SOME ACCOUNT 



LIFE* AND WRITINGS 



OP 



CHARLES COTTON, Esq. 



V^HARLES COTTON, Esq. was descended from an honourable 

 family, of the town and county of Southampton. His grandfather 

 was Sir George Cotton, Knight; and his grandmother, Cassandra, the 

 heiress of a family named Mac Wifliamt: the issue of their marriage 

 were, a daughter named Cassandra, who died unmarried ; and a son, 

 named Chanes, who, settling at Ovingden, in the county of Sussex, 

 married Olive t the daughter of Sir John Stanhope, of Elvaston, in the 

 county of Derby, Knight, half-brother to Ph.Hp the first Earl of Ches- 

 terfield, and ancestor of the present Earl of Harrington, and by her 

 ic 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 distinguished parts and accom- 

 plishments; for in the enumeration of those eminent persons whom 

 Mr. Hyde, afterwards 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, 

 afterwards lord-chief-justice, Sir Kenelm Digby, Mr. Thomas May, 

 the translator of Lucan, and Thomas Carew the poet. The charac- 

 ters of these several persons are exhibited, with the usual elegance 

 and accuracy of their author, in the Life of Edward Earl of Claren- 

 don, written by himself, and lately published. That of Mr. Cotton 

 here follows. 



" CHARLES COTTON was a gentleman born to a competent fortune; 



(1) It has been thought proper to omit the Letter to the Editor in the 

 earlier of the former impressions, and to give the Life of Mr. Cotton in ano- 

 ther form, retaining, nevertheless, such facts as are best ascertained, and 

 seem in any degree worthy of credit. 



(4) The above is the account of Mr. Cotton's descent, as given by Mr. 

 Oldys in the former editions: but it agrees not, in what respects his being 

 descended, by the mother's side, from the family of Mac Williams, with 

 Collins';} account of Sir John Stanhope, in his Peerage, under the article 

 STANHOPE, Karl of Chesterfield. 



