CHARLES COTTON. clxxi 



the taste with which he improved that place, caused him to be 

 complimented by his constant eulogist, Sir Aston Cokayne. 1 



Towards the end of July or early in August 1656, when Cotton 

 was in his twenty-seventh year, he married his cousin Isabella, 

 daughter of Sir Thomas Hutchinson, of Owthorpe, in Nottingham- 

 shire. 2 In contemplation of that alliance, his father and himself 

 vested the manors of Bentley, Borrowashe, and Beresford, together 

 with the rectory of Spoondon, and other lands, in trustees, to sell 

 so much of the same as would pay off a mortgage of ^1700, 

 granted in July 1655, by the younger Cotton; and to hold the 

 surplus in trust for him and his heirs. The manor of Beresford 

 was then settled upon his father for life, with remainder to his 

 children ; and a life interest in his other property was secured to 

 his intended wife, Isabella Hutchinson, in case she survived him. 3 



In December 1658, Cotton lost his father, who appears from 

 Lord Clarendon's account of him, to have lived to an advanced age, 

 and to have injured his property by lawsuits. This circumstance 

 ought not to be forgotten in forming a judgment of his son's char- 

 acter : nor is it less material to remember, that though he may 

 have inherited his father's talents, and been much indebted to his 

 assistance during his education, yet his parent's conduct, par- 

 ticularly in the latter part of his life, afforded him an example of 

 imprudence and irregularity, which he too closely followed. 



Upon the restoration of Charles the Second, Cotton first appeared 

 before the public as an author. He addressed a panegyric to the 

 King, consisting of fourteen pages in prose, but it contains nothing 

 which distinguishes it from the numerous other productions with 

 which Charles's return was greeted. 4 In the same year he became 

 (probably for the first time) a father, by the birth of his eldest son, 

 to whom he gave the name of Beresford. All which is known of 

 Cotton during the ensuing four years is, that in 1664 he published 

 a burlesque poem entitled " Scarronides, or the First Book of 

 Virgil Travestie," which will be again alluded to ; and that he 

 prepared for the press a translation of " The Moral Philosophy of 



1 "Your Basford house you have adorned much, 

 And Bently hopes it shortly shall be such ; 

 Think on't ; and set but Bently in repair, 

 To both those Basfords you will show y' are heir." 

 * Vide the accompanying pedigree. 



3 Sut. 27 Car. II. 1675. 



4 Several of these addresses are collected in one volume in the British Musrum ; and 

 the exact date of their respective appearance, with some corrections of the names of their 

 authors, have been added in a contemporary hand. Cotton's Panegyrick is dated 2;th 

 August 1660. 



