aristocratic rendezvous. In 1791 he removed to Stratford
Place, where he lived in a state of great magnificence till 1821, when
after selling most of the treasures he had accumulated he went to reside
in Edgware Road. He died on the 4th of July 1821, when driving in a
carriage with his friend Miss Udney. He was buried in Marylebone New
church.
He married in 1781 Maria Hadfield, who survived him many years, and died
in Italy in January 1838, in a school for girls which she had founded,
and which she had attached to an important religious order devoted to
the cause of female education, known as the Dame Inglesi. She had been
created a baroness of the Empire on account of her devotion to female
education by the emperor Francis I. in 1834. Her college still exists,
and in it are preserved many of the things which had belonged to her and
her husband.
Cosway had one child who died young. She is the subject of one of his
most celebrated engravings. He painted miniatures of very many members
of the royal family, and of the leading persons who formed the court of
the prince regent. Perhaps his most beautiful work is his miniature of
Madame du Barry, painted in 1791, when that lady was residing in Bruton
Street, Berkeley Square. This portrait, together with many other
splendid works by Cosway, came into the collection of Mr J. Pierpont
Morgan. There are many miniatures by this artist in the royal collection
at Windsor Castle, at Belvoir Castle and in other important collections.
His work is of great charm and of remarkable purity, and he is certainly
the most brilliant miniature painter of the 18th century.
For a full account of the artist and his wife, see _Richard Cosway,
R.A._, by G. C. Williamson (1905). (G. C. W.)
COTA DE MAGUAQUE, RODRIGO (d. c. 1498), Spanish poet, who flourished
towards the end of the 15th century, was born at Toledo. Little is known
of him save that he was of Jewish origin. The _Coplas de Mingo Revulgo_,
the _Coplas del Provincial_, and the first act of the _Celestina_ have
been ascribed to him on insufficient grounds. He is undoubtedly the
author of the _Dialogo entre el amor y un viejo_, a striking dramatic
poem first printed in the _Cancionero general_ of 1511, and of a
burlesque epithalamium written in 1472 or later. He abjured Judaism
about the year 1497, and is believed to have died shortly afterwards.
See "Epithalame burlesque," edited by R. Foulche-Delbosc, in the
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