Charles Cotton (April 28, 1630 – February, 1687) was an
EnglishEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
poetA poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
and
writerA writer is anyone who creates a written work, though the word usually designates those who write creatively or professionally, as well as those who have written in many different forms.-Profession:...
, best-known for translating the work of
Michel de MontaigneMichel Eyquem de Montaigne was one of the most influential writers of the French Renaissance. Montaigne is known for popularizing the essay as a literary genre...
from the
FrenchFrench is a Romance language globally spoken by about 65 million people as a first language , by 50 million as a second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired foreign language, with significant speakers in 57 countries. Most native speakers of the language live in France,...
, for his contributions to
The Compleat Angler, and for the highly influential
The Compleat Gamester which has been attributed to him.
Early life
He was born at Beresford in
StaffordshireStaffordshire is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. Part of the National Forest lies within its borders...
. His father, Charles Cotton the elder, was a friend of
Ben JonsonBenjamin Jonson was an English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor. A contemporary of William Shakespeare, he is best known for his satirical plays, particularly Volpone, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair, which are considered his best, and his lyric poems...
,
John SeldenJohn Selden was an English jurist, scholar of England's ancient laws and constitution and scholar of Jewish law...
, Sir
Henry WottonSir Henry Wotton was an English author and diplomat.-Life:The son of Thomas Wotton , brother of Edward Wotton, 1st Baron Wotton, and grandnephew of the diplomat Nicholas Wotton, he was born at Bocton Hall in the parish of Bocton or Boughton Malherbe, Kent...
and
Izaak WaltonIzaak Walton was an English writer. Best known as the author of The Compleat Angler, he also wrote a number of short biographies which have been collected under the title of Walton's Lives.-Biography:...
. The son was apparently not sent to university, but was tutored by Ralph Rawson, one of the fellows ejected from
Brasenose College, OxfordBrasenose College, originally Brazen Nose College , is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom...
, in 1648. Cotton traveled in
FranceFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
and perhaps in
ItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
, and at the age of twenty-eight he succeeded to an estate greatly encumbered by lawsuits during his father's lifetime. The rest of his life was spent chiefly in country pursuits, but from his
Voyage to Ireland in Burlesque (1670) we know that he held a captain's commission and served in
IrelandIreland is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island in the world. It lies to the north-west of continental Europe and is surrounded by hundreds of islands and islets. To the east of Ireland, separated by the Irish Sea, is the island of Great Britain...
.
Fishing
His friendship with
Izaak WaltonIzaak Walton was an English writer. Best known as the author of The Compleat Angler, he also wrote a number of short biographies which have been collected under the title of Walton's Lives.-Biography:...
began about 1655, and contradicts the assumptions about Cotton's character based on his coarse burlesques of
VirgilPublius Vergilius Maro was a classical Roman poet, best known for three major works—the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the Aeneid—although several minor poems are also attributed to him.The son of a farmer, Virgil came to be...
and
LucianLucian of Samosata was an Assyrian rhetorician, and satirist who wrote in the Greek language. He is noted for his witty and scoffing nature.-Biography:...
. Walton's initials made into a cipher with Cotton's own were placed over the door of Cotton's fishing cottage on the
DoveThe River Dove is the principal river of the south-western Peak District, in the East Midlands of England and is around in length. It rises on Axe Edge Moor near Buxton and flows generally south to its confluence with the River Trent at Newton Solney. From there, its waters reach the North Sea via...
at
HartingtonHartington is a village in the Derbyshire Peak District, England, lying on the River Dove. According to the 2001 census the parish of Hartington Town Quarter, which also includes Pilsbury, had a population of 345...
. Cotton contributed a second section, "Instructions how to angle for a
troutTrout are a number of species of freshwater and saltwater fish belonging to the Salmoninae subfamily of the Salmonidae family. Salmon belong to some of the same genera as trout but, unlike most trout, most salmon species spend almost all their lives in salt water...
or
grayling-Fish:*Grayling , Thymallus thymallus*Grayling , generically, any fish of the genus Thymallus in the family Salmonidae*Australian grayling , a fish in the family Retropinnidae...
in a clear stream", to Walton's
The Compleat Angler; the additions consisted of twelve chapters on fishing in clear water, which he understood largely but not exclusively to be
fly fishingFly fishing is a distinct and ancient angling method, most renowned as a method for catching trout and salmon, but employed today for a wide variety of species including pike, bass, panfish, grayling and carp, as well as marine species, such as redfish, snook, tarpon, bonefish and striped bass...
.
Marriages
In 1656 he married his cousin Isabella Hutchinson, a half-sister of
Col. John HutchinsonSir John Hutchinson was one of the Puritan leaders, and a prominent Roundhead in the English Civil War to the extent of being the 13th of...
; she died in 1670. At the request of his wife's sister, Miss Stanhope Hutchinson, he undertook the translation of
Pierre CorneillePierre Corneille was a French tragedian who was one of the three great seventeenth-century French dramatists, along with Molière and Racine...
's
HoraceHorace is a 1972 television play written by Roy Minton and Directed by Alan Clarke.-Plot:Diabetic Horace Barry Jackson is mentally impaired and works in a joke shop. He befriends loner schoolboy, Gordon Blackett Stephen Tantum who retreats from his loveless home into an imaginary...
in 1671. In 1675, he married the dowager Countess of Ardglass; she had a
jointureJointure is, in law, a provision for a wife after the death of her husband. As defined by Sir Edward Coke, it is "a competent livelihood of freehold for the wife, of lands or tenements, to take effect presently in possession or profit after the death of her husband for the life of the wife at...
of
£The pound sterling , often simply called the pound, is the currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands and British Antarctic Territory...
1500 a year, but he did not have the power to spend it.
Writings
The 1674 first edition of
The Compleat Gamester is attributed to Cotton (by publishers of later editions, to which additional, post-Cotton material was added in 1709 and 1725, along with some updates to the rules Cotton had described earlier. The book was considered the "standard"
English-languageEnglish is a West Germanic language that developed in England during the Anglo-Saxon era. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, and of the United States since the mid 20th century,...
reference work on the playing of games – especially
gamblingGambling is the wagering of money or something of material value on an event with an uncertain outcome with the primary intent of winning additional money and/or material goods. Typically, the outcome of the wager is evident within a short period....
games, and including billiards,
card gameA card game is any game using playing cards as the primary things with which the game is played, be they traditional or game-specific. Countless card games exist, including families of related games...
s,
diceA die or dice is a small polyhedral object, usually cubic, used for generating random numbers or other symbols...
,
horse racingHorse racing is an equestrian sport that has been practiced over the centuries; the chariot races of Roman times are an early example, as is the contest of the steeds of the god Odin and the giant Hrungnir in Norse mythology. It is inextricably associated with gambling...
and cock fighting, among others – until the publication of
Edmond HoyleEdmond Hoyle is a writer best known for his works on the rules and play of card games. The phrase "according to Hoyle" came into the language as a reflection of his generally-perceived authority on the subject; since that time, use of the phrase has expanded into general use in situations in which...
's
Mr. Hoyle's Games Complete in 1750, which outsold Cotton's then-obsolete work.
At Cotton's death in 1687 he was insolvent and left his estates to his creditors. He was buried in
St James's ChurchSt James's Church, Piccadilly is an Anglican church on Piccadilly in the centre of London, UK. It was designed and built by Sir Christopher Wren....
,
PiccadillyPiccadilly is a major London street, running from Hyde Park Corner in the west to Piccadilly Circus in the east. It is completely within the city of Westminster. The street is part of the A4 road, London's second most important western artery. St...
, on February 16, 1687.
Cotton's reputation as a
burlesqueBurlesque is a humorous theatrical entertainment involving parody and sometimes grotesque exaggeration. In 20th century America, the form became associated with a variety show in which striptease is the chief attraction.-Etymology and early history:...
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.
ColeridgeSamuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, Romantic, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was one of the founders of the Romantic Movement in England and one of the Lake Poets...
praises the purity and unaffectedness of his style in
Biographia Literaria, and
WordsworthWilliam Wordsworth was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with the 1798 joint publication Lyrical Ballads....
(
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.
He was a
DerbyshireDerbyshire is a county in the East Midlands of England. A substantial portion of the Peak District National Park lies within Derbyshire. The northern part of Derbyshire overlaps with the Pennines, a famous chain of hills and mountains...
man: his father moved there from the South England to live on his wife's estates. The Peak district is no longer associated with
troutTrout are a number of species of freshwater and saltwater fish belonging to the Salmoninae subfamily of the Salmonidae family. Salmon belong to some of the same genera as trout but, unlike most trout, most salmon species spend almost all their lives in salt water...
fishing. In Cotton's day, the inaccessibility of good fishing spots was physical as well as legal. The opening chapters of his section of the
Compleat Angler draw Cotton and his friend across a savage and mountainous landscape. The friend, who will be taught fly-fishing, expresses doubt as to whether they are still in Christendom.
"What do I think? Why, I think it is the steepest place that ever sure men and horses went down; and that, if there be any safety at all, the safest way is to alight..." says the pupil. After he picked his way down, they reach a bridge. "Do you ... travel with wheelbarrows in this country" he asks. "Because this bridge certainly was made for nothing else; why, a mouse can hardly go over it: it is not two fingers broad."
They come at length to the sheltered valley in which stands Cotton's house and fishing hut. It is the first description of paradise in fishing history. "It stands in a kind of peninsula, with a delicate clear river about it." There Cotton and his friend breakfast on ale and a pipe of tobacco to give them the strength to wield their rods. For a trout river, he says, a rod of five or six yards should be long enough. In fact, "longer, though never so neatly and artificially made, it ought not to be, if you intend to fish at ease.".
Though he used a line of carefully tapered horse-hair that can hardly have weighed anything, Cotton’s rod, of solid wood, must have been heavy. His description of the sport does not resemble modern techniques of fly-casting, which began with the arrival of heavy dressed-silk lines 200 years later. On windy days, he advises his guest to fish the pools because in the rapids, where the gorge of the Dove is narrower, the wind will be too strong to fish in.
Some of Cotton's advice and preferences remain those of a real fisherman. He tells his guest to fish 'fine and far off"; and he argues for small and neat flies, carefully dressed, over the bushy productions of London tackle-dealers. The flies which catch fish will always look wrong to the untrained eye, because they look too small and too delicate.
Cotton's dressings are made with bear hair and
camelCamels are even-toed ungulates within the genus Camelus. The dromedary or Arabian camel has a single hump, and the Bactrian camel has two humps. They are native to the dry desert areas of western Asia, and central and east Asia, respectively...
's under fur; with the soft bristles from inside a black hog’s ear; and from dog’s tails. "What a heap of trumpery is here!" cries his visitor, when Cotton’s dubbing bag is opened. "Certainly never an angler in Europe has his shop half so well-finished as you have."
Cotton replies with the touchiness of a true obsessive: "Let me tell you, here are some colours, contemptible as they seem here, that are very hard to be got; and scarce any one of them, which, if it should be lost, I should not miss and be concerned about the loss of it too, once in the year."
Cotton devotes a whole chapter to collection of flies for every month of the year. Few of them have modern analogues. But he had looked closely at the world around him with the acuity and open-mindedness which distinguishes a great fly fisherman. Here is his stonefly:
His body is long and pretty thick, and as broad at the tail, almost, as at the middle; his colour is a very fine brown, ribbed with yellow and much yellower on the belly than on the back: he has two or three little whisks also at the tag of his tail, and two little horns upon his head: his wings, when full grown, are double, and flat down upon his back, of the same colour but rather darker than his body and longer than it...
On a calm day you shall see the still-deeps continually all over circles by the fishes rising, who will gorge themselves with these flies, will they purge again out of their gills.
In Montana, the fish still rise to stoneflies until the water is “continually all over circles”, but in the UK it is an anachronism. Cotton’s Derbyshire is more remote from modern England and closer to the wilderness than Montana or Alaska are now. He is quite unashamed of bait fishing, whether with flies or with grubs. He kills fish until weary. “I have in this very river that runs by us, in the or four hours taken thirty, five and thirty, and forty of the best trouts in the river.” And he concludes his advice with a note of earthy practicality not to be found as the sport becomes more refined: a recipe for fresh trout boiled with beer and horseradish. It is excellent, by the way.
Here is a man who loves nothing more than that his friends should share his delight. In the gorge of the Dove he has made a private garden “with a delicate clear river about it.” where the world is reduced to its simplest and best essentials.
His masterpiece in translation, the
Essays of M. de Montaigne (1685-1686, 1693, 1700, etc.), 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 VairGuillaume du Vair was a French author and lawyer.He was born in Paris. After taking holy orders, he exercised only legal functions for most of his career. However, from 1617 till his death he was Bishop of Lisieux. His reputation is that of a lawyer, a statesman and a man of letters...
;
The History of the Life of the Duke d'Espernon (1670), from the French of G Girard; the
Commentaries (1674) of
Blaise de MontlucBlaise de Lasseran-Massencôme, seigneur de Montluc , was a marshal of France.He was born at the family seat near Condom in the modern département of Gers. Despite being the eldest son of a good family, he had, like most gentlemen of Gascony, to rely on his sword...
; the
Planter's Manual (1675), a practical book on
arboricultureArboriculture is the cultivation and management of trees within the landscape. This includes the study of how trees grow and respond to cultural practices and the environment, as well as application of cultural techniques such as selection, planting, care, surgery and removal.The main focus of...
, 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.
If this sounds dry and unattractive to a modern ear, here is his epitaph for "M.H.", a prostitute
(spacing, spelling and capitalization as originally printed):
Epitaph upon M.H
In this cold Monument lies one,
That I know who has lain upon,
The happier He : her Sight would charm,
And Touch have kept King David warm.
Lovely, as is the dawning East ,
Was this Marble's frozen Guest ;
As soft, and Snowy, as that Down
Adorns the Blow-balls frizled Crown;
As straight and slender as the Crest,
Or Antlet of the one beam'd Beast;
Pleasant as th' odorous Month of May :
As glorious, and as light as Day .
Whom I admir'd, as soon as knew,
And now her Memory pursue
With such a superstitious Lust,
That I could fumble with her Dust.
She all Perfections had, and more,
Tempting, as if design'd a Whore ,
For so she was; and since there are
Such, I could wish them all as fair.
Pretty she was, and young, and wise,
And in her Calling so precise,
That Industry had made her prove
The sucking School-Mistress of Love :
And Death , ambitious to become
Her Pupil , left his Ghastly home,
And, seeing how we us'd her here,
The raw-bon'd Rascal ravisht her.
Who, pretty Soul, resign'd her Breath,
To seek new Letchery in Death.
More information
William OldysWilliam Oldys , was an English antiquarian and bibliographer.The natural son of Dr William Oldys, chancellor of Lincoln, London was probably his place of birth. His father had held the office of advocate of the admiralty, but lost it in 1693 because he would not prosecute as traitors and pirates...
contributed a life of Cotton to Hawkins's edition (1760) of the
Compleat Angler. His
Lyrical Poems were edited by JR 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
WC HazlittWilliam Hazlitt was an English writer, remembered for his humanistic essays and literary criticism, and as a grammarian and philosopher. He is now considered one of the great critics and essayists of the English language, placed in the company of Samuel Johnson and George Orwell, but his work is...
, who omitted or relegated to the notes the passages in which Cotton interpolates his own matter, and supplied his omissions.
External links
----