was buried in St James's
church, Piccadilly, on the 16th of February 1687. Cotton's reputation as
a burlesque writer may account for the neglect with which the rest of
his poems have been treated. Their excellence was not, however,
overlooked by good critics. Coleridge praises the purity and
unaffectedness of his style in _Biographia Literaria_, and Wordsworth
(_Preface_, 1815) gave a copious quotation from the "Ode to Winter." The
"Retirement" is printed by Walton in the second part of the _Compleat
Angler_. His masterpiece in translation, the _Essays of M. de Montaigne_
(1685-1686, 1693, 1700, &c.), has often been reprinted, and still
maintains its reputation; his other works include _The Scarronides, or
Virgil Travestie_ (1664-1670), a gross burlesque of the first and fourth
books of the Aeneid, which ran through fifteen editions; _Burlesque upon
Burlesque, ... being some of Lucian's Dialogues newly put into English
fustian_ (1675); _The Moral Philosophy of the Stoicks_ (1667), from the
French of Guillaume du Vair; _The History of the Life of the Duke
d'Espernon_ (1670), from the French of G. Girard; the _Commentaries_
(1674) of Blaise de Montluc; the _Planter's Manual_ (1675), a practical
book on arboriculture, in which he was an expert; _The Wonders of the
Peake_ (1681); the _Compleat Gamester_ and _The Fair one of Tunis_, both
dated 1674, are also assigned to Cotton.

William Oldys contributed a life of Cotton to Hawkins's edition (1760)
of the _Compleat Angler_. His _Lyrical Poems_ were edited by J. R.
Tutin in 1903, from an unsatisfactory edition of 1689. His translation
of Montaigne was edited in 1892, and in a more elaborate form in 1902,
by W. C. Hazlitt, who omitted or relegated to the notes the passages
in which Cotton interpolates his own matter, and supplied his
omissions.

COTTON, GEORGE EDWARD LYNCH (1813-1866), English educationist and
divine, was born at Chester on the 29th of October 1813. He received his
education at Westminster school, and at Trinity College, Cambridge. Here
he joined the Low Church party, and was also the intimate friend of
several disciples of Thomas Arnold, among whom were C. J. Vaughan and W.
J. Conybeare. The influence of Arnold determined the character and
course of his life. He graduated B.A. in 1836, and became an
assistant-master at Rugby. Here he worked devotedly for fifteen years,
inspired with Arnold's spirit, and heartily entering into his plans an