The microstructure, V-Ι characteristics, and stability of ZnO-P $r_{6}$ $O_{11}$ CoO-C $r_2$ $O_3$- $Y_2$ $O_3$-based varistor ceramics were investigated with cooling rate in the range of 2~8$^{circ}C$/min. The cooling rate relatively weakly affected the microstructure, the varistor voltage, and the leakage current in the V-Ι characteristics. But the nonlinear exponent relatively strongly affected by cooling rate. The cooling rate also greatly affected the stability of V-Ιand dielectric characteristics for DC accelerated aging stress. On the whole, the varistors cooled with 4$^{circ}C$/fin exhibited the highest performance in the densification, nonlinearity, and stability. Especially, they exhibited a high stability, in which the variation rate of the varistor voltage( $V_{1㎃}$), the nonlinear exponent($alpha$), and the dissipation factor(tan $delta$) is -1.4%, -4.9%, and ＋60.0%, respectively, under DC accelerated aging stress such as 0.95 $V_{1㎃}$15$0^{circ}C$/12 h)