his vernal months, carrying with him the best and choicest of all earthly blessings, a contemplative mind, a cheerful disposition, an active and an healthful body. So beauteous did the scenery of this delightful spot appear to him, that, to use his own words," the pleasantness of the river, mountains, and meadows about it, cannot be described,

Countess-Dowager of Ardglass, who possessed a jointure of fifteen hundred a year, and who survived him, might suggest the hope, when his straitened circumstances are remembered, that his sun set brighter than it rose, but this supposition seems to be contradicted by a fact, disclosed by the act of administration of his effects upon his decease, granted to Elizabeth Bludworth, his principal creditrix; the honourable Mary Countess-Dowager of Ardglass, his widow; Beresford Cotton, Esq.; Olive Cotton, Catherine Cotton, Jane Cotton, and Mary Cotton, his natural and lawful children, first renouncing." The above act, bearing date the 12th of September, 1687, fixes, perhaps within a few days, the time of his death, and describes him as having lived in the parish of St. James, West minster, though no entry of his burial has been found in the registers of that parish; by it is further ascertained his issue, which were all by his first wife.

Of the subsequent fortunes of his descendants, little with any certainty is known. His son, Beresford Cotton, commanded a company in a regiment of foot, raised by the Earl of Derby for the service of King William; and one of his daughters became the wife of that eminent divine, Dr. George Stanhope, dean of Canterbury, who from his name being the same with that of Cotton's mother, is conjectured to have been distantly allied to the family.

unless Sir Philip Sidney or Mr. Cotton's father were again alive to do it.”

In the latter years of the reign of Charles II. the violence of faction burst forth with renovated fury. The discontents of the Nonconformists were daily increasing; while Popery assumed fresh hopes of re-establishing itself by fomenting and encouraging the divisions that unhappily subsisted among Protestants. A tract, entitled The Naked Truth, or the True State of the Church, was published in 1675, in 4to., and attributed to Dr. Herbert Croft, bishop of Hereford. Eager to accomplish an union of the Dissenters with the Church of England, and to include them within its pale, this prelate hesitated not to suggest the expediency of proposing several concessions to them, with respect to the rites and ceremonies then in use, and even to comply with their unreasonable demand of abolishing Episcopacy. It may be easily presumed that these proposals met with no very favourable reception : they were animadverted upon with much spirit and ability, in various publications. In the mean time, animosities prevailed without any prospect of their termination. From fanaticism on one side, and from superstition on the other, real

4 Three celebrated tracts on this subject were published anonymously. I. Animadversions on a Pamphlet, entitled 'The Naked Truth.' 1676. 4to. This was written by Dr. Francis Turner, Master of St. John's College, Cambridge; and afterwards successively bishop of Rochester and Ely.

danger was apprehended. Those who exerted themselves in maintaining the legal rights and liberties of the established Church were denominated Whigs. Most of them were persons eminent for their learning, and very cordially attached to the established Constitution: others, who opposed the Dissenters, and were thought to be more in fear of a Republic than a Popish successor, were distinguished by the name of

Tories.' At this critical period, Walton expressed his solicitude for the real welfare of his country, not with a view to embarrass himself in disputation-for his nature was totally abhorrent of controversy-but to give an ingenuous and undissembled account of his own faith and practice, as a true son of the Church of England. His modesty precluded him from annexing his name to the treatise, which he composed at this time; and which appeared first, in 1680, under the title of "Love and Truth, in two modest

Lex Talionis, or the Author of The Naked Truth' stripped naked. 1676. 4to. This was attributed to Philip Fell, one of the Fellows of Eton College. A Modest Survey of the most Considerable Things, in a Discourse lately published, entitled 'Naked Truth.' In a Letter to a Friend. 1676. 4to. Bishop Burnet owned himself to be the author of this last tract.

5 Dr. Zouch ingeniously observes, that the author, in the choice of the title affixed to his tract, might possibly allude to Ephes, ch. iv. 15" Speaking the Truth in Love."-ED.

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