Sir John COTTON, the eldest son of the first marriage, sat in Parliament for the borough of Huntingdon in the reign of CHARLES THE SECOND, and for Huntingdonshire in that of JAMES THE SECOND. But he took no prominent part in public affairs. Like his father he was twice married. And his first wife became step-daughter as well as daughter-in-law to his father, being Dorothy, daughter and heir of Edmund ANDERSON of Eyworth above mentioned. His second wife was Elizabeth HONYWOOD. He seems to have resembled his father both in his tastes for a quiet country life, and in the liberality with which he allowed (on reasonable cause and to proper persons) access to his library. Nor did Sir John, any more than Sir Thomas, escape animadversion, when he allowed himself to form his own judgment of the fitness or the timeliness of any particular application. [Sidenote: _Autobiog. and Corresp._, vol. ii, p. 40.] [Sidenote: _History of the Reformation_, vol. iii, _Introd._, p. 8. (Edit. of 1714.)] Caustic Symonds D’EWES writes down Sir Thomas COTTON as ‘unworthy to be master of so inestimable a library.’ Caustic Bishop BURNET writes in his turn of Sir John COTTON: ‘A great Prelate had possessed him with such prejudices against me that ... he desired to be excused’ [from granting BURNET admittance to the Cottonian Library] ‘unless the Archbishop of Canterbury or a Secretary of State would recommend me as a person fit to have access.’ Against strictures such as these, it were easy, but is not needful, to adduce a score of acknowledgments of deep obligation, from writers more eminent by far than either D’EWES or BURNET. The eldest son (also John) of Sir John COTTON, by his wife Dorothy, did not live to inherit either the famous library or the ancestral estates. He died in 1681, and his later days seem to have been marked by some stormy incidents. In one point, his troubles resembled those which disturbed the last year of his great-grandfather’s life;—in so far as that they were caused by a lady. But whereas Sir Robert had the lady thrust upon him, to suit the purposes of other men, the misfortunes of his great-grandson appear to have grown out of an ardent but illicit passion—as ardently, and not less illicitly, returned by its object. Some scraps of their correspondence which have chanced to be preserved read, after two centuries of dusty repose, as if they were still all aflame with that fierce love which an experienced poet describes as ‘passion’s essence.’[20]