Introduction 



that the same description will almost literally serve for both though, 

 of the two, the father seems to have been the more brilliant man. 

 That description, stately yet almost tender, is supplied by Lord 

 Clarendon in the following passage, quoted from his autobiography : 

 Charles Cotton was a gentleman born to a competent fortune, and so 

 qualified in his person and education, that for many years he continued 

 the greatest ornament of the town, in the esteem of those who had been 

 best bred. His natural parts were very great, his wit flowing in all the 

 parts of conversation ; the superstructure of learning not raised to a 

 considerable height : but having passed some years in Cambridge, and 

 then in France, and conversing always with learned men, his expressions 

 were ever proper and significant, and gave great lustre to his discourse 

 upon any argument ; so that he was thought by those who were not 

 intimate with him, to have been much better acquainted with books 

 than he was. He had all those qualities which in youth raise men to 

 the reputation of being fine gentlemen ; such a pleasantness and gaiety 

 of humour, such a sweetness and gentleness of nature, and such a civility 

 and delightfulness in conversation, that no man, in court or out of it, 

 appeared a more accomplished person : all these extraordinary quali- 

 fications being supported by as extraordinary a clearness of courage and 

 fearlessness of spirit, of which he gave too often manifestation. Some 

 unhappy suits in law, and waste of his fortune in those suits, made some 

 impression on his mind which, being impaired by domestic afflictions, 

 and those indulgences to himself which naturally attend those afflictions, 

 rendered 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 fortunate son of this delightful father, and by him and his 

 mother, Olive Stanhope, sprung from some of the noblest Derby- 

 shire and Staffordshire families, Charles Cotton was born at Beres- 

 ford, April 28, 1630. Particulars of his youth are almost as vague 

 as particulars of the youth of Walton ; but in his case, on account 

 of his birth, they are more safely conjecturable. That he was sent 

 to Cambridge is likely, though not definitely known ; it being sur- 

 mised, however, from his affection for his tutor, Ralph Rawson, as 

 expressed in a dedication to a translation of an ode by Joannes 

 Secundus, included in his Poems on Several Occasions (1689). It 

 seems certain, however, that he took no degree; but, like many 

 who have done the same, his acquaintance with and love for 

 literature at an early age seems to have been none the less. His 



Ixxiv 



