232 LIFE OF CHARLES COTTON 



was engaged in lawsuits, and had wasted his fortune :" dnd 

 it cannot be supposed but that his son inherited, in some 

 degree, the vexation and expense of uncertain litigation, 

 together with the paternal estate ; and might, finally, be 

 divested of great part of it : farther we may suppose, that 

 the easiness of his nature, and a disposition to oblige others, 

 amounting even to imbecility, laid him open to the arts of 

 designing men, and gave occasion to those complaints of 

 ingratitude and neglect which we meet with in his eclogues, 

 odes, and other of his writings. 



It is true, that he was never reduced by necessity to 

 alienate the family estate : nor were his distresses uniformly 

 extreme ; but they were at times severely pungent.* It is 

 said, that the numerous pecuniary engagements into which 

 he had entered, drew upon him the misfortune of personal 

 restraint ; and that, during his confinement in one of the 

 city prisons, he inscribed, on the wall of his apartment 

 therein, these affecting lines : 



A prison is a place of care, 



Wherein no one can thrive, 

 A touchstone sure to try a friend, 



A grave for men alive, f 



And to aggravate these his afflictions, he had a wife whom 

 he appears to have tenderly loved, and of whom, in an 

 ironical poem, entitled the Joys of Marriage, he speaks 

 thus handsomely : 



Yet with me, 'tis out of season, 

 To complain thus without reason, 

 Since the best and sweetest fair 

 Is allotted to my share : 

 But, alas ! I love her so, 

 That my love creates my woe ; 

 For if she be out of humour, 

 Straight, displeased I do presume her, 

 And would give the world to know 

 What it is offends her so ; 



* It is said that he used to secrete himself in a cave near Beresford Hall, 

 when pursued by the unrelenting hand of a bailift'at the suit of his credi- 

 tors, and that his food was carried to him by a faithful female dependant. 



f It is not very probable that Cotton was the author of these lines. They 

 were found inscribed on the wall of the Hall of the Old Tolbooth, or 

 common Prison of Edinburgh, with the following stanza additional: 



Sometimes a place of right, 



Sometimes a place of wrong, 

 Sometimes a place of jades and thieves, 



And honest men among. S. 



