CHARLES COTTON.

BORN 1630-DIED 1687.

THERE is a careless and happy humour in this poet's voyage to Ireland, which seems to anticipate the manner of Anstey, in the Bath Guide. The tasteless indelicacy of his parody of the Eneid has found but too many admirers. His imitations of Lucian betray the grossest misconception of humourous effect, when he attempts to burlesque that which is ludicrous already. He was acquainted with French and Italian, and, among several works from the former language, translated the Horace of Corneille, and Montaigne's Essays.

The father of Cottain is described by Lord Clarendon as an accomplished and honourable man, who was driven, by domestic afflictions, to habits which rendered his age less reverenced than his youth, and made his best friends wish that he had not lived so long. From him our poet inherited an encumbered estate, with a disposition to extravagance, little calculated to improve it. After having studied at Cambridge, and returned from his travels abroad, he married the daughter of Sir Thomas Orrthorp, in Nottinghamshire. He went to Ireland, as a captain in the army; but of his military progress nothing is recorded. Having embraced the soldier's life merely as a shift in distress,

he was not likely to pursue it with much ambition. It was probably in Ireland that he met with his second wife, Mary Countess Dowager of Ardglass, the widow of Lord Cornwall. She had a jointure of fifteen hundred pounds a year, secured from his imprudent management. He died insolvent, at Westminster. One of his favourite recreations was angling; and his house, which was situated on the Dove, a fine trout stream, which divides the counties of Derby and Stafford, was the frequent resort of his friend Isaac Walton. There he built a fishing-house, "Piscatoribus Sacrum," with the initials of honest Isaac's name and his own, united in cyphers, over the doors. The walls were painted with fishing-scenes, and the portraits of Cotton and Walton were upon the beaufet.

CHARLES COTTON.

THE JOYS OF MARRIAGE.

How uneasy is his life

Who is troubled with a wife!
Be she ne'er so fair or comely,
Be she ne'er so foul or homely,
Be she ne'er so young and toward,
Be she ne'er so old and froward,
Be she kind with arms enfolding,
Be she cross and always scolding,
Be she blithe or melancholy,
Have she wit or have she folly,
Be she wary, be she squand'ring,
Be she staid, or be she wand'ring,
Be she constant, be she fickle,
Be she fire, or be she ickle,

Be she pious or ungodly,

Be she chaste or what sounds oddly:

Lastly, be she good or evil,

Be she saint, or be she devil;

Yet uneasy is his life,

Who is marry'd to a wife.

If fair, she's subject to temptation,

If foul, herself's solicitation,

If young and sweet, she is too tender,
If old and cross, no man can mend her,
If too too kind, she's over clinging,
If a true scold, she's ever ringing,
If blithe, find fiddles, or y' undo her,
If sad, then call a casuist to her,
If a wit, she'll still be jeering,
If a fool, she's ever fleering,
If too wary, then she'll shrew thee,
If too lavish, she'll undo thee,
If staid, she'll mope a year together,
If gadding, then to London with her,
If true, she'll think you don't deserve her,
If false, a thousand will not serve her,
If she be of th' reformation,

Thy house will be a convocation,
If a libertine, then watch it,

At the window thou mayst catch it :
So uneasy is his life

Who is marry'd to a wife.

These are all extremes, I know,

But all womankind is so,
And the golden mien to none
Of that cloven race is known;
Or to one if known it be,

Yet that one's unknown to me.
Some Ulyssean traveller

May perhaps have gone so far,

As t' have found (in spite of Nature)
Such an admirable creature.

If a voyager there be

Has made that discovery,

He the fam'd Odcombian gravels,
And may rest to write his travels.