CHARLES COTTON. clxxvii 



that kind of composition, there are some facts connected with that 

 poem which must be stated. The chief objection which has been 

 urged against it is that it is disfigured by indecent and vulgar 

 expressions ; and though it is by no means intended to defend 

 them, still much allowance ought to be made for the taste of the 

 age in which Cotton lived, which produced Hudibras, and several 

 other works of a similar nature. But it is remarkable that the 

 early editions of " Virgil Travestie " are free from many of the 

 grosser allusions that occur in the later impressions ; and as 

 Cotton's motive for introducing them into the subsequent editions 

 is not known, it is doubtful whether the appetite of the public or 

 his own feelings had become more depraved, or whether they 

 were the suggestions of some of his companions. The deterior- 

 ation may however have arisen from the desire of his bookseller to 

 give greater piquancy to the later editions, for the sake of the sale ; 

 but as they were made in the author's lifetime, that circumstance 

 would not excuse him. 



It has been said that some lines in " Virgil Travestie " gave so 

 much offence to a female relation, whose name he had used in 

 allusion to her ruff, that she changed her intention of leaving him 

 her fortune, amounting to between four or five hundred pounds per 

 annum. This anecdote has however been doubted, because he 

 had neither an aunt nor grandmother whose name was Cokayne ; 2 

 and another 3 of his biographers even denies that such an offensive 

 passage can be found in any of his writings. The lines in question 

 are thus printed in all the early editions : 



" And then there is a fair great ruff, 

 Made of a pure and costly stuff, 

 To wear about her Highness neck, 

 Like Mrs Cockaynes in the Peak." 4 



The tradition on the subject is, that the lady alluded to was 

 Cotton's cousin, Miss Lucy Cokayne, youngest daughter of Thomas 

 Cokayne, of Ashbourn Hall, in Derbyshire, and sister of Sir Aston 

 Cokayne ; that she was deformed, and to conceal the defect wore a 

 remarkably large ruff ; and that when Cotton was remonstrated 

 with, and requested to substitute some other lines, he replied, " I 

 will not spoil my joke for any humpbacked b in Christendom." 5 



3 Biographia Britannica. 3 Sir John Hawkins. 



* Altered in the collected edition of Cotton's works in 1715, to " Like Miss Cockayne's 

 in the Peak," probably for the sake of the metre, which is, however, perfectly correct as 

 the line was originally written, if " Mrs," when printed at length, stood as it ought to do, 

 " Mistress," which was then the usual appellation of unmarried women. 



5 From the information of the late William Bateman, Esq. of Middleton, near Bake- 



m 



