152 Life of Charles Cotton. 



by Sir Peter Lely of Cotton when a 

 young man of twenty-seven ; it bears the 

 date 1657. Mrs. Evelyn Holden, of 

 Nuttall Temple, Nottingham, most kindly 

 gave me permission to have it photo- 

 graphed. 



In 1658 Cotton's friend Lovelace, the 

 poet, died "in a mean lodging in Gun- 

 powder Alley, near Shoe Lane," and it is 

 pleasant to read Aubrey's statement 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." 



It is clear from his writings that Cotton, 

 like Walton, was a staunch Royalist. 

 Oldys says that, besides devoting himself 

 to literature, he employed himself also in 

 the delightful amusements of planting, 

 gardening, and, above all, the sober recrea- 

 tion of angling, in which he became 

 "by long practice and experience most 

 eminently expert." It is to the fact that 

 he loved angling and was acquainted with 

 Izaak Walton that he owes most of his 

 posthumous fame. One finds here and 

 there humour, power, and a graceful fancy 

 in his poems ; but these qualities were 

 possessed at least equally by many of his 

 contemporaries, whose very names are 



