SOME ACCOUNT 



OF THK 



LIFE AND WRITINGS 



OF 



CHAELES COTTON, ESQ. 



COMPILED FROM THE MEMOIR OF 



SIR JOHN HAWKINS. 



CHAELES 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 William. The issue of their mar- 

 riage was a daughter, named Cassandra, who died unmarried; 

 and a son, named Charles, who settling at Ovingden, in the county 

 of Sussex, married Olive, the daughter of Sir John Stanhope, of 

 Elvaston, in the county of Derby, Knight, half brother to Philip, 

 the first Earl of Chesterfield, and ancestor of the present Earl of 

 Harrington, and by her had issue, 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 

 accomplishments ; 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 characters of these several 

 persons are exhibited, with the usual elegance and accuracy of 



