Cotton, Charles

(1630-1687)

   Cotton was born at Beresford in Staffordshire. His father, also Charles, who married well and came into estates in Derbyshire and Staffordshire, was a friend of many great poets, among them Ben Jonson and John Donne. Although there is no evidence of a university education, Cotton's classical achievements were impressive, as was his knowledge of French and Italian literature; he had traveled in those countries. Although a staunch Royalist, neither he nor his father appears to have suffered at the hands of the Commonwealth soldiers. In 1649 he contributed an elegy on Henry, lord Hastings, to Richard Brome's Lachrymæ Musarum. He also contributed to Izaac Walton's Compleat Angler (1653-1655). No collection of Cotton's poems was published until after his death, but they had been passed among his friends in manuscript. Some of his publications: Scarronides, 1664 (a mock-heroic burlesque of Virgi). Horace, 1671 (a translation of Corneille's). The Moral Philosophy of the Stoics, 1667 (a translation from the French by Du Vair). Some of his poems: "Evening," "Ode to Cupid," "On Tobacco," "The Angler's Ballad," "The New Year," "To Mr. Izaak Walton."

   Sources: Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition, 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite DVD, 2006. English Poetry: Author Search. Chadwyck-Healey Ltd., 1995 (http://www.lib.utexas.edu:8080/search/epoetry/author. html). Oldpoetry (www.oldpoetry.com). The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Golden Treasury of Longer Poems. Ernest Rhys, ed. E.P. Dutton, 1949. The Oxford Book of Garden Verse. John Dixon Hunt, ed. Oxford University Press, 1993. The Oxford Book of Sonnets. John Fuller, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000.