342 LIFE OF COTTON. 



their author in the "Life of Edward, Earl of Clarendon,"" 

 written by himself, and lately published: that of Mr. Cotton 

 here follows : 



" Charles Cotton was a gentleman, born to a competent fortune, 

 and so qualified in his person and education, that for many years 

 he continued the greatest ornament of the town, in the esteem of 

 those who had been best bred. His natural parts were very great, 

 his wit flowing in all the parts of conversation : the superstructure 

 of learning not raised to a considerable height ; but having passed 

 some years in Cambridge, and then in France, and conversing 

 always with learned men, his expressions were ever proper and 

 significant, and gave great lustre to his discourse upon any argu- 

 ment ; so that he was thought by those who were not intimate 

 with him to have been much better acquainted with books than 

 he was. He had all those qualities, which in youth raise men to 

 the reputation of being fine gentlemen ; such a pleasantness and 

 gaiety of- humour, such a sweetness and gentleness of nature, and 

 such a civility and delightfulness in conversation, that no man, 

 in the court or out of it, appeared a more accomplished person ; all 

 these extraordinary qualifications being supported by as extra- 

 ordinary a clearness of courage and fearlessness of spirit, of which 

 he gave too often manifestation. Some unhappy suits in law, and 

 waste of his fortune in those suits, made some impression on his 

 mind ; which being improved by domestic afflictions, and those 

 indulgences to himself which naturally attend those afflictions 

 rendered his age less reverenced than his youth had been, and 

 gave his best friends cause to have wished that he had not lived so 

 long." 



Our author was born on the 28th day of April, 1630. And 

 having, as we must suppose, received such a school education 

 as qualified him for an university, he was sent to Cambridge, 

 where also his father had studied: he had for his tutor Mr. 

 Ralph Rawson, once a Fellow of Brazen-nose College, Oxford, 

 but who had been ejected from his fellowship by the Parliament 

 visitors, in 1648. This person he has gratefully celebrated in a 

 translation of an" Ode " of Johannes Secundus. 



What was the course of his studies ; whether they tended to qua- 

 lify him for either of the learned professions, or, to furnish him 

 with those endowments of general learning and polished manners, 

 which are requisite in the character of a gentleman, we know not: 

 it is however certain, that in the university he improved his 

 knowledge of the Greek and Roman classics, and became a perfect 

 master of the French and Italian languages. 



But whatever were the views of his father in placing him at 

 Cambridge, we find not that he betook himself in earnest to the 

 pursuit of any lucrative profession ; it is true, that, in a poem of 



