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William Cockin (baptised 1736 – 1801) was an English schoolmaster and versatile author.

Life

The son of Marmaduke Cockin (1712–1754), he was born at Burton-in-Kendal, Westmorland. His father was a schoolmaster.

After time spent as a teacher in schools in London, Cockin was in 1764 appointed writing-master and accountant to Lancaster Grammar School, a post he held for twenty years. He was then for eight years at John Blanchard's Nottingham Academy.

Cockin retired to Kendal. He was a friend of George Romney the painter, and he died at Romney's house in Kendal, on 30 May 1801, aged 65. He was buried at Burton-in-Kendal.

Associations

Among Cockin's friends was the Rev. Thomas Wilson of Clitheroe, and Peter Romney, brother of George, was a correspondent in the later 1760s. Other associates were John Dawson, and Rev. John James D.D., of Arthuret.

Works

Cockin's works included:

• A Rational and Practical Treatise of Arithmetic, 1766.
• Occasional Attempts in Verse, privately printed at Kendal.
• Ode to the Genius of the Lakes, 1780.
• The Theory of the Syphon, 1781.
• The Fall of Scepticism and Infidelity predicted, 1788, in the form of a letter to James Beattie.
• The Freedom of Human Action explained, 1791
• The Rural Sabbath, a poem, 1805. This posthumous volume includes a reprint of the Ode to the Lakes, with biographical notes.

Cockin contributed to the Philosophical Transactions a paper An Account of an Extraordinary Appearance in a Mist near Lancaster.

Elocutionist

In 1775 Cockin published The Art of Delivering Written Language; or, An Essay on Reading, dedicated to David Garrick, a work on elocution. In this book Cockin is representative of the 18th-century elocutionary movement, and within elocutionist he is assigned to the "natural school". His comment on the prescriptive approach of Thomas Sheridan, a leader of the movement, was that works of elocution might be as much about perceptions of ways of talking as speaking.

Cockin noted in particular the connection between modulation in speech and silent reading. He pointed out that in both speech and singing, pauses are used to frame and for emphasis. He took comical mimicry to be a low form, in terms of artistic prestige. His exposition on the topic is now a standard authority for this attitude to imitation and mimesis.

Guide books

Thomas West's Guide to the Lakes, on the English Lake District, first appeared in 1778, and Cockin assisted in its compilation. He edited, anonymously, the second edition in 1780, West having died in 1779, including a preface that discussed the sources used: John Brown's Letter on Keswick, Thomas Gray, Thomas Pennant and Arthur Young. This expanded work and a later edition influenced William Wordsworth's 1810 guide. They contained the Letter on Keswick and Gray's Journal of the Lakes as appendices. Other additions included an engraving of Grasmere, after John Feary; Cockin was also responsible for footnotes, and tables of heights of the mountains.

Notes

1. ^ Cross, David A. "Cockin, William". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/5786. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
2. ^ Stephen, Leslie, ed. (1887). "Cockin, William" . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 11. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
3. Heather Birchall, Henry Pickering fl 1740-70: An 18th-century portrait painter, The British Art Journal Vol. 4, No. 1 (Spring 2003), pp. 88–91, at p. 91. Published by: British Art Journal JSTOR 41614438
4. Phil. Trans. (1780), lxx. 157.
5. Jacqueline George, Public Reading and Lyric Pleasure: Eighteenth Century Elocutionary Debates and Poetic Practices, ELH Vol. 76, No. 2 (Summer, 2009), pp. 371–397 at p. 383. Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press. JSTOR 27742940
6. Kuypers, Jim A.; King, Andrew (2001). Twentieth-century Roots of Rhetorical Studies. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 120 nite 53. ISBN 9780275964207. Retrieved 15 May 2018.
7. L. C. Mugglestone, Cobbett's Grammar: William, James Paul, and the Politics of Prescriptivism, The Review of English Studies Vol. 48, No. 192 (Nov., 1997), pp. 471–488, at p. 478. Published by: Oxford University Press. JSTOR 518493
8. Dana Harrington, Remembering the Body: Eighteenth-Century Elocution and the Oral Tradition, Rhetorica: A Journal of the History of Rhetoric Vol. 28, No. 1, The 2nd Biennial Conference of the Chinese Rhetoric Society of the World – Call for Papers (Winter 2010), pp. 67–95, p. 93 note 81. Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the International Society for the History of Rhetoric DOI: 10.1525/rh.2010.28.1.67 JSTOR 10.1525/rh.2010.28.1.67
9. Robert Toft, Rendering the Sense More Conspicuous: Grammatical and Rhetorical Principles of Vocal Phrasing in Art and Popular/Jazz Music, Music & Letters Vol. 85, No. 3 (Aug., 2004), pp. 368–387, at p. 377. Published by: Oxford University Press. JSTOR 3526232
10. Jan Rüger, Laughter and War in Berlin, History Workshop JournalNo. 67 (Spring 2009), pp. 23–43, at p. 40, note 44. Published by: Oxford University Press. JSTOR 40646207
11. Betty A. Schellenberg, Coterie Culture, the Print Trade, and the Emergence of the Lakes Tour, 1724–1787, Eighteenth-Century Studies Vol. 44, No. 2 (Winter 2011), pp. 203–221, at pp. 214–5. Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Sponsor: American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (ASECS). JSTOR 41057329
12. Mary R. Wedd, Light on Landscape in Wordsworth's "Spots of Time", The Wordsworth Circle, Vol. 14, No. 4 (Autumn 1983), pp. 224–232, at p. 228. Published by: Marilyn Gaull JSTOR 24040642
13. Woof, Robert; Museum, Grasmere and Wordsworth (1982). The discovery of the Lake District, 1750-1810: a context for Wordsworth: at the Grasmere and Wordsworth Museum, 20 May-31 October, 1982. Trustees of Dove Cottage. p. 23.
14. Donnachie, Ian; Lavin, Carmen (8 April 2004). From Enlightenment to Romanticism: Anthology II. Manchester University Press. p. 3. ISBN 9780719066733. Retrieved 15 May 2018.

External links

Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Stephen, Leslie, ed. (1887). "Cockin, William". Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 11. London: Smith, Elder & Co.

• 1736 births
• 1801 deaths
• Schoolteachers from Cumbria
• English writers
• People from Kendal
• People from Burton-in-Kendal
• Elocutionists
• Writers from Cumbria