CHARLES COTTON. clxxxix 



publication of it was prevented by the appearance of the 

 surreptitious collection, which occasioned much annoyance to his 

 son : 



" Mr Cotton began it " [the translation of the Memoirs of Pontis] 

 "some six months before his death, and at his leisure hours had made 

 so considerable a progress, that some of the first part was transcribed fair 

 for the press. The papers left in the hands of one of his children, lay 

 neglected for some years, till at last, a relation happening to read some 

 of them, undertook to see them corrected, and perfected for the world, 

 as you now have them. Had the author himself been living, they had 

 appeared long ago ; or had good fortune directed to the perusing them 

 sooner, there had been no place for an objection, of coming out five years 

 after the author's decease. I know what injuries men receive sometimes 

 from posthumous pieces, and were not this genuine, the most part now by 

 me, under his own hand, and such as I know to have been certainly 

 intended for the public, I durst not have made bold with his memory and 

 his name. I would not have done it with any man's, but especially not 

 with his, which has suffered too much already, by the indirect publication 

 of another piece. 



" The only thing I shall say (though not the only one that deserves to be 

 said) on this occasion is, that if the person who disposed of those Poems 

 to the booksellers, had consulted Mr Cotton's relations, as he ought to have 

 done, both his memory and the world had been much more obliged to him. 

 P"or by these ungenerous proceedings he hath obstructed the publishing of 

 a collection very different from that ; and well chosen by the author, with 

 a preface prepared by himself, and all copied out for the press. This 

 digression I thought due to the character of a person, whose other 

 performances have been so well received, who knew how to distinguish 

 between writing for his own diversion, and the entertainment of others ; 

 and had a better judgment than to thrust anything abroad unworthy himself 

 or his readers. I only beg pardon for being in one sense very unreason- 

 able ; for, in truth, the world ought to have been undeceived in this point 

 a great deal sooner, and by an advertisement very different from this." 



It is nevertheless from this volume that the most valuable and 

 interesting facts illustrative of Cotton's feelings and character 

 have been obtained ; and his graver poems must excite no less 

 respect for the elevated tone of morality and religion which 

 pervades them, than commiseration for his misfortunes. To his 

 pecuniary difficulties the allusions are frequent, sometimes in a 

 jocular strain, but much oftener in one of deep melancholy. Thus 



" Scribere jussit amor. 

 Ad amicutn scriptorem 



Ut tibi versiculos recito, tu Posthume, scribis ; 

 Carmina si mea sunt, sunt tua scripta tamen." 



Those lines are printed in the collection of Cotton's Poems in 1689, p. 338, but with the 

 variations of "Candidum" for " Amicum," and of "Candide" for "Pcsthime." 



