CHARLES COTTON, the only child1 of Mr Cotton by Olive Stanhope, was born at Beresford on the 28th of April 1630. No particulars are preserved respecting the place of his education; but he is supposed to have become a member of the University of Cambridge sometime about the year 1649, though that fact can only be reconciled with his having been a pupil of Mr Ralph Rawson, Fellow of Brazen Nose College, Oxford, by supposing that Rawson removed to Cambridge on being ejected from his fellowship by the Parliamentary visitors in 1648.2 His affection for his tutor is strongly expressed in the translation of an ode of Johannes Secundus ; and his cousin Sir Aston Cokayne likewise showed his esteem for him in a similar manner; but some verses by Cokayne render it doubtful whether Rawson ever removed from Oxford to Cambridge. If, however, Cotton was educated at either of the Universities, he did not take his degree, as his name is not mentioned by Anthony Wood among the writers of Oxford; nor does it occur in the manuscript list of graduates of Cambridge in the British Museum.5 That he possessed considerable classical

She was too good to live, and young to die,
Yet stay'd not to dispute with destiny.
But (soon as she receiv'd the summons given)`
Sent her fair soul to wait on God in heaven.
Here, what was mortal of her turns to dust,
To rise a glorious body with the just.

Now thou mayst go; but take along with thee
(To guide thy life and death) her memory.

In the parish register of St Dunstan's in the West the following entry occurs: "1653, Sept. 6, Persis, daughter of Charles Cotton, was baptized;" but as the younger Cotton was then unmarried, and his father aged and a widower, it is not likely that either of them was the person alluded to.

Athen. Oxon. ed. Bliss, vol. iv. p. 635.

"An

Poems on Several Occasions written by Charles Cotton, Esq., 8vo, 1689. Ode of Johannes Secundus translated. To my dear Tutor, Mr Ralph Rawson," p. 547. Rawson acknowledged his kindness in some verses addressed "To my dear and honoured patron. Mr Charles Cotton, Ode, occasioned by his translation of an ode of Johannes Secundus directed to me, and inserted amongst his other Poems," a copy of which occurs in a manuscript containing the greater part of Cotton's Poems, some, if not all, of which are apparently in his own handwriting.

Cokayne's Poems, p. 207. "To Mr Ralph Rawson. lately Fellow of Brazen Nose College." It commences:

"Though I of Cambridge was, and far above

and thus concludes:

Your mother Oxford did my Cambridge love;

I those affections (for your sake) remove,
And (above Cambridge) now do Oxford love."

"I far above

My Cambridge, and your Oxford shall it love."

Had Rawson removed to Cambridge, some allusion would probably have been made to the circumstance in these verses, which were evidently written after he was ejected from his fellowship at Oxford.

5 Additional MSS. in the British Museum, No. 5885. Cole, however, mentions Cotton among the writers who belonged to that University, in his manuscript collections for an Athena Cantabrigiensis in the Additional MS. 5865, f. 47, in the British Museum.

attainments, and united with them an extensive knowledge of modern languages, particularly of French and Italian, together with the usual accomplishments of the age, is however unquestionable. It does not appear that he was intended for any profession, and the early part of his life seems to have been passed in the society of the wits and other literary men of his time. He was himself ardently attached to literature; but except a few poems, he wrote nothing which was published until after the Restoration. Before that period the little which is known of his pursuits has been gleaned from the works of one or two of his friends, and from his own verses; but he probably went abroad before he attained his twenty-fourth year, as he certainly had travelled in France and Italy.

That Cotton wrote many of the poems which were for the first time collected and published after his decease, at an early period of his life, is not only proved by internal evidence, but it is placed beyond dispute, by the subjoined verses addressed to him by Sir Aston Cokayne :—

"TO MY MOST HONOURED COUSIN MR CHARLES COTTON THE
YOUNGER, UPON HIS EXCELLENT POEMS.

Bear back, you crowd of wits, that have so long
Been the prime glory of the English tongue,
And room for our arch-poet make, and follow
His steps, as you would do your great Apollo.
Nor is he his inferior, for see

His picture, and you'll say that this is he;
So young and handsome both, so tress'd alike,
That curious Lilly, or most skill'd Vandyke,
Would prefer neither. Only here's the odds,
This gives us better verse than that the Gods.

6 It appears that Cotton's library contained some of the best Italian authors, as Cokayne says in one of his effusions, p. 231,

"D'Avila, Bentivoglio, Guicciardine,

And Machiavil the subtile Florentine,
In their originals, I have read through,
Thanks to your library, and unto you;
The prime historians of late times; at least,
In the Italian tongue allow'd the best."

7 Cotton says in his "Voyage to Ireland: ""Indeed I had a small smattering of Law," but his legal knowledge appears to have been gained from the performance of the duties of a Justice of the Peace, as he adds:

"Which I lately had got more by practice than reading,

In sitting o' th' Bench, whilst others were pleading."

8 Among the poems attributed to the younger Cotton are an Elegy upon Henry Lord Hastings, only son of Ferdinand Earl of Huntingdon, who died in June 1649, which was printed in Brome's "Lachrymæ Musarum, the Tears of the Muses, expressed in elegies written by divers persons of nobility and worth" upon that young nobleman's death, 8vo, 1650, when Cotton was only twenty years of age; and a copy of verses prefixed to Edinund Prestwich's Translation of the Hippolitus of Seneca in 1651.

Beware, you poets, that (at distance) you
The reverence afford him that is due
Unto his mighty merit, and not dare

Your puny threads with his lines to compare ;
Lest (for so impious a pride) a worse
Than was Arachne's fate or Midas' curse,
Posterity inflicts upon your fames,

For vent'ring to approach too near his flames,
Whose all-commanding muse disdains to be
Equall'd by any, in all poesy.

As the presumptuous son of Clymene,
The sun's command importun'd for a day
Of his unwilling father, and for so
Rash an attempt, fell headlong into Po.

So you shall fall or worse; not leave so much
As empty names, to show there once were such.
The Greek and Latin language he commands,
So all that then was writ in both these lands;
The French and the Italian he hath gain'd,
And all the wit that in them is contain'd.
So, if he pleases to translate a piece
From France or Italy, old Rome or Greece,
The understanding reader soon will find,
It is the best of any of that kind;

But when he lets his own rare fancy loose,
There is no flight so noble as his muse.
Treats he of war? Bellona doth advance,
And leads his march with her refulgent lance.
Sings he of love? Cupid about him lurks,
And Venus in her chariot draws his works.
Whate'er his subject be, he'll make it fit
To live hereafter emperor of wit.

He is the Muses' darling, all the nine

Phoebus disclaim, and term him more divine.
The wondrous Tasso, that so long hath borne
The sacred laurel, shall remain forlorn.

Alonso de Ercilla, that in strong

And mighty lines hath Araucana sung,

And Sallust, that the ancient Hebrew story
Hath poetiz'd, submit unto your glory.

So the chief swans of Tagus, Arne, and Seine,
Must yield to Thames, and veil unto your strain.
Hail, generous magazine of wit, you bright
Planet of learning, dissipate the night
Of dulness, wherein us this age involves,
And (from our ignorance) redeem our souls.
A word at parting, Sir, I could not choose
Thus to congratulate your happy muse;
And (though I vilify your worth) my zeal
(And so in mercy think) intended well.
The world will find your lines are great and strong,
The nihil ultra of the English tongue."

Cokayne also celebrated

Cotton's merits on several other

occasions, but only two of those effusions are deserving of notice, the one for the pithiness of the compliment paid to him, and the other because his father is mentioned :—

66
"TO MY HONOURED COUSIN MR CHARLES COTTON, JUNIOR.

Donne, Suckling, Randolph, Drayton, Massinger,
Habington, Sandys, May, my acquaintance were;

9 Poems, pp. 147, 154.

Jonson, Chapman, and Holland I have seen,
And with them too should have acquainted been.
What needs this catalogue? Th' are dead and gone,
And to me you are all of them in one."

"TO MY COUSIN MR CHARLES COTTON THE YOUNger.

In how few years have you rais'd up an high
Column of learning by your industry,
More glorious than those pyramids that old
Canopus view'd, or Cair doth yet behold!
Your noble father (that for able parts
Hath won an high opinion in all hearts)
May like the elder Scaliger look down
With admiration on his worthy son.

Proceed, fair plant of ex'ellencies, and grow
So high to shadow all that are below."

Colonel Lovelace, who addressed an ode1 to Cotton's father, and wrote an elegy on his aunt, Cassandra, inscribed "The Triumphs of Philamore and Amoret, to the noblest of our youth and best of friends, Charles Cotton, Esquire, being at Beresford, at his house in Staffordshire, from London."2 In these verses he laments Cotton's absence, and thus affectionately anticipates his return :

"But all our clouds shall be o'erblown when thee
In our horizon, bright, once more we see;

When thy dear presence shall our souls new dress;
And spring an universal cheerfulness,

When we shall be o'erwhelm'd in joy, like they

That change their night for a vast half-year's day.

Then shall the wretched few that do repine

See and recant their blasphemies in wine;

Then shall they grieve that thought I've sung too free
High and aloud of thy true worth and Thee:

And their foul heresies and lips submit

To th' all-forgiving breath of Amoret;

And me alone their anger's object call,

That from my height so miserably did fall;

And cry out my invention thin and poor,

Who have said nought, since I could say no more."

The most remarkable lines are, however, the following, because they seem to corroborate Aubrey's statement that Cotton had relieved Lovelace in his distress: 3.

"What fate was mine when in my obscure cave

Shut up almost close prisoner in a grave

Your beams could reach me through this vault of night,

And canton the dark dungeon with light!

Whence me, as gen'rous Spahy's, you unbound,

Whilst I know myself both free and crown'd."

I Lucasta. edit. 1649. "The Grasshopper, To my noble friend, Mr Charles Cotton." P. 34.

2 Lucasta. Posthume Poems of Richard Lovelace, Esq., 8vo, 1659.

3 "Lovelace died in 1658, in a mean lodging in Gunpowder Alley, near Shoe Lane. Aubrey's statement is, that 'George Petty, haberdasher in Fleet Street, carried twenty shillings to him every Monday morning from Sir - Many, and Charles Cotton, Esq., for months, and was never repaid.'" Athen. Oxon. ed. Bliss, vol. iii. pp. 462, 463.

Cotton and several other persons wrote Elegies to Lovelace's memory, which were printed at the end of his "Lucasta and Posthume Poems" in 1659.

The most material facts which Cotton's own poems establish are, that he was a zealous Royalist, and an uncompromising enemy of Cromwell. He omitted no opportunity of expressing his sentiments; and a decisive proof of his political opinions is exhibited in his verses on the execution of James Earl of Derby, in 1651,6 and in his severe castigation of Waller for writing a panegyric on the Protector about the year 1654:—

64 TO FOET E. W. OCCASIONED FOR HIS WRITING A PANEGYRIC
ON OLIVER CROMWELL.

From whence, vile Poet, didst thou glean the wit,
And words for such a vitious poem fit?

Where couldst thou paper find was not too white,
Or ink that could be black enough to write?
What servile devil tempted thee to be

A flatterer of thine own slavery?

To kiss thy bondage and extol the deed,

At once that made thy prince, and country bleed?

I wonder much thy false heart did not dread,

And shame to write what all men blush to read;
Thus with a base ingratitude to rear

Tophies unto thy master's murtherer?

Who call'd the coward (-) much mistook
The characters of thy pedantic look;

4 See Cotton's Poems, p. 481.

For example, in his Voyage to Ireland ;

"We enter'd the port,

Where another King's head invited me down,

For indeed I have ever been true to the Crown."-P. 198.

In his Contentation, he says: "The man is happy

Who free from debt, and clear from crimes,

Honours those laws that others fear,

Who ill of princes in worst times,

Will neither speak himself, nor hear."-P. 258.

In his Ode to Melancholy :

"An infamous Usurper's come,

Whose name is sounding in mine ear

Like that, methinks, of Oliver."

"And yet, methinks, it cannot be

That he

Should be crept into me.

My skin could ne'er contain sure so much evil,

Nor any place but hell can hold so great a Devil."-Pp. 264, 265.

The Chorus to one of his Bacchanalian songs is:

"Then let us revel, quaff, and sing,

Health and his sceptre to the King."-P. 448.

See also his Epode to Alexander Brome on the King's return, p. 511, and several other instances throughout his Poems.

6 Cotton's Poems, p. 411.