CHARLES COTTON. clxxxi 



from the world so little thanks for his labour, should, one would have thought, 

 have taken some reasonable warning, and in some moderate time have given 

 over scribbling ; but notwithstanding these discouragements, I have 

 hitherto, and do yet continue incorrigible, as whoever will take the pains 

 to read them, will see by the following Commentaries ; and seeing I 

 acknowledge this to be a fault, and that every fault requires some excuse, 

 I think fit to give the reader some account why I still persist so obsti- 

 nately to pester the world with my writings. It is not then out of any ill- 

 natured desire I have to be troublesome, or any great ambition I have to 

 be laughed at ; but being by a perpetual confinement to the solitude of my 

 own house, put eternally upon reading, that reading, when I meet with 

 anything that pleases my own fancy, inspires me with a desire to com- 

 municate such things as I conceive are worth knowing, and are out of the 

 common road of ordinary readers, to their observation, and to dedicate 

 those hours which I myself have spent with some delight in such translations, 

 to their vacancy and diversion." 



Cotton prefixed some verses to the volume " On the brave 

 Marshal de Montluc, and his Commentaries writ by his own 

 hand ; " and Flatman and Newcourt wrote several lines " On the 

 worthy Translator," but none of these pieces merit further notice. 

 A work was published in the same year, called " The Complete 

 Gamester," 8 which has been confidently attributed to Cotton ;' J but 

 there is nothing to prove that it was written by him. He likewise 

 published a small volume in 1674, entitled "The Fair One of 

 Tunis ; or, The Generous Mistress : a new piece of gallantry out of 

 French," 1 which has been considered a mere translation ; but it 

 would appear from the curious " Advertisement to the Reader," 

 that it was almost, if not entirely, an original work : 



8 Or "Instructions how to play at Billiards, Trucks, Bowls, and Chess ; together with 

 all manner of usual and most gentele Games, either on Cards or Dice, to which is 

 added, the Art and Mysteries of Riding, Racing, Archery and Cock-fighting." London, 

 printed by A. M. for R. Cullen, and to be sold by Henry Brome, at the Gun, at the 

 west end of St Pauls, 8vo, 1674. 



9 In the preface to "The Compleat Gamester, written for the use of the young 

 Princesses, by Richard Seymour, Esq.," the fifth edition of which was printed in 1714, 

 it is said that "the second and third parts of this treatise were originally written by 

 Charles Cotton, Esq., some years since." 



1 " The Fair One of Tunis ; or, The Generous Mistres : a new piece of gallantry. 

 Out of French. 



Tibul. Eleg. 2, 1. i. 



' Fortes adjuvat ipsa Venus, 

 Quisquis amore tenetur, eat tutusq : sacerq : 

 Qualibet, insidias non timuisse decet.' 



London : Printed for Henry Brome, at the Gun in St Paul's Churchyard, 1674." 8vo, 

 pp. 312. 



It has a frontispiece, representing a knight in armour on horseback receiving a spear 



entwined with laurel from Mars, and a chaplet from Venus. Above, on a scroll, is written 



'The Fayre One of Tvnis; or the Generovs Mistres." In the catalogue of Brome's 



publications, at the end of " The Planter's Manual," in 1675, it is thus advertised : " The 



Fair One of Tunis, a new piece of gallantry, by C. Cot. Esq. in oct. as. (xl" 



