254 LIFE OF COTTON. 



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 pecu- 

 niary 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 cure, 



Wherein no one can thrive ; 

 A touchstone sure to try a friend; 



A grave for men alive. 



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 

 IA allotted to my share : 

 But, alas I I love her so, 

 That my love creates my woe ; 

 For if she be out of humour, 

 Straight, displeas'd I do presume her, 

 And would give the world to know 

 What it is offends her so ; 

 Or if she be discontented, 

 Lord ! how am I then tormented I 

 And am ready to persuade her 

 That I have unhappy made her ; 

 But if sick, then I am dying, 

 Meat and med'cine both defying. 



This lady, the, delight of his heart, and the partner of his sorrows, he 

 had the misfortune to lose ; bat at what period of his life, is not 

 certain. 



We might flatter ourselves, that his sun set brighter than it rose ; 

 for his second marriage, which was with the Countess Dowager of 

 Ardirlass, who possessed a jointure of fifteen hundred a-year, and sur- 

 vived him, might suggest a hope that he might have been, thereby, 

 enabled to extricate himself out of the greatest of his difficulties, and 

 in reality to enjoy that tranquillity of mind which he describes with so 

 much feeling, in the Stames Jrreguliers: but this supposition seems 

 to be contradicted by a fact, which the act of administration of his 

 effects, upon his decease, discloses, viz. that the same was granted 

 " to Elizabeth Bludworth, his principal creditrix ; the honourable 

 Mary Countess Dowager of Ardglass, his widow ; Beresford Cotton, 

 Esq., Olive Cotton, Catharine Cotton, Jane Cotton, and Mary Cotton, 

 his natural and lawful children, first renouncing." 



The above act bearing date the 12th day of September, 1687, fixes, 

 perhaps, within a few days, die day of his death ; and describes him 

 as having lived in the parish of St. James, Westminster : it also ascer- 

 tains his issue, which were all by his first lady. 



There is a tradition current in bis neighbourhood, that he had, by 

 sarcastic expression in his writings, so offended an aunt of his, 



