LIFE OF COTTON. 353 



in humorous description, as will appear by the follow- 

 ing extract therefrom : 



A guide I had got; who demanded great vails, 

 For conducting me over the mountains of Wales, 

 Twenty good shillings, which sure very large is : 

 Yet that would not serve, but I must bear his charges : 

 And yet, for all that, rode astride on a beast 

 The worst that e'er went on three legs, I protest; 

 It certainly was the most ugly of jades, 

 His hips and his rump made a right ace of spades ; 

 His sides were two ladders, well spur-gall'd withal. 

 His neck was a helve, and his head was a mall: 

 For his colour, my pains, and your trouble, I'll spare ; 

 For the creature was wholly denuded of hair, 

 And, except for two things, as bare as my nail, 

 A tuft of a mane and a sprig of a tail. 

 Now, such as the beast was ; even such was the rider, 

 With a head like a nutmeg, and legs like a spider: 

 A voice like a cricket, a look like a rat; 

 The brains of a goose, and the heart of a cat. 

 Even such was my guide, and his beast: let them pats, 

 The one for an horse, and the other an ass. 



In this poem, he relates, with singular pleasantry, 

 that, at Chester, coming out of church, he was taken 

 notice of by the Mayor of the City, for his rich garb, 

 and particularly a gold belt that he then wore ; and, 

 by him invited home to supper, and very hospitably 

 entertained. 



Jn the same year and also the year after, more cor- 

 rectly he published a translation of the tragedy, enti- 

 tled, Les Horaces, i. e. the Horatii, from the French 

 of Pierre Corneille ; and in 1674, the Fair one of Tunis, 

 a novel, translated also from the French, as also a 

 translation of the Commentaries of Blaise de Montluc, 

 marshal of France, a thrasonical gascon (as lord Her- 

 bert has shewn, in his History of Hen. VIII.) far bet- 

 ter skilled in the arts of flight than of battle. 



In 1675, Mr. Cotton published two little books; 

 The Planter's Manual^ being instructions for cultivat- 



