he faw the principles and practices of the rebels, audacious and undisguised in the confidence of fuccefs. At length the King returned, and the time came in which loyalty hoped for its reward. Butler, however, was only made fecretary to the Earl of Carbury, prefident of the principality of Wales; who conferred on him the stewardship of Ludlow Caftle *, when the Court of the Marches was revived. In this part of his life, he married Mrs. Herbert, a gentlewoman of a good family; and lived, fays Wood, upon her fortune, having ftudied the common law, but never practifed it. A fortune fhe had, fays his biographer, but it was loft by bad fecurities. In 1663 was published the first part, containing three cantos, of the poem of Hudibras, which, as Prior relates, was made known at Court by the taste and influence of the Earl of Dorfet. When it was known, it was neceffarily admired: the king quoted, the courtiers ftudied, and the whole party of the royalifts applauded it. Every eye watched for the golden fhower which was to fall upon the author, who certainly was not without his part in the general expectation. In 1664 the fecond part appeared; the curiofity of the nation was rekindled, and the writer was again. praised and elated. But praife was his whole reward. Clarendon, fays Wood, gave him reafon to hope for places and employments of value and credit;" but no fuch advantages did he ever obtain. It is reported • This is faid by Mr. Thomas Warton, and with great appearance of truth, to have been a very honourable and lucrative office. Mil. ton's Poems with notes. that that the King once gave him three hundred guineas; but of this temporary bounty I find no proof. Wood relates that he was fecretary to Villiers Duke of Buckingham, when he was Chancellor of Cambridge: this is doubted by the other writer, who yet allows the Duke to have been his frequent benefactor. That both these accounts are false there is reafon to fufpect, from a story told by Packe, in his account of the Life of Wycherley; and from fome verfes which Mr. Thyer has published in the author's Re mains. "Mr. Wycherley," fays Packe, "had always laid "hold of an opportunity which offered of representing "to the Duke of Buckingham how well Mr. Butler "had deferved of the royal family, by writing his " inimitable Hudibras; and that it was a reproach to "the Court, that a perfon of his loyalty and wit "fhould fuffer in obfcurity, and under the wants he "did. The duke always feemed to hearken to him "with attention enough; and, after fome time, un"dertook to recommend his pretenfions to his Majefty. Mr. Wycherley, in hopes to keep him 66 fteady to his word, obtained of his Grace to name a 'day, when he might introduce that modeft and un"fortunate poet to his new patron. At last an ap"pointment 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 d-1 would have it, the door of the room "where they fat was open, and his Grace, who had "feated himself near it, obferving a pimp of his ac"quaintance (the creature too was a knight) trip by "with a brace of Ladies, immediately quitted his en"gagement, N 3 gagement, to follow another kind of business, at "which he was more ready than in doing good offices "to men of defert; though no one was better qualified "than he, both in regard to his fortune and underftanding, to protect them; and from that time to the "day of his death, poor Butler never found the least "effect of his promife!" Such is the ftory. The verfes are written with a degree of acrimony, fuch as neglect and difappointment might naturally excite; and fuch as it would be hard to imagine Butler capable of expreffing against a man who had any claim to his gratitude. Notwithstanding this difcouragement and neglect, he still profecuted his defign; and in 1678 published the third part, which ftill leaves the poem imperfect and abrupt. How much more he originally intended, or with what events the action was to be concluded, it is vain to conjecture. Nor can it be thought ftrange that he should stop here, however unexpectedly. To write without reward is fufficiently unpleafing. He had now arrived at an age when he might think it proper to be in jeft no longer, and perhaps his health might now begin to fail. He died in 1680; and Mr. Longueville, having unfuccefsfully folicited a fubfcription for his interinent in Weflminster Abbey, buried him at his own cost in the church-yard of Covent Garden *. Dr. Simon Patrick read the fervice. Granger was informed by Dr. Pearce, who named for his authority Mr. Lowndes of the treafury, that Butler *In a note in the "Biographia Britannica," page 1075, he is faid, on the authority of the younger Mr. Longueville, to have lived for fome years in Rofe Street, Covent-Garden, and alfo that he died there; the latter of thete particulars is rendered highly probable by bis being interred in the cemetery of that par fh, had had an yearly penfion of an hundred pounds. This is contradicted by all tradition, by the complaints of Oldham, and by the reproaches of Dryden; and I am afraid will never be confirmed. About fixty years afterwards, Mr. Barber, a printer, Mayor of London, and a friend to Butler's principles, bestowed on him a monument in Westminster Abbey, thus infcribed: M. S. SAMUELIS BUTLER I, Vir doctus imprimis, acer, integer; Hoc tanden, pofito marmore, curavit After his death were published three small volumes of his pofthumous works: I know not by whom collected, or by what authority afcertained; and, lately, two volumes more have been printed by Mr. Thyer of Manchester, indubitably genuine. From none of thefe pieces can his life be traced, or his character difcovered. Some verfes, in the laft collection, fhew him to have been among those who ridiculed the inftitution of the Royal Society, of which the enemies were for fome time very numerous and very acrimonious, for what reafon it is hard to conceive, fince the philofophers profeffed not to advance doctrines, but to pro* They were collected into one, and published in 12mo. 1732. N 4 duce duce facts; and the moft zealous enemy of innova tion must admit the gradual progrefs of experience, however he may oppofe hypothetical temerity. In this mist of obfcurity paffed the life of Butler, a man whofe name can only perish with his language, The mode and place of his education are unknown; the events of his life are variously related; and all that can be told with certainty is, that he was poor. THE poem of Hudibras is one of those compofitions of which a nation may juftly boaft; as the images which it exhibits are domeftick, the fentiments un. borrowed and unexpected, and the strain of diction original and peculiar. We muft not, however, fuffer the pride, which we affume as the countrymen of Butler, to make any encroachment upon juftice, nor appropriate thofe honours which others have a right to fhare. The poem of Hudibras is not wholly English; the original idea is to be found in the history of Don Quixote; a book to which a mind of the greatest powers may be indebted without difgrace. Cervantes fhews a man, who having, by the inceffant perufal of incredible tales, fubjected his understanding to his imagination, and familiarifed his mind by pertinacious meditation to trains of incredible events and scenes of impoffible exiftence, goes out in the pride of knighthood to redrefs wrongs, and defend virgins, to refcue captive princeffes, and tumble ufurpers from their thrones; attended by a fquire, whofe cunning, too low for the fufpicion of a generous mind, enables him often to cheat his master. The |