SOME ACCOUNT 



OF 



THE LIFE AND WRITINGS 



CF 



CHARLES COTTON, ESQ. 



CHARLES COTTON, Esq. was descended from an honourable 

 family of the town and county of Southampton. His 

 grandfather was Sir George Cotton, knight ; and his grand- 

 mother, Cassandra, the heiress of a family named Mac- 

 Williams : the issue of their marriage were, a daughter 

 named Cassandra, who died unmarried, and a son named 

 Charles, who, settling at Ovingden in the county of Sussex, 

 married Olive, the daughter of Sir John Stanhope of Elvas- 

 ton, in the county of Derby, knight, half brother to Philip 

 the first Earl of Chesterfield, and ancestor of the present 

 Earl of Harrington, and by her had issue Charles, the author 

 of the ensuing dialogues. 



Of the elder Charles we learn, from unquestionable 

 authority, that he was, even when young, a person of dis- 

 tinguished parts and accomplishments ; for in the enume- 

 ration of those eminent persons whom Mr Hyde, afterward 

 the Lord Chancellor Clarendon, chose for his friends and 

 associates, while a student of the law, we find Mr Cotton 

 mentioned, together with Ben Jonson, Mr Selden, Mr John 

 Vaughan, afterward Lord Chief Justice, Sir Kenelm Digby, 

 Mr Thomas May, the translator of Lucan, and Thomas 

 Carew, the poet. The characters of these several persons 

 are exhibited, with the usual elegance aad accuracy of their 



