CHARLES cotton: clxv 



Charles Cotton, the only child i of Mr Cotton by Olive Stan- 

 hope, was born at Beresford on the 28th of April 1630. No 

 particulars are preserved respecting the place of his education ; 

 but he is supposed to have become a member of the University of 

 Cambridge sometime about the year 1649, though that fact can 

 only be reconciled with his having been a pupil of Mr Ralph 

 Rawson, Fellow of Brazen Nose College, Oxford, by supposing that 

 Rawson removed to Cambridge on being ejected from his fellow- 

 ship by the Parliamentary visitors in 1648.2 His affection for his 

 tutor is strongly expressed in the translation of an ode of Johannes 

 Secundus ;^ and his cousin Sir Aston Cokayne likewise showed his 

 esteem for him in a similar manner ; but some verses by Cokayne 

 render it doubtful whether Rawson ever removed from Oxford to 

 Cambridge.* If, however, Cotton was educated at either of the 

 Universities, he did not take his degree, as his name is not 

 mentioned by Anthony Wood among the writers of Oxford ; nor 

 does it occur in the manuscript list of graduates of Cambridge in 

 the British Museum.^ That he possessed considerable classical 



She was too good to live, and young- to die. 

 Yet stay'd not to dispute with destiny. 

 But (soon as she receiv'd the summons given) 

 Sent her fair soul to wait on God in heaven. 

 Here, what was mortal of her turns to dust, 

 To rise a glorious body with the just. 

 Now thou mayst go ; but take along with thee 

 (To guide thy life and death) her memory. 



* In the parish register of St Dunstan's in the West the following entry occurs : 

 "1653, Sept. 6, Persia, daughter of Charles Cotton, was baptized ;" but as the younger 

 Cotton was then unmarried, and his father aged and a widower, it is not likely that 

 either of them was the person alluded to. 



^ Athen. Oxon. ed. Bliss, vol. iv. p. 635. 



** Poems on Several Occasions written by Charles Cotton, Esq., Svo, i68g. "An 

 Ode of Johannes Secundus translated. To my dear Tutor, Mr Ralph Rawson," p. 547. 

 Rawson acknowledged his kindness in some verses addressed "To my dear and honoured 

 patron, Mr Charles Cotton, Ode, occasioned by his translation of an ode of Johannes 

 Secundus directed to me, and inserted amongst his other Poems," a copy of which occurs 

 in a manuscript containing the greater part of Cotton's Poems, some, if not all, of which 

 are apparently in his own handwriting. 



* Cokayne's Poems, p. 207. "To Mr Ralph Rawson. lately Fellow of Brazen Nose 

 College." It commences : — 



" Though I of Cambridge was, and far above 

 Your mother Oxford did my Cambridge love ; 

 I those affections (for your sake) remove, 

 And (above Cambridge) now do Oxford love." 



and thus concludes : — 



"I far above 

 My Cambridge, and your Oxford shall it love." 



Had Rawson renioved to Cambridge, some allusion would probably have been made 

 to the circumstance in these verses, which were evidently written after he was ejected 

 from his fellowship at Oxford. 



6 Additional MSS. in the British Museum, No. 5885. Cole, however, mentions 

 Cotton among the writers who belonged to that University, in his manuscript collections 

 for an Athense CantabrigieusJs in the Additional MS. 5865, f. 47, in the British 

 Museum. 



