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Book I,
Chap. II.

LIFE OF

COTTON.

COTTON'S
EARLY
FRIEND-
SHIPS.

Robert COTTON was educated at Trinity College in Cambridge, where he took the degree of B.A. towards the close SIR ROBERT of 1585.* Of his collegiate career very little is discoverable, save that it was an eminently studious one. Long before he left Trinity, he had given unmistakeable proofs of his love for archæology. Some among the many conspicuous and lifelong friendships which he formed with men likeminded took their beginnings at Cambridge, but most of them were formed during his periodical and frequent sojourns in London. John JosCELINE, William DETHICK, Lawrence NoWELL, William LAMBARDE, and William CAMDEN were amongst his earliest and closest friends. Most of them were much his seniors. Whilst still in the heyday of youth he married Elizabeth BROCAS, daughter and eventually coheir of William BROCAS of Thedingworth in Leicestershire. Soon after his marriage he took a leading part in the establishment of the first Society of Antiquaries.

* Here, if we accepted Cotton's authorship of the Twenty-four Arguments, whether it be more expedient to suppress Popish Practices, &c., published in the Cottoni Posthuma, by James Howell, we should have to add that he travelled on the Continent and passed many months in Italy.' But that tract is not Cotton's-though ascribed to him by so able and careful an historian as Mr. S. R. Gardiner (Archæologia, vol. xli. Comp. Prince Charles and the Spanish Marriage, &c., vol. i, p. 32). That its real author was in Italy is plain, from his own statement I remember that in Italy it was often told me,' &c.; and, again: 'In Rome itself I have heard the English fugitive taxed,' &c., Posthuma, pp. 126, seqq. Dr. Thomas Smith put a question as to this implied visit of Sir Robert to Italy to his grandson, Sir John Cotton, who assured him that no such visit was known to any of the family; by all of whom it was believed that their eminent antiquary never set foot out of Britain. Smith's words are these:

'D. Joannes Cottonus hac de re a me literis consultus, se de isthoc avi sui itinere Italico ne verbum quidem a Patre suo edoctum fuisse respondit. . . . . Cottonum usum et cognitionem linguæ Italicæ a Joanne Florio .... anno 1610 addidicisse ex ejusdem literis ad Cottonum scriptis, mihi certo constat.' Vita, p. xvii.

Chap. II.

Some of COTTON's fellow-workers in the Society are known BOOK I, to all of us by their surviving writings. Others of them LIFE OF are now almost forgotten, though not less deserving, COTTON. perhaps, of honourable memory; for amongst these latter

was

that good Earl, once President

Of England's Council and her Treasury;
Who liv'd in both unstain'd with gold or fee,'

at a time when such praise could seldom be given truthfully. It was as a contributor towards the common labours of that Society that COTTON made his earliest appearance as an author. The subjects chosen for his discourses at the periodical meetings of the Elizabethan antiquarians indicate the prevalent bias of his mind. Nearly all of them may be said to belong to our political

archæology.

SIR ROBERT

THE COT

LIBRARY

AND GAL-
LERY.

Before the close of the sixteenth century, his collections GROWTH OF of Manuscripts and of Antiquities had already become so TONIAN large and important as to win for him a wide reputation in foreign countries, as well as at home. His correspondence indicates, even at that early period, a generous recognition of the brotherhood of literature, the world over, and proves the ready courtesy with which he had learned to bear somewhat more than his fair share of the obligations thence arising. In later days he was wont to say to his intimates: I, myself, have the smallest share in myself.' From youth, onwards, there is abundant evidence that the saying expressed, unboastingly, the simple facts of his daily life.

WITH CAM

DEN.

CAMDEN was amongst the earliest of those intimates, FRIENDSHIP and to the dying day of the author of the Britannia the close friendship which united him with COTTON was both unbroken and undiminished. The former was still in the

Book I, Chap. II.

LIFE OF

SIR ROBERT
COTTON.

full vigour of life when COTTON had given proof of his worthiness to be a fellow-labourer in the field of English antiquities. In 1599 they went, in company, over the northern counties; explored together many an old abbey and many a famous battle-field. When that tour was made, the evidences of the ruthless barbarism with which the mandates of HENRY THE EIGHTH had been carried out

by his agents lay still thick upon the ground, and may well have had their influence in modifying some of the religious views and feelings of such tourists. Not a few chapters of the Britannia embody the researches of COTTON as well as those of CAMDEN; and the elder author was ever ready to acknowledge his deep sense of obligation to his younger colleague. For both of them, at this time, and in subsequent years, the storied past was more full of interest than the politics, howsoever momentous or exciting, of the day. But, occasionally, they corresponded on questions of policy as well as of history. There is evidence that on one stirring subject, about which men's views were much wont to run to extremes, they agreed in advocating moderate courses. In the closing years of the Queen, COTTON, as well as CAMDEN, recognised the necessity that the Government should hold a firm hand over the emissaries of the Church and Court of Rome, whilst refusing to admit that a due repression of hostile intrigues was inconsistent with the honourable treatment of conscientious and peaceful Romanists.

It was, in all probability, almost immediately after COTTON's return from the Archæological tour to the North which he had made with his early friend, that he received a message from the Queen. ELIZABETH had been told of his growing fame for possessing an acquaintance with the mustiest of records, and an ability to vouch precedents'

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