But adieu, vain hope, thou art for ever fled,
For this good man is no more,
For he is now numbered amongst the dead,
So adieu, adieu, farewell for evermore.
A Journey into the Peak.
TO SIR ASTON COKAINE.
Charles Cotton, the "honoured friend" of good old Izaac Walton, and of most of the celebrated men of his day, was born at Beresford Hall, on the banks of his
"——beloved Nymph! fair Dove,
Princess of Rivers,"
whose praises he has sung, and whose beauties he has rendered immortal by his pen, and by his fishing-house, dedicated to lovers of the angle. He was the only child of Charles Cotton, Esq., by Olive, daughter of Sir John Stanhope, of Elvaston Castle, near Derby (ancestor of the Earl of Harrington, and of the same family as the Earl of Chesterfield, Earl Stanhope, &c.) He married, first, Isabella, daughter of Sir Thomas Hutchinson, of Owthorpe; and, second, the widowed Countess of Ardglass (daughter of Sir William Russel, of Strensham). He died in 1687.
Charles Cotton was a profuse writer. Among his principal works are the second part of "The Complete Angler," "The Wonders of the Peak," "Virgil Travestie," "Moral Philosophy of the Stoics," "The Planter's Manual," "Life of the Duke of Espernon," "The Commentaries of De Montluc," "The Complete Gamester," "The Fair One of Tunis," "Burlesque upon Burlesque," "Montaigne's Essays," &c., &c. After his death, a collection of "Poems on several Occasions," by Charles Cotton, was published.
The following characteristic lines I here print from the original MS. copy, in my own possession. The volume of manuscript is of the highest interest, and is in the autograph writing of Charles Cotton himself. It is entitled, in his own writing, "Charles Cotton, His Verses," and is in folio, in the old binding with clasps. This volume is described in Sir Harris Nicholas' Life of Cotton, attached to his edition of the Complete Angler. It contains some pieces not printed, and others very different from those in his "Poems on Several Occasions," printed surreptitiously after his death in 1689. The following varies in many parts from the copy printed in the volume alluded to.
S'r,
Coming home into this frozen Clime,
Grown cold, and almost senselesse, as my rythme,
I found, that Winter's bold impetuous rage
Prevented time and antidated age:
For, in my veins did nought but crystall dwell,
Each hair was frozen to an iceicle.
My flesh was marble, so that, as I went,
I did appear a walking monument.
'T might have been judged, rather than marble, flint,
Had there been any spark of fier in't.
My mother looking back (to bid good night)
Was metamorphos'd, like the Sodomite.
Like Sinons horse, our horses were become,
And, since they could not go, they slided home.
The hills were hard to such a qualitie,
So beyond Reason in Philosophie;
If Pegasus had kickt at one of those,
Homer's Odysses had been writ in prose.
These are strange stories, S'r, to you, who sweat
Under the warm Sun's comfortable heat;
Whose happy seat of Pooley farre outvies
The fabled pleasures of blest Paradise.
Whose Canaan fills your hous with wyne and oyl,
Till't crack with burdens of a fruitful soil.
Which hous, if it were plac't above the sphear,
Would be a palace fit for Jupiter.
The humble chappell for religious Rites,
The inner rooms for honest, free delights,
And Providence, that these miscarrie, loth,
Has plac't the Tower a centinell to both:
So that there's nothing wanting to improve
Either your pietie, or peace, or love.
Without, you have the pleasure of ye woods,
Fair plains, sweet meadows, and transparent flouds,
With all that's good, and excellent, beside
The tempting apples by Euphrates' side.
But, that, which does above all these aspire,
Is Delphos, brought from Greece to Warwick-shire.
But Oh! ungodly Hodge! that valu'd not
The saving juice o'th' ænigmaticke pot.
Whose charming virtue made mee to forget
T'enquire of Fate, else I had stayed there yet.
Nor had I then once dar'd to venture on
The cutting ayr of this our Freezland zone.
But once again, Dear Sir, I mean to come
And learn to thank, as to be troublesome.