LIFE OF CHARLES COTTON. 367 



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 '11 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 pass, 



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. 



In the same year, and also the year after more correctly, 

 he published a translation of the tragedy entited " Les 

 Horaces, i.e., the Horatii, from the French of Pierre Cor- 

 neille;" 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 Herbert has shown in his 

 "History of Henry VIII.," far better skilled in the arts of 

 flight than of battle. 



In 1675, Mr. Cotton published two little books, "The 

 Planter's Manual, being Instructions for Cultivating all sorts 

 of Fruit-trees," Svo. ; and a burlesque of sundry select Dia- 



