CHARLES COTTON. clxxxv 



self of his title to his property for the payment of his debts, which 

 together with ^2000 to be raised for his daughters' portions, 

 amounted to about ;£8ooo. It was therefore enacted that all his 

 lands should be vested in trustees, who should allow him to retain 

 Beresford Hall, and to receive the sum of £\o per annum, during 

 his own life and the life of the Right Honourable Dame Mary 

 Countess-Dowager of Ardglass, and after her decease the sum of 

 £(>o yearly, above the said annuity of £/^o, so long as he might 

 live ; that as much land should be sold as would pay his debts, 

 and raise ^2000 for his daughters' portions ; and that the rest of 

 his estates should be conveyed to his only son, Beresford Cotton, 

 and the heirs of his body, with remainder to the heirs of his 

 father/ 



The next occasion on which a notice of Cotton has been found 

 was in February 1676, when Walton requested him to fulfil his 

 promise of writing a Treatise on Fly-Fishing for a second part of 

 the " Complete Angler." As some remarks on that production will 

 be found in the Memoir of Walton, it is not necessary to make 

 many observations upon it here. It was written in ten days ; and 

 in imitation of the plan of the " Complete Angler," the instructions 

 are conveyed in a dialogue between Cotton, who is the Piscator 

 of the piece, and a Traveller. The latter individual is supposed 

 to be overtaken by Cotton near Brailsford, a small village about 

 five miles from Ashbourn, on the road from Derby. He informs 

 Cotton that he came from Essex, and was going into Lancashire 

 on some business for a near relation ; and the conversation hap- 

 pening to turn on fish and fishing, they discover that they were 

 both friends of Izaak Walton, and that the traveller is the person 

 who is described in the " Complete Angler " under the name of 

 Venator. This leads to an immediate intimacy between them, 

 and Cotton insists upon his accompanying him to Beresford, where 

 he promises to give him practical lessons in catching trout. On 

 arriving at his house he heartily welcomes him ; and after supper 

 some ale and pipes are ordered by the host, who assures his guest 

 that his tobacco is the best he could procure in London, which is 

 deserving of notice, as proof that Cotton's denouncement of that 

 " pernicious and stinking weed," in one of his poems,^ could 

 scarcely have been sincere, unless his taste had changed after it 

 was written. They proceeded next morning to their sport, which 

 is continued for two days, during which time Cotton instructs him 



' Priv.ite Act, 27 Car 11, No. 4. 8 Cotton's Poems, p. 514. 



