236 LIFE OF CHARLES COTTON. 



To ages yet unborn, unblemish'd stand, 



Safe from the stroke of an inhuman hand. 



Here, reader ! here a poet's sad relics lie, 



To teach the careless world mortality ; 



Who while he mortal was, unrivall'd stood, 



The crown and glory of his ancient blood ; 



Fit for his prince's and his country's trust ; 



Pious to God, and to his neighbour just ; 



A loyal husband to his latest end, 



A gracious father and a faithful friend ; 



Beloved he lived, and died o'ercharged with years, 



Fuller of honour than of silver hairs. 



And, to sum up his virtues, this was he 



Who was what all we should, but cannot be. 



To this it may be added, that in sundry parts of his 

 writings, and even in his poems, the evidences of piety in 

 the author are discernible : among them is a paraphrase on 

 that noble and sublime hymn, the eighth Psalm. And in 

 the poem entitled Stanzes Irreguliers, are the following 

 lines : 



Dear Solitude ! the soul's best friend, 

 That man acquainted with himself dost make, 

 And all his Maker's wonders to intend ; 

 With thee I here converse at will, 

 And would be glad to do so still, 

 For it is thou alone that keep'st the soul awake. 



And lastly, in the following book, he, in the person of 

 Piscator, thus utters his own sentiment of a practice which 

 few that love fishing, and have a sense of decorum, not 

 to say of religion, would in these days of licence forbear ! 

 " A worm is so sure a bait at all times that, excepting in a 

 flood, I would I had laid a thousand pounds that 1 did not 

 kill fish, more or less, with it, winter or summer, every day 

 in the year ; those days always excepted that upon a more 

 serious account always ought so to be :"* whence it is but 

 just to infer, that the delight he took in fishing was never 

 a temptation with him to profane the Sabbath. 



The inconsistences above pointed out, we leave the 

 perusers of his various writings to reconcile ; with this 

 remark, that he must have possessed a mind well stored 

 with ideas, and habituated to reflections, who could write 

 such verses as immediately follow this account, and, in 

 many respects, have been an amiable man, whom Walton 

 could choose for his friend, and adopt for his son. J. H. 



* Note Chap. xi. 



