SOME ACCOUNT or THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF CHARLES COTTON, ESQ. BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR. THE friendship which our venerated Walton had for Cotton, besides his being the author of the following amusing and excellent treatise, will naturally lead the reader to desire a better knowledge of him; but, it must be confessed, that the duty thus laid upon the Editor, is by no means so pleasant as he could wish. The character of the adopted son differs so widely from that of his pure-minded father, as to make it a mystery how even a common taste for angling could have made the friend of Wotton bear with the habits of the younger man. Perhaps the friendship Walton had for Cotton's father was affectionately entailed upon the offspring; perhaps similarity of political opinions may have biased even the very sober judgment; perhaps a charitable hope to do the reckless wit good by a close association, made the merciful heart more tolerant; no doubt the venerable presence restrained the tongue from the license of the pen which the burlesque poet made a second nature; but however it came about, an affectionate intercourse was maintained between them, as the reader already knows, and will soon know further. Let us hope, that Walton's serious occupations and intercourse with pious men of learning kept him happily away from companions where loose writings would be named; and that ignorant of Cotton's vicious folly, he judged him rather by the truly beautiful sentiments breathed through the "Stanzes Irreguliers." The reader can scarcely have forgotten the language of Walton (2d chap., 1st part), in answer to Venator's question whether their host of the night before was not "a witty man;” but, to save the trouble of a reference, I shall repeat, what cannot too often be repeated, here: "He is not to me a good companion, for most of his conceits were Scripture jests, or lascivious jests; for which I count no man witty, for the devil will help a man that way inclined to the first; and his own corrupt nature, which he always carries with him, to the latter; but a companion that feasts the company with wit and mirth, and leaves out the sin that is usually mixed with it, is the man; and indeed such a companion should have his charges borne, and to such company I hope to bring you this night. . . . And let me tell you, such company and good discourse are the very sinews of virtue; but for such company as we heard last night, it infects others; the very boys will learn to talk and swear as they heard mine host and another of the company that shall be nameless; I am sorry the other is a gentlemen, for less religion will not save their souls than a beggar's; I think more will be required at the last great day. Well you know what example is able to do, and I know what the poet says in the like case, which is worthy to be noted by all parents and people of civility: 'Many a one Owes to his country his religion : And in another would as strongly grow, Had but his nurse or mother taught him so.' "This is reason put into verse, and worthy the consideration of a wise man. But of this no more; for though I love civility, yet I hate severe censures." Cotton himself gives the same character of Walton when he 66 says: My father Walton will be seen in no man's company twice he does not like, and likes none but such as he believes to be very honest men; which is one of the best arguments, or at least of the best testimonies I have, that I either am or that he thinks me one of those, seeing I have never found him weary of me.' Surely these extracts may warrant us in doubting such "a spot in a feast of charity," as Walton's familiar intimacy with one whose profligate disposition was known to him. Cotton's family was both ancient and honorable in the county of Sussex, his ancestor having been Sir Richard Cotton, Comptroller of the Household and Privy Councillor to Edward the Sixth. Charles Cotton, the father of our fly-fisher, having married the heiress, settled at Beresford. He seems to have been a man of parts and accomplishments, in Walton's good judgment, for his marginal note in the Fishing-house says: "the pleasantness of the river, mountains, and meadows about it, cannot be described unless Sir Philip Sidney or Mr. Cotton's father were alive to do it." The Earl of Clarendon, in his Autobiography, characterizes him as 66 a gentleman born to a competent fortune, and so qualified in his person and education, that for many years he continued the greatest ornament of the town, in the esteem of those who had been best bred; his natural parts were very great, his wit flowing in all the parts of his conversation; the superstructure not raised to a considerable height, but having passed some years in Cambridge and then in France, and conversing always with learned men, his expressions were ever proper and significant, and gave great lustre to his discourse upon any argument; so that he was thought by those not intimate with him, to have been much better acquainted with books than he was; he had all those qualities which in youth raise men to the reputation of being fine gentlemen; such a pleasantness and gaiety of humor, such a sweetness and gentleness of nature, and such a civility and delightfulness in conversation, that no man in court or out of it appeared a more accomplished person, all these extraordinary qualifications being supported by as extraordinary a clearness of courage and fearlessness of spirit, of which he gave too often manifestation. Some unhappy suits in law, and waste of his fortune in these suits, made some impression on his mind; which being impaired by domestic afflictions, and those indulgences to himself which naturally attend these afflictions, rendered his age less reverenced than his youth had been, and gave his best friends cause to have wished that he had not lived so long" (Clarendon's Life, v. i., p. 36, Oxford ed., 1827). I give the above extract as, mutatis mutandis, it is a portrait of the son, and shows the paternal example which in good and evil he much resembled. Our Cotton was born in 1630, so that he was thirty-seven years younger than Walton. His youth, spent near the Dove, developed his innate taste for the art, his skill in which, as well as in treating of it, has won for him more honorable fame than all his other writings. He was an angler before his seventeenth year, for in 1676 he had had thirty years' experience. We know little of his education, except that he was sent to Cambridge about 1649, and was the pupil of Mr. Ralph Rawson, to whom he addressed a dedication of an ode of Johannes Secundus, which he had translated, receiving some affectionate verses in return. He travelled in France and Italy some years before his first marriage with Isabella, daughter of Sir Thomas Hutchinson, of whom he speaks affectionately in his satirical poem on the "Joys of Marriage." "Yet with me 'tis out of season, But, alas! I love her so Or if she be discontented, Lord, how am I then tormented: And am ready to persuade her, But, if sick, I then am dying, Meat and med'cine both defying." Poor lady, she had often too much reason to be out of humor, and complimentary rhyme was a less proof of affection than his obscene verses were of the contrary. She died, after bearing him eight children, five of whom survived him, about 1670. The pecuniary embarrassments which he inherited with the litigious disposition of his father, and his own extravagant habits, kept him in difficulties all his life and left his family poor, an act of parliament having authorized the dismemberment of his estate. To his poverty and its consequences he often alludes in his poems; sometimes in a strain of sadness, sometimes of jocularity scarcely less sad. Indeed, he seems at one time to have thought of escaping across the Channel for refuge from his creditors; as he says in an epistle to his commanding officer (under whom he served in Ireland as captain about the years 1671–2): "What ease can France or Flanders give To him who is a fugitive? Some two years hence when you come o'er If my ill-nature be so strong As t' outlive my infamy so long, Ragged as his old colors are." He confesses, however, in his ode to Hope, that he had neglected taking good counsel, when it might have saved him : "That fatal hope by which I was betrayed, As I'd foreseen what they did not foresee, A torrent of felicity, And rudely laughed at those, who pitying wept for me." In his ode to Poverty, he says: "But I not call him poor does not abound, But him who snared in bonds and endless strife, His bread doth yet Taste of affliction, and his cares His purest wine mix and allay with tears. |