He desired to be buried near Rubens, at Ant- werp, but rests in the vaults of the new church, St. Marylebone, where there is a tablet to his memory.
COSWAY, Maria Cecilia Louisa, sub- ject painter. Wife of the foregoing. She was the daughter of an Irishman named Hadfield, who kept an hotel at Leghorn, and was born in Italy. She was educated in a convent and studied art in Rome ; on her father's death she came to England, and, for a time at least, painted miniatures pro- fessionally. She also painted many subject pictures, and was a contributor both to Boy- dell's ' Shakespeare Gallery ' and Macklin's
- Poets.' She drew in chalk ' The Progress
of Female Dissipation ' and * The Progress of Female Virtue/ Her 'Going to the Temple' was engraved by Tomkins. She etched some figures after Rubens. In early life she had been betrothed to Dr. Parsons, the composer, but in 1781 she married Richard Cosway, R. A. In the same year she was first an exhibitor at the Royal Academy, and continued to exhibit up to 1801. Her subj ects were mostly of a classic character, with now and then a portrait. She is reputed to have maintained ner own family by her art.
She was in her day a notoriety, and was the subject of much hostile remark. She is said to have run away from her husband. She was certainly long separated from him, and at the beginning of the century was living apart at Paris Si much luxury, while she was copying some works at the Louvre for engraving. She made a pilgrimage to the Shrine of the Virgin at Loretto in ful- filment of a vow to do so if blessed with a living child. Walpole mentions, in an un- published letter, her great grief and her avoidance of all society on the loss of her daughter, which was probably the cause of her retiring in 1804 to a religious seminary at Lyons, of which she became the supe- rior, and is described as occasionally pre- ceding her pupils to the Cathedral with a long ivory cross in her hand, and draped in a sky blue robe spotted with velvet stars. She was living in 1821, and was in London in that year on the death of her husband ;
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