LIFE or COTTON. 347 



sophical delight, to have given way to his disgust, in a description 

 of the dreary and terrific scenes round and beneath him, in a 

 poem (written, as it is said, in emulation of Hobbes's " De 

 mirabilibus Pecci ") entitled " The Wonders of the Peak." This 

 he first published in 1681 ; and afterwards, with a new edition of 

 the " Yirgil Travestie" and the " Burlesque of Lucian." 



But a greater, and, to the world a more beneficial employ- 

 ment, at this time solicited his attention. The old translation of 

 "Montaigne's Essays," by the " resolute" John Florio, as he 

 styled himself, was become obsolete ; and the world were im- 

 patient for a new one. Mr. Cotton not only understood French 

 with a critical exactness, but was well acquainted with the almost 

 barbarous dialect in which that book is written : and the freedom 

 of opinion, and general notions, of men and things which the 

 author discovers, falling in perhaps with Mr. Cotton's sentiments 

 of human life and manners, he undertook, and in 1685 gave to 

 the world, in a translation of that author in three volumes 8vo, 

 one of the most valuable books in the English language ; in short, 

 a translation that, if it does not (and many think it does, in some 

 respects, transcend,) is yet nothing inferior to, the original. 

 And, indeed, little less than this is to be inferred, from the 

 testimony of the noble marquis to whom it is dedicated: who 

 concludes a letter of his to Mr. Cotton, with this elegant 

 encomium: "Pray believe, that he who can translate such an 

 author, without doing him wrong, must not only make me glad, 

 but proud of being his very humble servant, HALIFAX." 



These are the whole of Mr. Cotton's writings published in his 

 life-time. Those that came abroad after his decease, were : 

 " Poems on several Occasions," 8vo, 1689, a bookseller's publica- 

 tion, tumbled into the world without preface ; and a translation, 

 from the French of the "Memoirs of the Sieur de Pontis," pub- 

 lished in 1694, by his son, Mr. Beresford Cotton, and by him 

 dedicated to the then Duke of Ormond, as having been under- 

 taken, and completed, at the request of the old duke, his grace's 

 grandfather. 



It is too much to be feared, that the difficulties he laboured 

 under, and in short the straitness of his circumstances, were the 

 reasons that induced Mr. Cotton to employ himself in writing ; 

 and, in that, so much more in translation than original com- 

 position. Whether through misfortune, or the want of economy, 

 or both, it may be collected from numberless passages in his 

 writings, that Mr. Cotton's circumstances were narrow; his 

 estates encumbered with mortgages ; and his income less than 

 sufficient for his maintenance in the port and character of a 

 gentleman. Why, else, those querulous exclamations against the 

 clamours of creditors, the high rate of interest, and the extortions 



