LIFE OP COTTON. 351 



ercise his judgment and learning, even to the time of 

 his entering into the slate of matrimony*; the first 

 fruit of which exercises was, as it seems, his Elegy on 

 the g a ll an t Lord Derby t. 



In 1656, being then twenty-six years of age; and 

 before any patrimony had descended to him, or he had 

 any visible means of subsisting a family; he married a 

 distant relation, Isabella, daughter of Sir Thomas Hut- 

 chinson, ofOwthorp, in the county of Nottingham, 

 Kni. J The distress in which this step might have in- 

 volved him, was averted by the death of his father, in 

 1658, an event that put him into the possession of the 

 family estate : but, from the character of his father, as 

 given by lord Clarendon, it cannot be supposed but 

 that it was struggling with law-suits, and laden with 

 incumbrances. 



The great Lord Falkland was wont to say, that he 

 pitied unlearned gentlemen in rainy weather : Mr. Cot- 

 ton might possibly entertain the same sentiment; for, in 

 this situation, we find that his employments were 

 STUDY, for his delight and improvement, and FISHING, 

 for his recreation and health ; for each of which several 

 employments, we may suppose he chose the fittest times 

 antl seasons. 



In 1663, he published the Moral Philosophy of the 

 Stoics; translated from the French of Monsieur de 

 Vaix, president of the parliament of Provence in obe- 

 dience, as the Preface informs us, to a command of 

 his father, doubtless with a view to his improvement 

 in the science of morality ; and, this, notwithstanding 

 the book had been translated by Dr. James, the first 

 keeper of the Bodleian library, above threescore years 

 before. 



His next publication was Scarronides, or Virgil tra- 

 Tjestie, being the first book of Virgil's JEneis, in Eng- 

 lish burlesque, 8vo. 1664. Concerning which, and 

 also the fourth book, translated by him, and afterwards 

 published ; it may be sufficient to say, that, for degrad- 



* Oldys's Lift, xii. + Ibid. t IM- *&- 



