the library should not be too much known. There are many things in it, which are very cross to the Romish interest, and you know what kind of persons the Jesuits are. My little villa at Stratton is now very pleasant; if you please (whilst your college is now in trouble) to make this place your retreat, you shall be most heartily welcome, and then we shall have time to discourse of this and other affairs. Pray forget not to present my service to Sir W. Hayward. I am your most affectionate friend and servant, I give you many thanks (ora JapaceBOS TE NOVIC Tε, to use my old friend Homer's θος words) for the book you sent me. I have always very much loved and esteemed Sannazarius. I am of Joseph Scaliger's opinion, that for elegancy and purity of language he doth contend with the ancients. This edition is very neat and correct. I have written to John Vigures, that Betty Hart should let you into the library when you please. As for any thing of a bond, I desire none. I know you, and confide in your worth and honesty. I enjoy (God be thanked) very good health; and I converse sometimes with the poets, to sweeten the ill humour and chagrin which is incident to my years. A decent gravity is commendable in age, but all sourness is to be avoided. But old in my retired thoughts I cannot but lament the condition of mankind, who does not suffer so much by the calamities incident unto his nature, diseases, pestilential ague, fires, inundations, as by those which he brings upon himself by his own folly and madness. When you meet Sir Philip Meadows, I desire you to present my service to him. In return of his elegant verses I have sent him an epigramme upon the day of our Saviour's birth. In this traffic of poetry, I am the great gainer, for Sir Ph. doth exchange (as Glaucus did with Diomedes) χρυσέα καλκείων. ask I your pardon for giving you the trouble of this long letter, upon the account that I am Your faithful friend and servant, Stratton, Jan. 1, 1690. J. COTTON. SIR, LETTER X. From the same to the same. me, that I AM glad to find by your letter to you are so firmly resolved to go on with the work of my grandfather's life. You will do a great honour to our family. For as Pliny saith of Martial, who writ of him and his way of living a very elegant epigram. I will give you Pliny's own words, for to give you them in my English is to spoil them. Dedit mihi quantum maximum potuit, daturus amplius, si potuisset. Tametsi quid homini potest dari majus, quam gloria, et laus, et æternitas? I am going on with my own life; but as the most incomparable Mr. Cowley observes very ingeniously, it is a hard and nice. subject for a man to write of himself; it grates his own heart to say any thing of disparagement, and the reader's ears to hear any thing of praise from him. However, having undertaken it, I intend now to go on, and I think I shall now suddenly come to an end. When I have finished it, I leave it wholly, both as to the matter and stile, to your emendations. I desire you in this to make use of your exact judgment, not your friendship. By your blots and strictures it may receive a beauty, which of itself it had not. I return you many thanks for the account you give me of the present affairs. I think in such dubious times the best way to preserve one's quiet and innocence is to be a spectator; and Oe8 S'ETEMELETO ẞ8λ is the most sure and safe remedy against all the calamities of human life. By God's great mercy to me I enjoy at present so firm and an unphysick'd health, that I hope to do somewhat before I die, that I may not seem to have lived altogether to no purpose. The publishing my Genesis is the thing that was most in my mind, which sometimes I hope I may live to accomplish. But I forget that I write now a letter, not a treatise. Pardon me upon the account that I am Your faithful friend and servant, THE Country air and exercise, especially hunting, hath, by God's mercy to me, brought me to so good a degree of health, that I have not much to accuse old age of. That you may know I am in good humour, I send you here some verses, writ in a sudden heat, and therefore (it may be) not so correct, as they ought to be. The occasion was this. My brother Cotton desired me to send him a piece of venison, to celebrate the birth-day of his young and only son; which I did, and with it these verses. In natalem D. Roberti Cottoni. Vota Johannis Cottoni pro nepote suo sibi charissimo R. Cottono, D. Roberti Cottoni equitis aurati Filio. Cresce, puer, tecum et repetens exempla tuorum, Artibus ingenuis cultus sis, quicquid Athenæ, As for the public affairs I desire wholly to acquiesce in God's Providence. I have a great, it may be too great a love and concern for my country. But if in this I err, I err by the example of the greatest and best of the Romans, and it seems to be at the least a pious and goodnatured error. SIR, LETTER XII. From the same to the same. Stratton, April 1, 1693. FINDING by your last letter that you have not so good health as you have used to have, I am much troubled. I hope the spring now advancing apace, by the help of your friend Dr. Brady, with God's blessing upon his endeavours, you will recover your former health and |