of friends, he undertook in 1854 to edit the ‘Press.’ His recreation was mechanics, and he planned an atmospheric railway. He died of bronchitis at Brighton 8 May 1857.
[Gent. Mag. 3rd ser. ii. 742; Art Journal, new ser. 1857, iii. 228.]
COUPER. [See also Cooper and Cowper.]
COUPER, ROBERT, M.D. (1750–1818), Scottish poet, son of a farmer at Balsier, parish of Sorbie, Wigtonshire, was born 22 Sept. 1750. He entered the university of Glasgow in 1769 with the view of studying for the ministry of the church of Scotland, but, his parents having died before he had completed his studies, he accepted the office of tutor in a family in Virginia, America. On the outbreak of the American revolution in 1776 he returned to Scotland, and after studying medicine at the university of Glasgow began practice at Newton Stewart, Wigtonshire. In 1788 he settled in Fochabers, Banffshire, as physician to the Duke of Gordon. In 1804 he published at Inverary, in two volumes, ‘Poetry chiefly in the Scottish Language,’ dedicated to the Duke of Gordon, the first volume mainly consisting of poems on the seasons, and the second of odes and songs. Among the best known of his songs are ‘Red gleams the Sun,’ tune ‘Neil Gow,’ inserted in his own works under the title ‘Kinrara;’ and ‘The Ewebughts, Marion.’ He left Fochabers in 1806, and died at Wigton, 18 Jan. 1818.
[Stenhouse's Notes to Johnson's Musical Museum, ed. Laing; Charles Rogers's Modern Scottish Minstrel, 15–16.]
COURAYER, PIERRE FRANÇOIS le (1681–1776), French divine, was born at Rouen on 17 Nov. 1681. His father was president of the court of justice of that city. Having been educated at Vernon and Beauvais, he joined the fraternity of St. Genevieve. In 1706 he was made presbyter of the congregation, and in 1711 librarian. He had published several small works on literary subjects when, in 1714, he became one of the appellants against the bull ‘Unigenitus,’ which condemned the Jansenists. He took this step simply from love of justice, as he himself in no way favoured the Jansenist opinions. These appellants obtained the name of anti-constitutionaries, or the opposers of the papal constitution. The famous Cardinal de Noailles at one time belonged to them, as did all the most prominent doctors of the Sorbonne. The strife between them and the constitutionist party was long and bitter. It was in the course of this strife that friendly relations were established between Wake, archbishop of Canterbury, and the Sorbonne doctors, Du Pin and Girardin. Negotiations were set on foot as to a possible union between the Anglican and Gallican churches. Courayer thus came to know somewhat of the real position of the Anglican church, and formed a friendship with Archbishop Wake which was of lifelong duration. With the archbishop's help he studied the question of the validity of Anglican orders; but he had not determined to write anything on the subject until circumstances seemed to compel him. The Abbé Renaudot, famous for his oriental learning, had published a memoir on Anglican orders, in a book set forth by the Abbé Gould in 1720, entitled ‘The True Faith of the Catholic Church.’ This memoir was full of misstatements, and it excited Courayer to give to the world a truer account of the subject. ‘The thing in question,’ he says, ‘is no less than to know whether the church of England, formerly so illustrious, and even now so respectable for the enlightenment of her prelates and the condition of her clergy, is without a succession, without a hierarchy, and without a ministry.’ Courayer does not altogether accept the position of the Anglican church, but he defends the validity of its orders in a most masterly manner. By the valuable help of Archbishop Wake he was able to avoid the mistakes as to the English church into which foreign divines were so apt to fall. The jesuit party, knowing of the composition and character of the work, used every effort to prevent its publication. To diminish Courayer's responsibility, his friends stole the manuscript from him, and it appeared in 1723 with the name of a Brussels publisher, but without the author's name. This, however, was soon known, and then Courayer was subjected to the most violent attacks, both from jesuits and Jansenists. The most remarkable assault was that made by the Abbé Hardouin—that erratic genius who wrote to prove that almost all the classical writings were forgeries. A more formidable antagonist was the Dominican, Le Quien. Another was a French-Irishman, one Fennel, whose book, as Courayer complains, was written in ‘French-Irish.’ Against these manifold antagonists Courayer wrote his ‘Defence,’ which appeared in 1726, published by the same Brussels publisher. It was a larger work than the first, being printed in three volumes. Replies were at once forth-
