Charles Cotton, an English poet, born at Beresford hall, Staffordshire, in 1630, died at Westminster in 1687. He was educated at Cambridge, travelled on the continent, and inherited in 1658 his father's estate near the river Dove, famous for its beauty and its trout, where he passed a studious and careless life, delighting his friends by his humor and accomplishments. He built a fishing house on the banks of the Dove, in which he entertained for years his friend Izaak Walton. He translated several works from the French and Italian, among which were Montaigne's "Essays" and Corneille's tragedy of "Horace." In 1664 and 1672 he published "Scarronides, or Vir-gile Travestie," an indelicate burlesque of the first and fourth books of the Aeneid. He also burlesqued several of the dialogues of Lucan in poetical translations, and wrote a serious poem entitled "The Winders of the Peake" (1681), a humorous piece entitled "A Journey to Ireland," and some occasional poems of great merit. He is now best known by the second part which he added to the fifth edition of Walton's "Complete Angler," valuable for the technical information which it gives concerning fly fishing, and for its descriptions of the scenery of the Dove.