c poetry, but was particularly
famous for burlesque verse. He translated from the French Monsieur
Corneille's Horace, printed in 4to. London 1671, and dedicated to his
dear sister Mrs. Stanhope Hutchinson. This play was first finished in
1665, but in his prefatory epistle he tells us,

'that neither at that time, nor for several years after, was it
intended for the public view, it being written for the private
divertisement of a fair young lady, and, ever since it had the
honour first to kiss her hands, was so entirely hers, that the
author did not reserve so much as the Brouillon to himself;
however, she being prevailed upon, though with some difficulty,
it was printed in 8vo. 1670.'

As to the merit of this play in the original, it is sufficient to
observe, that the critics have allowed it to be the best tragedy of
Corneille, and the author himself is of the same opinion, provided the
three last acts had been equal to the two first. As to the translation
by Mr. Cotton, we have very considerable authority to pronounce it
better than that of Mrs. Katherine Philips, who could not number
versification among her qualities. The plot of this play, so far
as history is concerned, may be read in Livy, Florus, Dionysius
Halicarnasseus, &c. Our stage has lately had a play founded upon this
story, added to the many it has received, called the Roman Father, by
Mr. W. Whitehead.

Besides this translation, Mr. Cotton is author of many other works, such
as his poem called the Wonders of the Peak, printed in 8vo. London 168;
[1] His burlesque Poem, called Scarronides, or Virgil Travestie, a mock
Poem, on the first and fourth Books of Virgil's AEneid, printed in 8vo.
London 1678. Though the title seems to imply as if his poem was in
imitation of Scarron, who has translated eight books of Virgil in the
same manner, yet they who will compare both these pieces, will possibly
find, that he has not only exceeded the French, but all those who have
made any attempts on that kind of poetry, the incomparable author of
Hudibras excepted. Mr. Cotton likewise translated several of Lucian's
Dialogues into burlesque verse, printed in 8vo. London 1675, under
the title of the Scoffer Scoff'd. In 1689 a volume of poems, with Mr.
Cotton's name prefixed, was published in London: on these poems colonel
Lovelace, Sir Alton Cockaine, Robert Harrick, esq; and Mr. Alexander
Brome, complimented the author by copies of verses prefixed; but Mr.