348 LIFE OF COTTON. 



of usurers, that so frequently occur in his poems ? From which 

 several particulars, it seems a natural, and at the same time a 

 melancholy inference, that he was an author and translator for 

 hire. 



It is of all employments, one of the most painful, to enumerate 

 the misfortunes and sufferings of worthy and deserving men ; and, 

 most so, of such as have been distinguished for either natural or 

 acquired endowments : but truth, and the laws of biography, 

 oblige us to relate as well adverse as prosperous events ; else, we 

 would gladly omit that Mr. Cotton was during the whole of his 

 life involved in difficulties. Lord Clarendon says, of Cotton's 

 father, that " he was engaged in law-suits, and had wasted his 

 fortune ; " and it cannot be supposed but that the son inherited, 

 in some degree, the vexation and expense of uncertain litigation, 

 together with the paternal estate ; and might, finally, be divested 

 of great part of it : farther we may suppose, that the easiness of 

 his nature, and a disposition to oblige others amounting even to 

 imbecility, laid him open to the arts of designing men, and gave 

 occasion to those complaints of ingratitude and neglect which we 

 meet with in his eclogues, odes, and other writings. 



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 pecuniary 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 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 

 Is allotted to my share : 

 But alas ! 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 h'er so ; 



