COTTON, CHARLES, was born in 1630, at Berosford Hall in Staffordshire, the eeat of his father, which was afterwards his own property and the chief place of his residence. He was educated at Cambridge, and travelled on the Continent, after which he married and lived principally in the country. He died at Westminster in 1637. Ilis name is best secured sgalnet forgetfulness by his friend ship for Izaak Walton, and his cooperation in the later editions of the ' Complete Angler.' [Watsoar, IXAAIL1 But he was an active translator from the French, of Montaigne's ' Essays,' of historical and other prose works, and of Corneille'. tragedy Horace;' and he pub lished also various productions in verse, both serious and comic. His moat ambitious poem of the former class is 'The Wonders of the Peak ;' but none of his serious poems have kept their ground even in the favour of studious critics, while by all other readers they are completely neglected. Ile is perhaps more generally known as the author of 'Scarronides, or Virgil Travestie,' a burlesque imitation of three books of the N.neid—coarse in taste, and weak in wit, as well
as low in its tone of moral feeling. His prose imitations of Lucian, and his ' Voyage to Ireland' in verse, are better specimens of his talents fur hummer. There are several incomplete collections of his works.
The translation of Montaigne has great merit. Cotton's genuine version was afterwards spoiled, or, as it is expressed in the preface to the edition of 1759, "it was polished or rather modernised in some pages of our last edition; but in the present one (1759),it is corrected and improved throughout, besides the rectifying of many mistakes, which Mr. Cotton probably would not have been guilty of, if he had been assisted by those dictionaries published since his time, that are the beat explainers of the Gaston language, which was lirootaigne's mother tongue." If this second translation has corrected mistakes, it has certainly not improved the style of Cotton's version, which had considerable merit of its own, as well as affinity to the manner of Montaigne.