married his cousin Isabella, daughter of Sir Thomas Hutchinson of Owthorpe in Nottinghamshire, and sister of Colonel Hutchinson. Before the marriage took place he and his father vested the manors of Bentley, Borrowashe, and Beresford, with other lands, in trustees, to sell off so much of the property as would pay a mortgage of 1,700l., and to hold the rest in trust for the younger Cotton and his heirs. The elder Cotton, who had greatly injured his estate by lawsuits, died in 1658. At the Restoration, in 1660, Cotton published a panegyric in prose on Charles II; and in 1664 issued anonymously his burlesque poem ‘Scarronides, or the First Book of Virgil Travestie,’ which was reprinted (with a travesty of the fourth book) in 1670. Six editions of ‘Scarronides’ appeared during the author's lifetime; and it is noticeable that the later editions are more gross than the earlier. There is a tradition that a kinswoman of Cotton's, who had determined to leave him her fortune, took offence at a satirical allusion made in the poem to her ruff and revoked her intention. In 1665 Cotton was empowered by an act of parliament to sell part of his estates in order to pay his debts; and in the same year, for the diversion of his wife's sister, Miss Stanhope Hutchinson, he wrote a translation, which was published in 1671, of Corneille's ‘Horace.’ Another of Cotton's translations, ‘The Moral Philosophy of the Stoics,’ from the French of Du Vair, had appeared in 1667. From the dedication to his friend and kinsman, John Ferrers, dated 27 Feb. 1663–4, we learn that the translation had been undertaken some years previously at the instance of the elder Cotton. The posthumous collection of Alexander Brome's ‘Poems,’ 1668, contains an epistle by Brome to Cotton, and a reply, in which Cotton mournfully states that his only visitors were duns, whose approach drove him to take sanctuary in the neighbouring rocks. About 1670 he composed ‘A Voyage to Ireland in Burlesque,’ a spirited poem full of autobiographical interest. It was ‘neither improvement nor profit’ that induced him to take the journey, but having entered the army and received a captain's commission, he was ordered to proceed to Ireland. He expresses his regret at being obliged to abandon his favourite pursuit of angling. At Chester he was invited to supper by the mayor, and, being requested to give some account of his personal history, he informed his host,
That of land I had both sorts, some good and evil,
But that a great part on't was pawn'd to the devil;
That as for my parts, they were such as he saw;
That indeed I had a small smatt'ring of law,
Which I lately had got more by practice than reading,
By sitting o' th' bench whilst others were pleading.
It appears from another copy of verses (‘Poems,’ 1689, p. 199) that he narrowly escaped shipwreck on his voyage to Ireland. In an ‘Epistle to Sir Clifford Clifton, then sitting in Parliament,’ he states that he had ‘grown something swab with drinking good ale’ (for he frankly confesses that ‘his delight is to toss the can merrily round’), and again refers to the fact that he was besieged by duns. In 1670 he published a translation of Gerard's ‘History of the Life of the Duke of Espernon,’ with a dedicatory epistle, dated from Beresford 30 Oct. 1669, to Archbishop Sheldon. He mentions in the preface that the translation had been begun about three years earlier, but that owing to a long and painful illness he had been obliged to desist from literary labour; and he hints that his former literary ventures had been financially unprofitable. Another translation from Cotton's pen, ‘The Commentaries of De Montluc, Marshal of France,’ was published in 1674, with a dedication to his relative the Earl of Chesterfield, and commendatory verses by Newcourt and Flatman. A curious and valuable anonymous work entitled ‘The Complete Gamester,’ which first appeared in 1674, and was frequently reprinted, has been attributed to Cotton. The second and third parts of ‘The Compleat Gamester: in Three Parts … written for the Young Princesses, by Richard Seymour, Esq. The Fifth Edition,’ 1734, are compiled from the earlier ‘Complete Gamester,’ and in the preface it is stated that ‘The Second and Third Parts of this Treatise were originally written by Charles Cotton, Esq., some years since.’ Another anonymous book published in 1674, ‘The Fair One of Tunis, or the Generous Mistress,’ which purports to be a translation from the French, is assigned to Cotton in the catalogue of Henry Brome's publications at the end of ‘The Planter's Manual,’ 1675. ‘Burlesque upon Burlesque, or the Scoffer Scoft, being some of Lucian's Dialogues, newly put into English Fustian,’ appeared anonymously in 1675, and was frequently reprinted. In the prologue the author states that the work was ‘both begun and ended’ in a month, and he promised to travesty the ‘Dialogues of the Dead’ if the public would give him encouragement; but the promise was not redeemed. Not only was Cotton an accomplished angler, but he was well skilled in horticulture. The taste which he showed
