230 LIFE OF CHARLES COTTON. 



of Hobbes's De Mirabilibus Peed,) entitled The Wonders 

 of the Peak. This he first published in 1681 ; and after- 

 ward, with a new edition of the Virgil Travestie and the 

 Burlesque of Lucian. 



The only praise of this poem is the truth of the represen- 

 tations therein contained ; for it is a mean composition, 

 inharmonious in the versification, and abounding in exple- 

 tives. Of the spirit in which it is written, a judgment may 

 be formed from the following lines, part of the exordium : 



Durst I expostulate with Providence, 



I then should ask wherein the innocence 



Of my poor undesigning infancy, 



Could Heaven offend to such a black degree, 



As for th' offence to damn me to a place 



Where nature only suffers in disgrace ? 



and these other, equally splenetic : 



Environ'd round with nature's shames and ills, 



Black heaths, wild rocks, black crags, and naked hills. 



So far was Mr Cotton from thinking, with the Psalmist, 

 " that his lot was fallen in a fair ground, or that he had a 

 goodly heritage." 



But a greater, and to the world a more beneficial employ- 

 ment, at this time solicited his attention. The old translation 

 of Montaigne's Essays, by the " resolute" John Florio, as 

 he styled himself, was become obsolete, and the world was 

 impatient for a new one. Mr Cotton not only understood 

 French with a critical exactness, but was well acquainted 

 with the almost barbarous dialect in which that book is 

 written: and the freedom of opinion, .and the general 

 notions of men and things, which the author discovers, 

 perhaps falling in with Mr Cotton's sentiments of human 

 life and manners, he undertook, and, in 1685, gave to the 

 world, in a translation of that author, in three volumes, 8vo. 

 one of the most valuable books in the English language ; in 

 short, a translation that, if it does not (and many think it 

 does in some respects) transcend, is yet nothing inferior to 

 the original. And, indeed, little less than this is to be 

 inferred from the testimony of the noble marquis to whom 

 it is dedicated, who concludes a letter of his to Mr Cotton 

 with this elegant encomium : " Pray believe, that he who 

 can translate such an author, without doing him wrong-, 

 must not only make me glad, but proud of being his very 

 humble servant, HALIFAX." 



