to suppose, that he only attended the public lectures, which at that time (as at present) were numerous and respectable. The accounts of his youth, however, are extremely defective; and we are only told, that when he quitted Cambridge, he became clerk to Mr. Jefferys of Earl's Croom, an eminent Magistrate for the County of Worcester. With this gentleman he lived some years in great comfort, having leisure to apply himself to his favourite studies and amusements; history, poetry, music, and painting.* He afterward obtained the patronage of Elizabeth Countess of Kent, a lady of considerable learning, and the protectress of men of letters. In her house he not only found an excellent library, but likewise formed an acquaintance with many of her enlightened visitors. Among others he became intimate with Selden, who often employed him in business connected with literature. But in what character, or for how long a period, he served that lady, and why he left her service is, like most of the other incidents of his life, unknown.

His next residence was with Sir Samuel Luke, a gentleman of an ancient family in Bedfordshire, and one of the Generals of Oliver Cromwell. Here he very probably planned, if he did not also write, the celebrated poem of HUDIBRAS, under which character it is supposed he intended to ridicule his employer. He had indeed, at this time, an opportunity

* Several pictures, traditionally assigned to his pencil, long remained in his first master's family, proving his early inclination to that noble art, for which also he was at a later period highly regarded by the distinguished artist, Mr. Samuel Cooper. Not long afterward, Dr. Nash found they had been employed to stop windows; and adds, that they hardly deserved a better fate!'

of conversing with those living characters of nonsense and hypocrisy, which he so vividly portrays and exposes throughout his whole work.

Some years after the Restoration, he was made Secretary to Richard Earl of Carbery, Lord President of Wales, and appointed Steward of Ludlow Castle, when the Lord President's Court was revived at that place. About the same time, likewise, he married Mrs. Hubert, a widow lady of good family and competent fortune, of which however the greater part, being placed on bad securities, was unfortunately lost: but we have no dates to the few recorded events of his existence, and must therefore be guided in those respects by collateral circumstances. His Hudibras,' of which the First Part was published in 1663, introduced him, probably, to the notice of the courtiers, and particularly to that poet and patron of learning, the Earl of Dorset. By him it was made known to the King, who often pleasantly quoted it in conversation.

Every eye, says Dr. Johnson, now watched the golden shower which was to fall upon the author, who certainly was not without his share in the general expectation. In 1664, the Second Part appeared; the curiosity of the nation was rekindled, and the writer was again praised and elated.

himself declared:

Rochester

'I loath the rabble; 'tis enough for me
If Sedley, Shadwell, Sheppard, Wycherly,
Godolphin, BUTLER, Buckhurst, Buckingham,
And some few more whom I omit to name,
Approve my sense: I count their censure fame.'

}

Alas! praise was his sole reward. Clarendon, says

Wood, gave him reason to hope for "places and employments of value and credit;" but no such advantage did he ever obtain. Baffled in his views, the man whose wit had delighted and whose satire had tended to reform a nation, was suffered in his old age to struggle with all the calamities of indigence.

Something strikingly similar in the fates of Butler and Cervantes has been pointed out. Both, by the united force of wit and satire, emancipated their respective countries from fanaticism of different kinds and both, while their works were universally applauded, were suffered, the Spaniard to perish with infirmity and in a prison, and the Englishman (by a destiny to a generous mind as severe) to linger out a long life in precarious dependence. So just is the observation of Juvenal:

Haud facilè emergunt, quorum virtutibus obstat
Res angusta domi-

"Slow rises worth, by poverty deprest."

(JOHNSON.)

6

In his Court Burlesqued' (said to have been written in 1678) which appeared with his Posthumous Works,' in the characters of Clarendon, Buckingham, Shaftesbury, &c. he had his abundant

revenge.

With his slender though honourable appointment under the Lord President of Wales, and his wife's jointure, he appears to have supported himself, while he danced attendance in hopes of preferment or some suitable reward for his poetical services.

Wycherly (a brother poet, then in high favour) seized every opportunity, we are told, of recom

mending Butler to the Duke of Buckingham;* and even went so far as to pronounce it a reproach to the court, that a person of his wit and loyalty should suffer in obscurity:' upon which, Buckingham undertook to name him to his Majesty; and Wycherly, to forward the business, requested the Duke to fix a time and place when he might introduce the modest and unfortunate poet to his new patron. In conformity to his orders, the two poets attended his Grace at the Roebuck, a noted tavern: but unfortunately, soon after they met, a knight of Buckingham's acquaintance passed by with two abandoned women, whom he instantly pursued; nor from that hour did he recollect his promises in favour of the author of Hudibras.

Granger, says Dr. Johnson, was informed by Dr. Pearce, who named for his authority Mr. Lowndes of the Treasury, that Butler had a yearly pension of a hundred pounds. This is contradicted by all tradition, by the complaints of Oldham,† and by the

* Aubrey, or Wood, incorrectly records, that he was 'Secretary to his Grace, when he was Chancellor of the University of Cambridge.'

+ This writer, in his Satire against Poetry,' introduces the ghost of Spenser dissuading him from it, upon experience and example that poverty and contempt were it's inseparable attendants. After having adduced his own case, and those of Homer and Cowley, he adds:

• On Butler who can think without just rage,
The glory and the scandal of the age?
Fair stood his hopes, when first he came to town;
Met every where with welcomes of renown,
Courted and loved by all, with wonder read,
And promises of princely favour fed!

reproaches of Dryden;* and, I am afraid, will never

be confirmed.

But what reward for all had he at last?-
After a life in dull expectance past,

The wretch, at summing up his mis-spent days,
Found nothing left but poverty and praise:
Of all his gains by verse, he could not save
Enough to purchase flannel and a grave.
Reduced to want, he in due time fell sick,
Was fain to die, and be interr'd on tick;
And well might bless the fever, that was sent

To rid him hence, and his worse fate prevent.'

Otway also, in his Prologue to Constantine the Great,' with a feeling almost prophetic of his own destiny, exclaims: "

-'All ye who have male issue born
Under the starry sign of Capricorn,
Prevent the malice of their stars in time,

And warn them early from the sin of rhyme:

Tell them how Spenser starved, how Cowley mourn❜d,
How Butler's faith and service were return'd.' &c.

In his Dedication of his Juvenal,' where also he observes: "The worth of his poem is too well known to need any com. mendation, and he is above my censure. The choice of his numbers is suitable enough to his design, as he has managed it; but in any other hand the shortness of his verse, and the quick returns of rhyme, had debased the dignity of stile. His good sense is perpetually shining through all he writes: it affords us not the time of finding faults; we pass through the levity of his rhyme, and one is immediately carried into some admirable useful thought. After all, he has chosen this kind of verse, and has written the best in it." Both Dryden and Addison however, in reference to Butler's genius, have expressed their regret that 'instead of embalming his wit in heroic verse, he condescended to burlesque and doggrel.' But Addison has not been consistent in his judgement; and the opinions of Dryden were frequently immature. One remark may, at least, be made in it's favour, that the versification has perhaps been a principal