those lighter and objectionable effusions by which he is principally known to posterity, ought not to be considered as indications of his true character or sentiments. Genius, as if to show its versatility, has often delighted in fantastic exhibitions; and when Cotton lived, a fashion for burlesque humour and obscenity prevailed, which he is censurable for having followed; but the fault belonged as much to the age as to the individual. His first marriage may be supposed, from the following lines in his satirical poem, called "The Joys of Marriage," to have increased his happiness: "Yet with me 'tis out of season That my love creates my woe; Straight displeas'd I do presume her, Or if she be discontented, Lord, how am I then tormented! And am ready to persuade her That I have unhappy made her: But if sick I then am dying, Meat and med'cine both defying." Nor is there any reason to doubt that his second alliance with the Countess of Ardglass was equally fortunate. He addressed one of his poems, in very affectionate terms, to his sister Anne,3 who married John King, the son of Walton's friend, Henry, Bishop of Chichester; and secondly, Sir Thomas Millington, M.D. Cotton's person seems, from one of Sir Aston Cokayne's verses, to have been graceful and handsome. His portrait, painted by his friend Sir Peter Lely, is now in the possession of John Beresford, Esq., of Ashbourn, and the engraving in this work is taken from a copy of the original recently painted by Mr Inskipp. Of his children little is known. Beresford Cotton, the only son who survived him, entered the army, and served in Ireland. He was a captain in Colonel George Villier's Regiment of Foot, and his name occurs among the other officers of the ten regiments which were disbanded in Ireland in 1698, and to whom a reduced allowance, or, as it was termed, "subsistence," of three shillings a day was granted. The date of his death has not been discovered; 3 "La Illustrissima. On my fair and dear sister Mrs Anne King," p. 61. 4 Vide page clxvi. antea. Vide Sir Robert Southwell's papers in the Additional MS. No. 9762, in the British Museum. + but it is said that he was never married, and that he died at Nottingham. In 1694 Beresford Cotton published his father's translation of the Memoirs of the Sieur de Pontis, which has been already noticed, and which he dedicated to the Duke of Ormond. + He states that the work was translated by the particular choice and recommendation of his Grace's illustrious grandfather, and says "The Sieur de Pontis therefore for himself, and I for the translator, my deceased father, beg leave to plead succession and descent." 6 Olive Cotton, the eldest daughter of Charles Cotton, married early in 1690, Dr George Stanhope, Dean of Canterbury, and died in June 1707, having had a son, George Stanhope, who was a captain in the army, and died unmarried in 1725; and five daughters, Katherine, Mary, Jane, Charlotte, and Elizabeth. Mary, the eldest daughter of Dr Stanhope by Olive Cotton, married William Burnet, Governor of New York, eldest son of the celebrated Dr Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury, by whom she had a son, Gilbert Burnet, who was a minor in May 1727, and died about the year 1770, leaving Thomas Burnet his only child, who was then an apothecary in John Street, Clerkenwell. Mrs Burnet, who died in 1714, is said to have been distinguished for her beauty, wit, good - humour, and various accomplishments. The ruling passion" was as strongly exhibited by her as by Pope's Narcissa; for on her attendants rubbing her temples with Hungary water, in her dying moments, she desired them to desist, lest it "should make her hair grey"! Charlotte, the fourth daughter of Dr Stanhope, married the Rev. Dr Henry Archer, Rector of Feversham, in Kent, and died in 1744. She left issue, and her present representative is Robert Selby, Esq., of Kings. bury, in Middlesex. Katherine, Jane, and Elizabeth, the other daughters of Dr Stanhope, appear to have died unmarried before May 1727. Dr Stanhope married a second time, and died in March 1728. His will, which is dated on the 2d of May 1727, and was proved at Doctors' Commons on the 4th of May 1728, contains some notices of his first wife and of her family. He desired that his body should be buried at Lewisham, near his late dear wife Olivia: he confirmed the articles made on the 30th of November 1709, on his marriage with his then wife Anne: he stated that one-fourth part of the Rectory of Spoondon, in the county of Derby, was vested in him on his marriage with his 6 Kippis' Biographia Britannica, vol. iii. p. 39. former wife, Olivia, daughter of Charles Cotton, Esq.; and that one other fourth part had been purchased by him of Katherine, her sister, now Lady Lucy. He bequeathed to his daughter, Charlotte Archer, "the mourning gold ring with which her dear mother was married, and the cornelian ring which she, in her lifetime, and I, since her death, did constantly wear, and with it also the pictures of her mother, and of her aunt, the Lady Lucy, in crayons; the pictures of her brother George, and her sister Elizabeth, in oil colours." Katherine, the second daughter of Charles Cotton, married Sir Berkeley Lucy, Bart., and died in June 1740, leaving an only child Mary, who married the Honorable Charles Compton, a younger son of George, fourth Earl of Northampton, from whom the present Marquess of Northampton is descended. Jane Cotton, the third daughter, became the wife of Beaumont Parkyns, of Sutton Bonington, in Nottinghamshire, Esq., by whom she had eight children. They all died young, and apparently before their mother, who died in January 1738, aged seventy-two. Of Mary Cotton, the poet's youngest daughter, all which can be said is, that she married Augustine Armstrong, of the parish of St George the Martyr, Bloomsbury, and had by him two children, Charles and Katherine, to whom Dr Stanhope, in his will, left legacies of £20 each. In a codicil to his will, dated 8th January 1727-8, Dr Stanhope bequeathed £200 to "my poor niece Catherine, daughter of Augustine Armstrong, of the parish of St George the Martyr, near Ormond Street, which was born to him by my sister-in-law, formerly Mrs Mary Cotton; and I do also order that the legacy already left her in the said will, be added to that which I have left to her brother Charles." The descendants of Mary Cotton have not been traced. PEDIGREE [Compiled from the Heralds' Visitations of CORDELL, daughter and co-heir of RICHARD = SIR JOHN STANHOPE, of Shelton, co. Notts, = ALLINGTON, Esq.-First wife. and of Elvaston, co. Derby. Ob. 1610. OF COTTON. Stafford and Derby, and other Sources.] KATHERINE, daughter of THOMAS TRENTHAM, of Rowcester, co. Stafford.-Second wife. [203] CHARLES COMPTON, Succeeded, in 1758, as 7th Earl of NorthampDied 18th Oct. 1763, S. P. M. ton. ELIZABETH, daughter SPENCER, 8th Earl of Northampton. Died April 7, 1796. CHARLES, 9th Earl of Northampton. SPENCER JOSHUA ALWYNE, 2d Marquess and 10th Earl of Northampton. |