such as astrology and alchemy, which science now justly considers beneath her notice. In his own age, not one of Boyle's books awakened so much stir as his Degradation of Gold made by an Anti-Elixir, 1678, in which a modern reader is mainly astonished at the observer's credulity. But when all this has been said to excess, it remains the fact that Boyle, and the Invisible College of Philosophers which he claimed to have created, were the pioneers of all that science has achieved from that day to this, and that we owe the deepest gratitude to their passion for investigation and their unwearied search after truth. From our present standpoint, too, these early "virtuosi " deserve consideration on account of the care which they took to

make their language elegant

and lucid. In this it cannot be said that their influence on British science has been as far-reaching as might be desired.

Boyle's attitude towards life and thought is sometimes agreeably fantastic, as in such a passage as the following:

"It is so uncommon a thing to see tulips last till roses come to be blown, that the seeing them in this garden grow together, as it deserves my notice, so methinks it should suggest to me some reflection or other on it. And perhaps it may not be an improper one to compare the difference betwixt these two kinds of flowers to the disparity which I have often observed betwixt the fates of those young ladies that are only very handsome, and those that have a less degree of beauty recompensed by the accession of wit, discretion, and virtue. For tulips, whilst they are fresh, do, indeed, by the lustre and vividness of their colours, more delight the eye than roses; but then they do not alone quickly fade, but as soon as they have lost that freshness and gaudiness that solely endeared them, they degenerate into things not only undesirable, but distasteful; whereas roses, besides the moderate beauty they disclose to the eye,-which is sufficient to please, though not to charm it,-do not only keep their colour longer than tulips, but, when that decays, retain a perfumed odour, and divers useful qualities and virtues that survive the spring, and recommend them all the year. Thus those unadvised young ladies, that, because nature has given them beauty enough, despise all other qualities, and even that regular diet which is ordinarily requisite to make beauty itself lasting, not only are wont to decay betimes, but, as soon as they have lost that youthful freshness that alone endeared them, quickly pass from being objects of wonder and love, to be so of pity, if not of scorn."

During the first twenty years after the Restoration, poetry was very little cultivated in England outside the limits of the heroic drama. That new instrument, the couplet, was acknowledged to be an admirable one, and to have excluded all competitors. But very little advance had been made in the exercise of it during the forty years which had followed the publication of Denham's Cooper's Hill. Dryden, for all his evidence of force, was disappointing his admirers. He had shown himself a supple prose-writer,

Samuel Butler

indeed; but his achievements in verse up to his fiftieth year were not such as could claim for him. any pre-eminence among poets. He was at last to discover his true field; he was about to become the greatest English satirist, and in doing so to reveal qualities of magnificent metrical power such as his warmest followers had not dreamed of. Since the Elizabethans had cultivated a rough and obscure species of satire moulded upon Persius, serious work of this class had gone out of fashion. But in the reign of Charles I. a rattling kind of burlesque rhyming, used for similar purposes in most of the countries of Europe, came into service for parodies, extravagant fables, and satirical attacks. In France,

Scarron raised it to the level of literature, but it was known in England before the days of Scarron. Cleveland had used it, and Sir John Mennis, in whose Musarum Delicia we find

"He that fights and runs away

May live to fight another day;"

and later on it was brought into great popularity by Cotton and SAMUEL BUTLER. The famous Hudibras of the latter, "written in the time of the Late Wars," was kept in MS. till 1663, when the publication of so gross a lampoon on the Presbyterians became possible. It was greatly relished, and though it is a barbarous and ribald production of small literary value, it is still

praised, and perhaps occasionally read. It affords rare opportunities for quotation, every few pages containing a line or couplet of considerable facetiousness. Hudibras was incessantly imitated, and the generic term Hudibrastics was invented for this kind of daring doggerel.

Samuel Butler (1612-1680) was born at Strensham, in Worcestershire, and was baptized in February 1612. The worldly status of his parents is matter of dispute, but that they were not rich seems to be proved from the fact that, after attending the King's School in Worcester, Butler went directly into business as a local clerk. Later on he came south,

and is described as having been amanuensis to Selden. It is stated that he was in the service of Sir Samuel Luke, of Cople Ho, in Bedfordshire, a fanatical Presbyterian, from whose eccentricities Butler was immediately led (as is supposed) to make studies which were useful to him in writing Iludibras, but this statement has been discredited. Until past the age of fifty, however, Butler remained entirely obscure, and the ingenuity of scholars has scarcely contrived to throw the least

light upon his

movements. After 1660, we learn that

Illustration by Hogarth to Butler's "Hudibras," 1726

he was secretary to the Earl of Carbery and steward of Ludlow Castle, and that he married. In 1663 appeared, at length, the first part of Hudibras, Written in the Time of the Late Wars. It enjoyed from the first a startling popularity, and passed without delay through several editions. The second part followed early in 1664; the third part, which completes the poem, not being given to the public until 1678. The Earl of Dorset made the fortune of Hudibras at court, and the king himself delighted in its witty abuse of his enemies; he is said to have carried it in his pocket, and to have

Books & Suttons

He hat believes in the Scriptures is mistaken of he. Merefore: 196
thinker ho believes in God, For the Scriptores are not the im=
mediate word of God, for they were written by Men, though
vichioù by Duime Revelation; of roth sime: we haur no Torti =
mony but thin own; nor any other Assurance, we do not bs=
love them because they are the word of Goi ; for
Irous them, before we believe that not,

no

wes must be... wee rousine only from them. And if we boline God, behangs. noe behind them, we bo= houe in him, but at the second hand; & buite the Foundation of Fayth in God, Fayth in Mon So if we may ma грап our belisus in God because we botique in the Scriptures, no down our solurs; for I will a man something of a third Pochon vor de le= lines, ho dos not Blius that third Porten, but mos that tol it ki.

cc

haur so much Power to comit

ޔ

ޔ

He that appearos
+ appears to be of no Roligion may porhaps be us much a
wol-wilion to Dishonesty as a Roligious Porten, but can nouer
any great or confideratto mischit
For he that bespraken overy mans Distrust, shall darity be able
quor to deceive any. If such Mon intend any hart to Mankinde
they are very unwise to depruir themselves of th: Rower of act =
my it, is looss so many aduuntages to?, the more Prstanic of Reli-
gion would put into their hands. For the Sumt & the Sixpo⋅rie
are so very like, that they pass: all the world oust indistinguished.
the difference boing only in the Inside Fertil it be too love) but
of wine que quite.
by Symptomes that commonly bely bath. All wor are sure.
sure of u;
that the Hypocrites are the greater Number, more devoutly zealous
in appoarance;
is much more crafty; then those that are in barn =

est.

Guevara Antiquary to Chatles the & in his Epible to him swake's
of an old Coyn of an Ayyptian King, the Ancientest that over
ho saw, that had a Latin Infeription upon it Much like this Stagg
Some years
smi sayd to be kild that had a collos found about
his neck wth an English Rhini written in it by Juteur (afor

Passage in the handwriting of Samuel Butler

(

been never tired of quoting it. But the poet, although "he was a good fellow," was difficult to help. He was very shy and awkward, and could never be witty unless he was quite alone with one or two familiar friends. Even then, "whilst the first bottle was drinking he appeared very flat

and heavy, at the second bottle, full of wit and learning, but before the third bottle was finished he sunk again into stupidity and dulness." The king intended to patronise him, but in an interview which he gave him, Butler was so nervous, dull, and tactless, that Charles II. seems to have been disgusted with him. According to the universal contemporary tradition, Butler was neglected and sank into great poverty. He died in 1680, whether of consumption or of insufficient nourishment, or both, is undecided. He was living at the time in lodgings in Rose Street, Covent Garden, and he was buried in the presence of about twenty-five friends" in the adjacent parish church of St. Paul's. His posthumous writings remained in MS. for nearly eighty years, when, in 1759, they were in part published by Mr. Thyer. Butler is described to us as a thick-set man of middle height, with a high colour and a shock of lion-coloured hair; he was

66

W: Hogarth Inv et foulp:

'sanguine, choleric, middle-sized, strong." It is remarkable that in spite of his great fame during the latter years of his life, we possess scarcely any record of Butler's employments, associations, or habits. He is one of the most shrouded figures in the whole history of our literature. He lives only in his extraordinary study of the vulgar side of Puritanism, with its strange hero, in whom the qualities of Don Quixote and Tartuffe seem to meet in a bewildering and grotesque confusion of wit and wisdom.

VOL. III.

FROM 66 HUDIBRAS."

Ay me! what perils do environ

The man that meddles with cold iron!

What plaguey mischiefs and mishaps.

Do dog him still with after-claps!

For though Dame Fortune seem to smile,

And leer upon him for a while,

She'll after show him, in the nick
Of all his glories, a dog-trick.

K