BOLTON (or BOULTON), EDMUND (1575?-1633?), English historian and poet, was born by his own account in 1575. He was brought up a Roman Catholic, and was educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, afterwards residing in London at the Inner Temple. In 1600 he contributed to _England's Helicon_. He was a retainer of the duke of Buckingham, and through his influence he secured a small place at the court of James I. Bolton formulated a scheme for the establishment of an English academy, but the project fell through after the death of the king, who had regarded it favourably. He wrote a _Life of King Henry II._ for Speed's _Chronicle_, but his Catholic sympathies betrayed themselves in his treatment of Thomas Becket, and a life by Dr John Barcham was substituted (Wood, _Ath. Oxon._ ed. Bliss, iii. 36). The most important of his numerous works are _Hypercritica_ (1618?), a short critical treatise valuable for its notices of contemporary authors, reprinted in Joseph Haslewood's _Ancient Critical Essays_ (vol. ii., 1815); _Nero Caesar, or Monarchic Depraved_ (1624), with special note of British affairs. Bolton was still living in 1633, but the date of his death is unknown. BOLTON (BOLTON-LE-MOORS), a municipal, county and parliamentary borough of Lancashire, England, 196 m. N.W. by N. from London and 11 m. N.W. from Manchester. Pop. (1891) 146,487; (1901) 168,215. Area, 15,279 acres. It has stations on the London & North-Western and the Lancashire & Yorkshire railways, with running powers for the Midland railway. It is divided by the Croal, a small tributary of the Irwell, into Great and Little Bolton, and as the full name implies, is surrounded by high moorland. Although of early origin, its appearance, like that of other great manufacturing towns of the vicinity, is wholly modern. It owes not a little to the attractions of its site. The only remnants of antiquity are two houses of the 16th century in Little Bolton, of which one is a specially good example of Tudor work. The site of the church of St Peter has long been occupied by a parish church (there was one in the 12th century, if not earlier), but the existing building dates only from 1870. There may also be mentioned a large number of other places of worship, a town hall with fine classical facade and tower, market hall, museums of natural history and of art and industry, an exchange, assembly rooms, and various benevolent institutions. Several free libraries are maintained. Lever's grammar school, founded in 1641, had Robert Ainsworth, the Latin lexicographer, and John Lempriere, author of the classical dictionary, among its masters. There are municipal technical schools. A large public park, opened in 1866, was laid out as a relief work for unemployed operatives during the cotton famine of the earlier part of the decade. On the moors to the north-west, and including Rivington Pike (1192 ft.), is another public park, and there are various smaller pleasure grounds. A large number of cotton mills