Walton, as also his son, had been frequent visitants to Mr Cotton, at Beresford; who, for the accommodation of the former, no less than of himself, had erected a fishing-house on the bank of the river, with a stone in the front thereof, containing a cypher that incorported the initials of both their names.

These circumstances, together with a formal adoption, by Walton, of Mr Cotton for his son, that will be explained in its place, were doubtless the inducements with the latter to the writing of a second part of the Complete Angler, and therein to explain more fully the art of fishing either with a natural or an artificial fly, as also the various methods o. making the latter. The book, as the author assures us, was written in the short space of ten days; and first came abroad, with the fifth edition of the first part, in the above year, 1676, and ever since the two parts have been considered as one book.

The second part of the Complete Angler is, apparently, an imitation of the first. It is a course of dialogues, between the author, shadowed under the name of Piscator, and a Traveller, the very person distinguished in the first part by the name of Venator, and whom Walton of a hunter had made an angler :* in which, besides the instructions there given, and the beautiful scenery of a wild and romantic country therein displayed, the urbanity, courtesy, and hospitality of a well bred country gentleman, are represented to great advantage.

This book might be thought to contain a delineation of the author's character; and dispose the reader to think that he was delighted with his situation, content with his fortunes, and, in short, one of the happiest of men but his next publication speaks a very different language; for living in a country that abounds, above all others in this kingdom, in rocks, caverns, and subterraneous passages (objects that, to some minds, afford more delight than stately woods and fertile plains, rich enclosures, and other the milder beauties of rural nature,) he seems to have been prompted by no other than a sullen curiosity to explore the secrets of that nether world; and surveying it rather with wonder than philosophical delight, to have given way to his disgust, in a description of the dreary and terrific scenes around and beneath him, in a poem (written, as it is said, in emulation

* Vide part ii. chap. i.

of Hobbes's De Mirabilibus Pecci,) entitled The Wonders of the Peak. This he first published in 1681; and afterward, with a new edition of the Virgil Travestie and the Burlesque of Lucian.

The only praise of this poem is the truth of the representations therein contained; for it is a mean composition, inharmonious in the versification, and abounding in expletives. Of the spirit in which it is written, a judgment may be formed from the following lines, part of the exordium :

Durst I expostulate with Providence,

I then should ask wherein the innocence
Of my poor undesigning infancy,

Could Heaven offend to such a black degree,
As for th' offence to damn me to a place
Where nature only suffers in disgrace

and these other, equally splenetic :

Environ'd round with nature's shames and ills,

Black heaths, wild rocks, black crags, and naked hills.

So far was Mr Cotton from thinking, with the Psalmist, "that his lot was fallen in a fair ground, or that he had a goodly heritage."

But a greater, and to the world a more beneficial employment, 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 was impatient 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 the general notions of men and things, which the author discovers, perhaps falling in 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 lifetime. Those that came abroad after his decease, were Poems on several Occasions, 8vo. 1689, a bookseller's publication, tumbled into the world without preface, apology, or even correction, that will be spoken of hereafter; and a translation from the French of the Memoirs of the Sieur de Pontis, published in 1694, by his son, Mr Beresford Cotton, and by him dedicated to the then Duke of Ormond, as having been undertaken, 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 composition. For, first, by the way, they are greatly mistaken, who think that the business of writing for booksellers is a new occupation; it is known, that Greene, Peacham, and Howel, for a great part of their lives subsisted almost wholly by it; though perhaps Mr Cotton is the first instance of a gentleman by descent, and the inheritor of a fair estate, being reduced by a sad necessity to write for subsistence. But, secondly, whether through misfortune, or 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 its maintenance in the part and character of a gentleman: why, else, those querulous exclamations against the clamour of creditors, the high rate of interest, and the extortion of usurers, that so frequently occur in his poems ? which several particulars, it seems a natural, and, at the same time, a melancholy inference, that he was-not to say an author—a translator, probably, for hire; but, certainly, by profession.

From

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 their natural or acquired endowments: but truth, and the laws of biographical history, oblige all that undertake that kind of writing, to relate as well the adverse, as the prosperous events in the lives of those whom they mean to celebrate; else, we would gladly omit to say, that Mr Cotton was, during the whole of his life, involved in difficulties. Lord Clarendon says of his father, that "He

was engaged in lawsuits, and had wasted his fortune:" and it cannot be supposed but that his 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 of his 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 care,
Wherein no one can thrive,

A touchstone sure to try a friend,

A grave for men alive.†

And to aggravate these 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, displeased I do presume her,
And would give the world to know
What it is offends her so;

* It is said that he used to secrete himself in a cave near Beresford Hall, when pursued by the unrelenting hand of a bailiff at the suit of his credi tors, and that his food was carried to him by a faithful female dependant.

It is not very probable that Cotton was the author of these lines. They were found inscribed on the wall of the Hall of the Old Tolbooth, or common Prison of Edinburgh, with the following stanza additional:

Sometimes a place of right,
Sometimes a place of wrong,
Sometimes a place of jades and thieves,
And honest men among.-S.

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 in 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 might have been thereby enabled to extricate himself out of the greatest of his difficulties; and, in reality, to enjoy that tranquillity of mind which he describes with so much feeling in the Stanzes Irreguliers: but this supposition seems to be contradicted by a fact, which the act of administration of his effects, upon his decease, discloses, namely, that the same was granted" to Elizabeth Bludworth, his principal creditrix; the Hon. 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, Westminster it also ascertains his issue, which were all by his first lady.

:

There is a tradition current in his neighbourhood, that he had, by some sarcastic expression in his writings, so offended an aunt of his, 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