LIFE OF COTTON. 349 



Or if she be discontented, 

 Lord, how am I then tormented ! 

 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 : but 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 Ardglass, who possessed a jointure of fifteen hundred 

 a-year, and survived him might suggest a hope, that he would 

 thereby have been enabled to extricate himself from the great- 

 est of his difficulties, and in reality to enjoy that tranquillity 

 of mind which he describes with so much feeling in his " Irregular 

 Stanzas." 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, Catherine 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, the day of his death: and 

 describes him as having lived in the parish of St. James, West- 

 minster : it also ascertains his issue, which were all by his 

 first lady. 



There is a tradition that he had, by some sarcastic expression 

 in his writings, so offended an aunt, that she revoked a clause 

 in her will, whereby she had bequeathed to him an estate of five 

 hundred pounds a-year : but as two unlikely circumstances 

 must concur to render such a report credible, great imprudence 

 in himself, and want of charity in her ; and there is no ;such 

 offensive passage to be found in any of his writings ; we may 

 presume the tradition to be groundless. 



Of the future fortunes of his descendants little is known, save 

 that, to his son Beresford Cotton, was given a company in a 

 regiment of foot, raised, by the Earl of Derby, for the service of 

 King "William ; and that one of his daughters became the wife of 

 that eminent divine Dr. George Stanhope, dean of Canterbury, who 

 from his name being the same with that of Mr. Cotton's mother 

 is conjectured to have been distantly allied to the family. 



The above are the most remarkable particulars, that at this 

 time are recoverable, of the life of Mr. Cotton. His moral cha- 

 racter is to be collected, and indeed does naturally arise, out 



