Cotton, CHARLES

Cotton, CHARLES, the friend of Izaak Walton and translator of Montaigne, was born at his father's estate of Beresford in Staffordshire, 28th April 1630. His father, himself a man of great ability, was a warm friend of Ben Jonson, Selden, Donne, and other illustrious men. The boy travelled on the Continent, devoted himself from youth to a life of letters, and early wrote verses which were handed about among his friends. In 1656 he married his cousin Isabella, sister of the famous Colonel Hutchinson. Though a sincere loyalist, he seems to have lived securely enough under the Commonwealth, and the decay of his father's estate was due mainly to unprosperous lawsuits. In 1664 Cotton issued anonymously his burlesque poem, Scarronids, or the First Book of Virgil Travestic, added to in later editions in grossness as well as in bulk. Later books, somewhat of the same character, are his Voyage to Ireland in Burlesque (1670), and his Burlesque upon Burlesque, or the Scoffer Scoft, being some of Lucian's Dialogues (1675). His Planter's Manual (1675) testifies to his zeal and taste for horticulture. Next year he contributed a treatise on fly-fishing to the fifth edition of Walton's Complete Angler, and here he commends his old friend and master, its author, as 'the best and the truest friend ever man had.' Further marks of affection were his commendatory verses in the 1675 edition of Walton's Lives; his poem, The Contentation, as well as an earlier one of invitation to Walton to visit him; and the twisted cipher of his own and his master's names above the door of his fishing-house on the Dove. In 1685 Cotton published his translation of Montaigne's Essays—a masterpiece on which his fame still rests securely. He died in 1687. Cotton's verses are full of rare felicities of thought and phrase, and are more really poetical than much far more pretentious poetry. His prose is simple and clear, direct and vigorous. His character was eminently lovable; his only troubles, his debts; his only enemies, his duns.