LIFE OF CHARLES COTTON. 227 



by him, and afterward published, it may be sufficient to say, 

 that, for degrading sublime poetry into doggrel, Scarrou's 

 example is no authority ; and that were the merit of this 

 practice greater than many men think it, those who admire 

 the wit, the humour, and the learning of Hudibras, cannot 

 but be disgusted at the low buffoonery, the forced wit, and 

 the coarseness and obscenity of the Virgil Travestie ; and 

 yet the poem has its admirers, is commended by Sir John 

 Suckling, in his Session of the Poets, and has passed fourteen 

 editions. 



To say the truth, the absurdity of that species of the 

 mock epic, which gives to princes the manners of the 

 lowest of their inferiors, has never been sufficiently noticed. 

 In the instance before us, how is the poet embarrassed, 

 when he describes Dido as exercising regal authority, and 

 at the same time employed in the meanest of domestic 

 offices ; and ^Eneas, a person of royal descent, as a clown, 

 a commander, and a common sailor ! In the other kind of 

 burlesque, namely, where the characters are elevated, no 

 such difficulty interposes; grant but to Don Quixote and 

 Sancho, to Hudibras and Ralpho, the stations which Cer- 

 vantes and Butler have respectively assigned them, and all 

 their actions are consistent with their several characters. 



Soon after, he engaged in a more commendable employ- 

 ment, a translation of the History of the Life of the Duke 

 dEspernon, from 1598, where D'Avila's history ends, to 

 1642, in twelve books, in which undertaking he was inter- 

 rupted by an appointment to some place or post, which he 

 hints at in the preface, but did not hold long ; as also by 

 a sickness that delayed the publication until 1670, when the 

 book came out in a folio volume, with a handsome dedica- 

 tion to Dr Gilbert Sheldon, archbishop of Canterbury. 



In the same year, being the fortieth of his age, and having 

 been honoured with a captain's commission in the army, 

 he w r as drawn, by some occasion of business or interest, to 

 visit Ireland, which event he has recorded, with some 

 particular circumstances touching the course of his life, in a 

 burlesque poem called A Voyage to Ireland, carelessly 

 written, but abounding in humorous description, as will 

 appear by the following extract therefrom : 



A guide I had got, who demanded great rails 

 For conducting me over the mountains of Wales ; 

 Twenty good shillings, which sure very large is : 

 Yet that would not serve, Lut 1 must bear his charges; 



