COCKBURN, Mrs Alison (1712-1794), justly celebrated for having written one of the most exquisite of Scottish ballads, the “Flowers of the Forest,” w as the daughter of a border laird, Robert Rutherfurd of Fairnalee, and was born in the heart of the Southern Highlands in the autumn of 1712. Her education was slight. She spent her youth in rambling and riding about the countryside, and in paying visits to an aged minister iu the neighbourhood, of whose “heavenly affection” for her she wrote enthusiastically in after years. She was a graceful dancer, spent two winter seasons in Edinburgh, and was one of the Edinburgh belles of her time. Different causes have been assigned for the composition of the “Flowers of the Forest.” Mr Chambers states that it was written on the occasion of a great commercial disaster which ruined the fortunes of some Selkirkshire lairds. Her later biographers, however, think it more probable that it was written on the departure to London of a certain John Aikman, between whom and Alison there appears to have been an early attachment. In 1731 Alison Rutherfurd was married to Patrick Cockburn of Ormiston, one of a family of stanch Whigs and Presbyterians, and an advocate at the Scottish bar. After her marriage she knew all the intellectual and aristocratic celebrities of her day. In the memorable year 1745 she vented herWhiggism in a squib upon Prince Charlie, and narrowly escaped being taken by the Highland guard as she was driving through Edinburgh in the family coach of the Keiths of Ravelston, with the parody in her pocket Mrs Cockburn was an indefatigable letter-writer and a composer of parodies, squibs, toasts, and “character-sketches”·—then a favourite form of composition—like other wits of her day; but the “Flowers of ...the Forest” is the only thing she wrote that possesses great literary merit. She survived her husband forty-one years, living to the age of eighty-two, and to the last she maintained her social popularity. At her house on Castle-hill, and afterwards in Crighton Street, she received many illustrious friends, among whom were Mackenzie, Robertson, Hume, Home, Monboddo, the Keiths of Ravelston, the Balcarres family, and Lady Anne Barnard, the authoress of “Auld Robin Gray.” She was in Edinburgh when Dr Johnson visited that city, towed thither by the triomphant Boswell. She saw and commented upon Burns’s short, bright Edinburgh career. As a Rπtherfurd she w as a connection of Sir Walter Scott’s mother, and was her intimate friend. Lockhart quotes an interesting letter written by Mrs Cockburn in 1777, describing the precocious conduct of little Walter Scott, then scarcely six years old, during a visit which she paid to his mother. It was Mrs Cockburn also who wrote the character-sketch of Scott’s father, which, when it was given as a toast, was so true as to be immediately recognized. Scott himself spent pleasant evenings at Mrs Cockburn’s house when she was a very old lady and he a young advocate. Mrs Cockburn died in 1794, having survived her only child, Captain Adam Cockburn, fourteen years.
COCKBURN, Sir George (1772-1853), admiral, was of Scottish extraction, and was born in London. He entered the navy in his ninth year. After serving on the home station, aud in the East Indies and the Mediterranean, he assisted, as captain of the “Minerve,” at the blockade of Leghorn in 1796, and a year afterwards he fought in the battle of Cape St Vincent. In 1809, in command of the naval force on shore, he contributed greatly to the reduction of Martinique, and signed the capitulation by which that island was handed over to the English; for his services on this occasion he received the thanks of the House of Commons. After service in the Scheldt and at the defence of Cadiz he was sent in 1811 on an unsuccessful mission for the reconciliation of Spain and her American colonies. He was made rear-admiral in 1812, aud in 1813-14 he took a prominent part in the American war, especially at the battle of Bladensburg and the capture of Washington. Early in 1815 he received the Order of the Bath, and in the autumn of the same year he carried out, in the “Northumberland,” the sentence of deportation to St Helena which had been passed upon Bonaparte. In 1818 he received the Grand Cross of his Order, and was made a Lord of the Admiralty; and the same year he was returned to parliament for Portsmouth. He was promoted to the rank of vice-admiral in 1819, and to that of admiral in 1837; he became senior naval lord in 1841, and held office in that capacity till 1846. From 1827 he was a privy councillor. In 1851 he was made Admiral of the Fleet, and in 1852, a year before his death, his brother’s baronetcy fell to him by inheritance. See O’Byrne, Naval Biography; James, Naval History; Gentleman's Magazine for 1853.
COCKBURN, Henry Dundas (1779-1854), known as Lord Cockburn, was born in Edinburgh, October 26, 1779. He was educated at the High School and at the university of Edinburgh; and he was a member of the famous Speculative Society, to which Scott, Brougham, and Jeffrey belonged. He entered the faculty of advocates in the year 1800, and attached himself, not to the party of his relatives, who could have afforded him most valuable patronage, but to the Whig or Liberal party, and that at a time when it held out few inducements to men ambitious of success in life. On the accession of Earl Grey’s ministry in 1830, he became Solicitor-General for Scotland, In 1834 he was raised to the bench, and on taking his seat as a judge in the Court of Session he adopted the title of Lord Cockburn. Cockburn’s forensic style was remarkable for its clearness, pathos, and simplicity; and his conversational powers were unrivalled among his contemporaries. The extent of his literary ability only became known after he had passed his seventieth year, on the publication of his biography of Lord Jeffrey in 1852, and from the Memorials of his Time, which appeared posthumously in 1856. He died on the 26th of April 1854, at his mansion of Bonaly, near Edinburgh.
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