a burlesque poet, was descended of a good family, and lived in the reign of Charles II, and James II. His most noted piece is Scarronides, or a travesty of the first and fourth books of the Euclid. But though, from the title, one might imagine it an imitation of Scarron's famous travesty of the same author, yet, upon examination, it will be found to excel not only that, but every other attempt of the same kind which has hitherto been made. He also translated several of Lucian's dialogues, in the same manner, under the title of The Scoffer d, and wrote another poem of a more serious kind, entitled The Wonders of the Peak. The exact period of Mr Cotton's birth or his death is nowhere recorded; but it is probable that the latter happened about the time of the revolution. Neither is it better known what were his circumstances with respect to fortune. They appear, however, to have been easy, if one may judge from the turn of his writings, which is such as seems scarcely possible for any one to indulge in whose mind was not perfectly at ease. There is one anecdote told of him which seems to show that his vein of humour could not restrain itself on any consideration. It appears that in consequence of a single couplet in his Virgil Tractacy, in which he has made mention of a peculiar kind of ruff worn by a grandmother of his who lived in the Peak, he lost an estate of L400 per annum. The old lady, whose humour and testy disposition he could by no means have been a stranger to, was never able to forgive the liberty he had taken with her; and having her fortune wholly at her own disposal, although she had previously made him her sole heir, she altered her will, and gave away the estate to an absolute stranger.

COTTON, Nathaniel, an English physician of the eighteenth century, who long practised at St Albans, where he had the principal charge of a lunatic asylum, and where also he died in the year 1788. Like several other medical men of this country, he cultivated poetry as well as physic; and although he published observations on a particular kind of scarlet fever, yet he is better known as the author of poetical pieces, inserted in the collection published by Doddley, and particularly by a work in verse, entitled, Visions for the Improvement of Children, which has been several times reprinted.

COTTON DES HOUSAYES, Jean-Baptiste, doctor and librarian of the Sorbonne, was born at Neuville-Chant-d'Oisel, near Rouen, in November 1727, and died at Paris in August 1783. He professed theology during fifteen years at Rouen, but with what success we are not informed. His works are, 1. Eloge Historique de M. Maillet du Boullay, Rouen, 1770, 8vo; 2. Eloge Historique de l'Abbé de Suas, 1775, 8vo; 3. Eloge Historique de Chamouset, prefixed to the Oeuvres complètes de Chamouset, 1785, 2 vols. 8vo, which Cotton edited; and, 4. Several articles relating to botany, in the Journal de Physique of 1790. He had also laboured at a work on universal literary history, to be entitled Bibliothèque Raisonnée, the plan of which may be seen in the Année Littéraire of 1780, and in the Journal des Savans of 1781.