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The following miscellaneous thoughts are partly from "Hudibras" and partly from Butler's "Remains":

"In Rome no temple was so low

As that of Honour, built to show
How humble Honour ought to be,
Though there 'twas all authority."
"Money that, like the swords of Kings,
Is the last reason of all things."

"Ay me! what perils do environ

The man that meddles with cold iron ?”

""Tis not restraint or liberty

That makes men prisoners or free,

But perturbations that possess

The mind, or equanimities.

The whole world was not half so wide

To Alexander when he cried

Because he had but one to subdue,

As was a paltry narrow tub to

Diogenes, who is not said

(For aught that ever I could read)

To whine, put finger i' th' eye, and sob
Because he had ne'er another tub."

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* In the read:

"Apophthegms" of Erasmus, translated by Udall, 1542, we

"That same man that runnith awaie

Maie again fight another daie."

Butler was imitated by Goldsmith in his “Art of Poetry on a New Plan "

"He who fights and runs away
May live to fight another day;
But he who is in battle slain
Can never rise and fight again."

+ Pronounced say.

VOL. II.

M

Took crabs and oysters prisoners,
And lobsters 'stead of cuirassiers:
Engaged his legions in fierce bustles
With periwinkles, prawns, and mussels,
And led his troops, with furious gallops,
To charge whole regiments of scallops."
"Madame, I do as is my duty,

Honour the shadow of your shoe-tie."

"Anti-christian assemblies

To mischief bent as far's in them lies."

"That proud dame

Used him so like a base rascallion,

That old Pyg-what d' you call him-malion,
That cut his mistress out of stone,

Had not so hard a hearted one."

"O Heaven!' quoth she,' can that be true?

I do begin to fear 'tis you ;

Not by your individual whiskers,

But by your dialect and discourse.""

Samuel Butler, the author of "Hudibras," was born at Strensham, in Worcestershire, in 1612. About almost every main incident in his life the authorities differ, and they differ also in their descriptions of his father's position; for while Anthony Wood says his father was comparatively wealthy, others assert that he was simply a yeoman of poor estate, and that it was with difficulty he provided his son with such education as the Worcester Grammar School afforded. As to the future poet, it is equally uncertain whether he went from school to Oxford University or to Cambridge, or whether he went to either. While still in his early manhood he obtained an appointment as clerk to Mr. Jefferys, of Earl's Coombe, in Worcestershire, an eminent justice of the peace; and here he turned his leisure to advantage in the study of books, and the cultivation of music and painting. He was next at Wrest, in Bedfordshire, the seat of the Countess of Kent,

where he enjoyed the use of a good library and the conversation of the learned Selden. Afterwards we find him

in the family of Sir Samuel Luke, a Presbyterian Colonel and one of Cromwell's officers, "scout master for Bedfordshire, and governor of Newport Pagnell." We must suppose the treatment he received at the hands of his patron was harsh and ungenerous, or we shall be unable to excuse the want of gratitude and good faith which led him to caricature Sir Samuel in the person of Sir Hudibras. And that Sir Samuel was the original seems

by no means doubtful from the following allusion:

"'Tis sung there is a valiant Mamaluke

In foreign land ycleped

when the rhyme obviously requires that the blank should be filled up with the Colonel's name.†

At the Restoration Butler was made secretary to the Earl of Carberry, Lord President of Wales, and also steward of Ludlow Castle. About the same time he married-Mrs. Hubert, a widow of means, says one biographer,—a widow, says another, who had lost her fortune by injudicious investments. In 1662, at the age of fifty, he rose into sudden reputation by the publication of the first part of his colossal satire, which, as we learn from Pepys, was the admiration of the King and his courtiers. The *The name was borrowed from Spenser:-"Sir Hudibras, a hardy man" ("Fairy Queen," ver. 2, i., 17.) Sidrophel, the astrologer, was meant for Lilly.

The elder Disraeli, in his "Curiosities of Literature," in an elaborate paper endeavours to vindicate Butler from the accusation of ingratitude in having caricatured his patron, Sir Samuel Luke. His vindication seems to us worth nothing, if it be agreed that Luke was really the original, as most persons believe, of Butler's hero. But it is only justice to state that the editors of "The Grub Street Journal" (January 1730) assert that the actual prototype was "a Devonshire man, Colonel Rolle," and that the name Hudibras" is derived from " Hugh de Bras," the old tutelar saint of Devonshire. The assertion would be easier to credit if those who made it had given us some particulars both of the Devonshire Colonel and the Devonshire saint!

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second part followed in 1663; the third in 1678. Butler had to be content with fame. If he needed, and anticipated, a more solid recompense he was disappointed. The story that Charles presented him with a purse of three hundred guineas rests on no authentic foundation; and though Clarendon, it is said, gave him reason to hope for perferment he never received it. Anthony Wood asserts, but the other authorities deny, that the Duke of Buckingham, when Chancellor of Cambridge, appointed him as his secretary, and on all occasions treated him with liberality and kindness. But if this be untrue, there seems reason to believe that the following anecdote is not less untrue: "Mr. Wycherley had always laid hold of any opportunity which offered of representing to the Duke of Buckingham how well Mr. Butler had deserved of the royal family by writing his inimitable Hudibras, and that it was a reproach to the Court that a person of his loyalty and wit should suffer in obscurity, and under the wants he did. The Duke always seemed to hearken to him with attention enough, and after some time undertook to recommend his pretensions to his Majesty. Mr. Wycherley, in hopes to keep him steady to his word, obtained of his Grace to name a day, when he might introduce that modest and unfortunate poet to his new patron. At last an appointment was made, and the place of meeting was agreed to be the Roebuck. Mr. Butler and his friend attended accordingly; the Duke joined them, but as the devil would have it, the door of the room where they sat was open, and his Grace, who had seated himself near it, observing a pimp of his acquaintance (the creature too was a knight) trip by with a brace of ladies, immediately quitted his engagement to follow another kind of business,

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