LIFE OF COTTON. 349 



c< rage and fearlessness of spirit, of which he gave too 

 6< often manifestation. Some unhappy suits in law, 

 cc and waste of his fortune in those suits, made some 

 ;c impression on his mind j which being improved by 

 cc domestic afflictions, and those indulgencies to him* 

 " self which naturally attend those afflictions ren- 

 a dered his age less reverenced than his youth had 

 '. been, and gave his best friends cause to have wished 

 " that he had not lived so long," 



The younger Mr. Cotton was born on the 28th day 

 of April, 1630. And having, as we must suppose, re- 

 ceived such a school education as qualified him for an 

 university, he was sent to Cambridge, where also his 

 father had studied : he had for his tutor Mr. Ralph 

 Rawson, once a fellow of Brazen-nose college, Oxford, 

 but who had been ejected from his fellowship by the 

 parliament visitors, in 1648. This person he has grate- 

 fully celebrated, in a Translation of an Ode of Johan- 

 nes Secundus. 



What was the course of his studies ; whether they 

 tended to qualifiy him for either of the learned profes- 

 sions,- or, to furnish him with those endowments of 

 general learning and polished manners, which are re- 

 quisite in the character of a gentleman ; we know not : 

 It is however certain, that in the university he improv- 

 ed his knowledge of the Greek and Roman classics, 

 and became a perfect master of the French and Italian 

 languages. 



But whatever were the views of his father in placing 

 him at Cambridge, we find not, that he betook him- 

 self, in earnest, to the pursuit of any lucrative profes- 

 sion ; it is true, that, in a poem of his writing, he 

 hints that he had a smattering of the Law, which lie 

 had gotten 



More by practice, than reading ; 



By sitting o' th' bench * while others were pleading. 



But it is rather 'probable ; that, returning from th? 



* Probably, in his more advanced years, at seuiens, at a justice of th* 

 peace in his county. 



u 4 



