CHARLES COTTON. 1630-1687. He was the Author of Virgil Travertie, in which a single joke cost him dearly; his sacrilegious wit could not spare the sacred character of his Grandmother's Ruff, which he ridiculed in a couplet of that poem. A stroke of the old Lady's pen, however, revenged her own wrongs and those of the Bard of Mantua at once, for she struck Cotton out of an estate of four hundred a year, which she had bequeathed to him in her will. The works of this poet were once so popular, that the thirteenth edition of them was printed in 1751. Song. Montross. I. Ask not, why sorrow shades my brow; Alas! what need I beauty now, Since he, that loved it, dy'd to day, 11. Can ye have ears, and yet not know Can ye have eyes, and they not flow, He's gone! he's gone! and I will go; IV. But I'le go to him, though he lie Wrapt in the cold, cold arms of death : And under yon sad cypress-tree, I'le mourn, I'le mourn away my breath. The Litany. 1. FROM a ruler that's a curse, From a kingdom, that from health From a gentry steept in pots, From unkennellers of plots, III. Libera nos, &c. From a church without Divines, IV. Libera nos, &c. From the bustle of the town, And the knavish tribe o' th' gown, From the tedious city lectures, And thanksgivings for protectors, Libera nos, &c. V. From ill victuals when we dine, Libera nos, &c. VI. From demeans, whose barren soil From all lyars, and from those Who write nonsense, verse, or prose, VII. Libera nos, &c. From a virgin that's no maid; From loud tongues that never lye, And from a domestic spy, Libera nos, &c. VIII. From a domineering spouse; From a wife with essenses, Libera nos, &c. IX. From trapans of wicked men ; From his highness, and the devil, Libera nos, &c. * Oliver Cromwell. |