merset, and Clare, for having circulated, with
ironical purpose, a tract known as the _Proposition to bridle
Parliament_, which had been addressed some fifteen years before by Sir
Robert Dudley to James I., advising him to govern by force; the
circulation of this by Parliamentarians was regarded as intended to
insinuate that Charles's government was arbitrary and unconstitutional.
Cotton denied knowledge of the matter, but the original was discovered
in his house, and the copies had been put in circulation by a young man
who lived after him and was said to be his natural son. Cotton was
himself released the next month; but the proceedings in the star chamber
continued, and, to his intense vexation, his library was sealed up by
the king. He died on the 6th of May 1631, and was buried in Connington
church, Huntingdonshire, where there is a monument to his memory.

Many of Cotton's pamphlets were widely read in manuscript during his
lifetime, but only two of his works were printed, _The Reign of Henry
III_. (1627) and _The Danger in which the Kingdom now Standeth_
(1628). His son, Sir Thomas (1594-1662), added considerably to the
Cottonian library; and Sir John, the fourth baronet, presented it to
the nation in 1700. In 1731 the collection, which had in the interval
been removed to the Strand, and thence to Ashburnham House, was
seriously damaged by fire. In 1753 it was transferred to the British
Museum.

See the article LIBRARIES, and Edwards's _Lives of the Founders of the
British Museum_, vol. i. Several of Cotton's papers have been printed
under the title _Cottoni Posthuma_; others were published by Thomas
Hearne.

COTTON (Fr. _coton_; from Arab, _qutun_), the most important of the
vegetable fibres of the world, consisting of unicellular hairs which
occur attached to the seeds of various species of plants of the genus
_Gossypium_, belonging to the Mallow order (Malvaceae). Each fibre is
formed by the outgrowth of a single epidermal cell of the testa or outer
coat of the seed.

_Botany and Cultivation._--The genus _Gossypium_ includes herbs and
shrubs, which have been cultivated from time immemorial, and are now
found widely distributed throughout the tropical and subtropical regions
of both hemispheres. South America, the West Indies, tropical Africa and
Southern Asia are the homes of the various members, but the plants have
been introduced with success into other lands, as is well i