?3aafe Tfflialton anfc Gbarlcs Cotton 53 



Obstrep'rous creditors besiege my door, 

 And my whole house clamorous echoes fill ; 

 From these there can be no retirement free, 

 From room to room, they hunt, and follow me ; 

 They will not let me eat, nor sleep, nor pray, 



But persecute me night and day ; 



Torment my body, and my mind, 



Nay, if I take my heels and fly, 



They follow me with open cry, 

 At home no rest, abroad no refuge can I find. 



And yet, if tradition speak true, he might have been in 

 affluent circumstances had he not deliberately thrown 

 away a fortune. It is said that a near relative of his, a 

 Miss Cokayne, had made him the heir of her large 

 property, but he deeply offended her by the following 

 lines in his " Scarronides " : 



And then there is a fair great ruff 

 Made of a pure and costly stuff 

 To wear about her Highness' neck 

 Like Mistress Cokayne's in the Peak. 



Miss Cokayne wore a ruff of unusual dimensions to 

 conceal the deformity of her neck and shoulders, and 

 the reference to her was, to say the least of it, in the 

 grossest bad taste. But when Cotton was remonstrated 

 with and asked to strike out the allusion to the lady in 

 his next edition, he coarsely refused. " I will not," he 

 said, " spoil my joke for any hump-backed bitch in 

 Christendom." And so Miss Cokayne, not unnaturally 

 indignant at the insult, altered her will, and Charles lost 

 a fortune. 



It is also said, however, that the deformed Miss Cokayne 

 died before the publication of the " Scarronides," and 



