clxxx LIFE OF 



by what accident) are very many, and some of them very considerable ; 

 yet I dare pronounce it one of the best things I have seen in that language, 

 I do not mean for the excellency, or harmony of the style which in the 

 original itself, though the words there be very significant, elegant, and 

 admirably well chosen, is notwithstanding none of the smoothest I have 

 read : but for the importance of the subject, wherein you will find much 

 of the policy of that time, not only of France itself, but moreover of the 

 courts of England. Rome, Spain, Savoy, Germany, Sweden, and the States 

 of the United Provinces, together with a narrative of all the most cele- 

 brated battles, skirmishes, rencounters, combats, sieges, assaults and 

 stratagems, for above threescore years, together with the descriptions of 

 the strengths, situations, and distances of cities, towns, castles, citadels, 

 forts, rivers, countries, seignories, jurisdictions and provinces, and all this 

 collected and delivered by a judicious and impartial hand, an extraordinary 

 effect of a French pen, that nation (especially in records that immediately 

 concern their own honor) having been commonly observed to be very 

 civil to themselves ; so that methinks the dignity of the subject, and the 

 ingenuity of the author considered, a work how unhappily soever performed 

 by me, undertaken nevertheless merely for the common benefit and delight, 

 ought not to be discountenanced, nor very ill received. Yet do I not 

 (though in the foregoing paragraph I have discovered something of the 

 charlatan in the behalf of my bookseller) hereby intend to beg any favour 

 for myself, or by these large promises to bribe my reader into milder 

 censures, neither do I think it fit to provoke him by a defiance ; for that 

 were to be an ill man as well as an ill writer. I therefore frankly, and 

 without condition expose myself to every man's judgment, of which such 

 as appear civil to me are my friends, and I shall owe them the same 

 respect when it shall be my turn to judge, as it is now to be censured. 

 Those who will not be so, I shall threaten no further, than to put them in 

 mind, that if ever they attempt anything of the same nature, they will then 

 lie under the same disadvantage I now do, and consequently may meet 

 with the same injustice." 



Between 1670 and 1674, Cotton translated " The Commentaries 

 of De Montluc, Marshal of France ; " which was published in 

 1674. He dedicated that volume to his distant relation 7 the Earl 

 of Chesterfield, to whom he expressed much gratitude for u many 

 and great obligations ; " and he said, " I confess I have a desire 

 both to be more universally known your servant, and that the 

 world at the same time should take notice, that though you may 

 in my person have placed your favours upon an unworthy, yet 

 they have nevertheless been conferred upon a grateful man ." 



In his preface he again mentions the little success which had 

 attended his literary efforts, and explains the reason of his con- 

 tinuing nevertheless to write : 



" A man that has had no better luck in printing books than I, and received 



7 See the accompanying pedigree. 



