qua omnes bonos eruditionisque
candidatos complexus est, quicquam reverentiae qua vicissim
ille colebatur, detraxerat: potius, omnium, quos familiari
sermone, repititisque colloquiis dignari placuit, in se
amores et admirationem hac insigni naturae benignitate
excitavit." Vit. Rob. Cottoni, p. xxiv., prefixed to the
_Catalogus Librorum Manuscriptorum Bibl. Cott._, 1696,
folio. Sir Robert was, however, doomed to have the evening
of his life clouded by one of those crooked and disastrous
events, of which it is now impossible to trace the correct
cause, or affix the degree of ignominy attached to it, on
the head of its proper author. Human nature has few blacker
instances of turpitude on record than that to which our
knight fell a victim. In the year 1615, some wretch
communicated to the Spanish ambassador "the valuable state
papers in his library, who caused them to be copied and
translated into the Spanish:" these papers were of too much
importance to be made public; and James the 1st had the
meanness to issue a commission "which excluded Sir Robert
from his own library." The storm quickly blew over, and the
sunshine of Cotton's integrity diffused around its wonted
brilliancy. But in the year 1629, another mischievous wretch
propagated a report that Sir Robert had been privy to a
treasonable publication: because, forsooth, the original
tract, from which this treasonable one had been taken, was,
in the year 1613, without the knowledge of the owner of the
library, introduced into the Cottonian collection. This
wretch, under the abused title of librarian, had, "for
pecuniary considerations," the baseness to suffer one or
more copies of the pamphlet of 1613 (writtten [Transcriber's
Note: written] at Florence by Dudley, Duke of
Northumberland, under a less offensive title) to be taken,
and in consequence printed. Sir Robert was therefore again
singled out for royal vengeance: his library was put under
sequestration; and the owner forbidden to enter it. It was
in vain that his complete innocence was vindicated. To
deprive such a man as COTTON of the ocular and manual
comforts of his library--to suppose that he could be happy
in the most splendid drawing room in Europe, without his
books--is to suppose what our experience of virtuous