clxxii LIFE OF 



the Stoics," from the French of Du Vaix, but which was not 

 published until i667. 5 In the dedication of that volume to his 

 friend and kinsman John Ferrers, Esq., dated on the 27th of Feb- 

 ruary 1663-4, he says he had translated it some years before by 

 his father's command, who was a great admirer of the author, 

 "so," he tells Ferrers, "that which you see was an effect of my 

 obedience, and no part of my choice, my little studies, especially 

 at that time, lying another way, neither had I now published it, 

 but that I was unwilling to have a thing, how mean soever, turned 

 to waste paper that cost me some hours' pains, and which, how- 

 ever I may have disguised it, is no ill thing in itself." 



Cotton having found his income inadequate to his expenses, he 

 was obliged to apply to Parliament for power to sell part of his 

 estates for the payment of his debts ; and an Act was accordingly 

 passed in the i6th Charles II., 1665, for that purpose. 6 He was 

 at that time employed in translating Corneille's Tragedy of Horace, 

 for the amusement of his wife's sister, Miss Stanhope Hutchinson. 

 It was published in 1671, with a dedication to that lady, dated at 

 Beresford, 7th November 1665, in which he says it was never to 

 be made public ; and in the printed address to the reader, written 

 at the same place in October 1670, he refers to the dedication as 

 proof that it was not intended for publication, but had been written 

 for the " private amusement of a fair young lady.' ; He adverted 

 to Mrs Katherine Philips' translation of the same play in very 

 respectful terms ; and says that the songs and choruses to the Acts 

 were "all wholly his own." 



Between the years 1665 and 1670, the only thing which is 

 positively known of Cotton is, that about 1667 he wrote some 

 verses on the Poems of his friend Alexander Brome, who died in 

 June 1666, which were prefixed to a collection of his works pub- 

 lished in 1668. In those verses he thus justly noticed the neglect 

 which attends a Poet, in comparison with the fame that awaits a 

 Hero and a Statesman : 



" To advance their names no cost is spar'd ; 

 Medals are cast, and obelisks are rear'd ; 

 The marble quarry is torn up, the mine 

 Is search'd, and robb'd to make their triumphs shine; 

 But the neglected Poet when he dies, 

 Or with obscure, or with no obsequies 



5 The Imprimatur is dated i3th April 1664. 



6 In consequence of the fire in the House of Lords, which has caused great confusion 

 among the Parliamentary Records, the Act cannot at this moment be found. 



