There are several other coroners, who hold courts out of the liberties of the city, as for Westminster, the Tower Hamlets, &c.
Coroner’s court, Cross lane.
Corporation lane, Bridewell walk, Clerkenwell.
Corten’s yard, New North street.†
Cortes’s gardens, Shoreditch.†
Cote’s yard, Skinner street, Bishopsgate street without.†
Cotterell’s Almshouse, situated in Chapel yard, Hog lane, Soho, was endowed by Sir Charles Cotterell, with a perpetual annuity of 20l. a year, towards the support of eight poor women.
Cotton Library, consisting of a curious collection of valuable manuscripts, relating to the antiquities of Great Britain and Ireland, &c. was collected by that excellent antiquary Sir Robert Cotton, who left it to his son Sir Thomas, and after his decease to Sir John Cotton, his grandson, who giving it to the public, an act of parliament was passed in the year 1701, for securing it, for the benefit of the public. Pursuant to which the library, together with the coins, medals and other rarities, were, upon the death of Sir John Cotton, vested in trustees, who appointed a librarian, well read in antiquities; but on the 23d of October 1731, this valuable collection suffered greatly by fire; by which ninety nine volumes were destroyed, and an hundred and eleven much damaged.
Before this misfortune, the Cotton library consisted of 958 volumes of original charters, grants, instruments, registers of monasteries, remains of Saxon laws; the letters of Sovereign Princes, transactions between this and other kingdoms and states, the book of Genesis, said to have been written by Origen, in the second century, and to be the most ancient Greek copy extant; and the curious Alexandrean manuscript of the Old and New Testament, in Greek capitals, said to have been written in the third century.
For the care of this library, seven trustees were appointed, viz. the Lord Chancellor, or Keeper, the Speaker of the house of Commons, and the Lord Chief Justice of the court of King’s Bench, for the time being; with four others, nominated by the heir male of the Cotton family. The books were deposited in the Old Dormitory at Westminster, but agreeably to a late act of parliament they are now placed with Sir Hans Sloane’s Museum in Montague House, Bloomsbury. See the article British Museum.