Cole, Charles Nalson

, an English lawyer, and legal antiquary, was born in the Isle of Ely in 1722, and educated at St. John’s college, Cambridge, which he left after taking his bachelor’s degree in 1743; and having studied law in the Inner Temple, was admitted to the bar. He became afterwards Registrar to the corporation of Bedford Level, and published “A Collection of Laws which form the constitution of the Bedford Level Corporation, with an introductory history thereof,” 1761, 8vo. In 1772 he was editor of a new edition of Sir William Dugdale’s “History of embanking and drayning of divers terms and marshes, &c.” originally printed 1662, to I. This new edition was first undertaken by the corporation of Bedford Level; but upon application to Richard Geast, esq. of Blythe~Hall, in the county of Warwick, a lineal maternal descendant of the author, he desired that it might be entirely conducted at his own e.vpence. Mr. Cole added three very useful indexes. Mr. Cole’s next appearance in the literary world was as editor to Mr. Soame Jenyns’s | works, with whom he had lived in habits of friendship for near half a century. Mr. Jenyns, who died in 1787, bequeathed to him the copy-right of all his published works, and consigned to his care all his literary papers, with a desire that he would collect together and superintend the publication of his works. In executing this, Mr. Cole made such a selection as shewed his regard for the reputation of his friend, and prefixed a life written with candour. Mr. Cole, who had long lived a private and retired life, died Dec. 18, 1804, at his house in Edwardstreet, Cavendish-square, after a tedious and severe illness, in the eighty-second year of his age. ¹