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NOTES AND QUERIES.

2nd s. NO 13., MAR. 29. '56.

n horseman in the equestrian costume of George II. brought to a dead stop by a sudden precipice, all beyond being very downy-looking ether.

'V. T. STERNBERG.

CEucrfaS.

MILTON : SUPPOSED SONNET.

Ma. C. HOWARD KENTONT asks (1 st S. iii. 37.) if the sonnet printed below, extracted from A Collection of Recente and Witty Pieces by several Hands. London, printed by \V. S. for Simon Waterfou, 1628, can be by Milton. A subsequent Query addressed to ME. KENTON, asking if the book was in his possession, seems to have escaped his notice, as there is no reply. It is a question of some literary interest, and I should therefore be glad to have, through your columns, the opinion of competent persons on the subject. Also to know if any of your correspondents have seen the book referred to. B.

" On the Librarie at Cambridge. " In that great maze of books I sighed and said, ' It is a graveyard, and each tome a tombe ; Shrouded in hempen rags, behold the dead

Coffined and ranged in crypts of dismal gloom ; Food for the worm and redolent of mold, Traced with brief epitaph in tarnished gold.

Ah, golden lettered hope ! ah, dolorous gloom ! Yet 'mid the common death, where all is cold,

And mildewed pride in desolation dwells, A few great immortalities of old

Stand brightly forth not tombes but living shrines, Where from high sainte or martyr virtue wells ;

Which on the living yet work miracles, Spreading a relic wealth richer than golden mines.' "

" J. M. 1627."

THE COTTON FAMILY.

I am desirous to perfect a pedigree of the family of Sir Robert Bruce Cotton, the distinguished an- tiquary, and find difficulties in more than one quarter. I wish to ascertain who was the first (or second) wife of Sir Robert's son and successor, Sir Thomas Cotton, Bart. There is to his me- mory, in the south aisle of Conington Church, Huntingdonshire, a handsome medallion monu- ment (similar to that erected to his father), which gives us the following information with regard to his wives and children : " Dvas vxores lectissimas Foeminas sibi sociavit ex

priori

Filium Joannem Filias Luciam et Franciscan! suscepit ex Posteriori Tres filios (vno prjerepto) et duas filias Superstites reliquit."

The " filium Joannem" was the Sir John Cotton*

beth, the second wife of this Sir John Cotton, in which her virtues are quaintly proclaimed. " She was a lady of true and solid piety, of an excellent understanding and
 * 'There is a monument in Conington Church to Eliza-

who was the donor of the Cottonian Library, and whose medallion monument is in the north aisle of Conington Church ; but the inscription does not record the name of his mother. I have carefully looked through the registers of Conington, and the following is the sole entry (that I have found) in which a wife of Sir Thomas Cotton is men- tioned :

"Anno dm. 1642.

" Frances, the daughter of Sir Thomas Cotton, by Dame Alice his wife, was baptized August 28, 1C42."

This Frances is probably the " Francisca " of the inscription, for I infer that the " Daine Alice " was the first wife. What was her maiden name, &c.?

I had no clue to the other wife until a few days since, when, in looking over the pedigree of the Howards, in Hodgson's Northumberland (part ir. vol. ii. p. 381.), I found that the third daughter of Lord William Howard (" Belted Will") and Elizabeth Dacre, of Naworth, was Margaret Howard, who " married Sir Thomas Cotton, of Conington, Bart." As this lady was born in 1593, and as there is at Castle Howard a portrait of her by Cornelius Jansen, taken at the age of seventy- three, she must have survived her husband ; " argal" Dame Alice (whoever she may have been) was the first wife of Sir Thomas. I think it probable that the following entry in the Co- nington register refers to this Margaret Howard :

" Mrs. Margaret Cotton, buryed Febr. 12, 1688."

At any rate, I cannot affix it to any other member of the Cotton family. Thomas Cotton, a second son of Sir Thomas, is buried at Steeple Gidding. Required particulars and names of the other two sons, and of the two daughters. Is Francis Amyand, Esq., M.P., the present lineal repre- sentative of the elder branch of the Cottons ? If not, who is ?

" The male line of the ancient, honourable, and loyal family of the Bruce Cottons " ended in 1749, in the person of Sir John Cotton, as is set forth in his monument on the north wall of the church of Steeple Gidding, Huntingdonshire ; the church to which Nicolas Ferrar went, until he and the church of Little Gidding were ready for each other. CUTHBERT BEDE.

sharpness of wit, a most loving and tender wife, an indul- gent and carefull mother, obliging in her deportment to- wards her neighbours and friends, and bountifull and charitable to the poore." The monument to her daughter Mary, who married Roger Kinyon, Gent., records that " she was graceful and modest, wise and innocent ; her duty and love in every relation were sincere and eminent. Her religion was pure and undefiled. It was charity to the afflicted ; piety to God ; and obedience for conscience sake to her superiors, spiritual arid civil."