CHARLES COTTON. 



SKETCH OF COTTON'S LIFE. 



CHAELES COTTON was a country gentleman by birth and education. 

 His father was of a high Hampshire family, his mother, daughter of 

 Sir J. Stanhope, of Elvaston, Derbyshire, of a still higher, for she was 

 nearly related by consanguinity to the Earls of Chesterfield and Harring- 

 ton. He was born in 1630, and was thirty-seven years younger than 

 Walton, who, as before stated, was born in 1593. At first he was edu- 

 cated by a private tutor, and then transferred to the University of 

 Cambridge. He gained no honours, or, at least he took no degrees there. 

 He seems to have cultivated the muses merely not the musee severiores 

 and returned to the paternal home an accomplished but not a profound 

 scholar. 



By virtue of his mother's title, his father became possessor of Beres- 

 ford Hall, delightfully situated between the romantic Dovedale and the 

 Peak, and close by the banks of the Dove then the best trout and 

 grayling stream in the empire. Here young Cotton, having no pro- 

 fession, resided under the family roof. Dwelling whilst young and aged 



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