Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 07

by Unknown

(1612-1680)

A pretty picture of the time is the glimpse of young Mr. Pepys at the bookseller's in London Strand on a February morning in 1663, making haste to buy a new copy of 'Hudibras,' and carefully explaining that it was "ill humor of him to be so against that which all the world cries up to be an example of wit." The Clerk of the Admiralty had connections at court; and between that February morning and a December day when Mr. Battersby was at the Wardrobe using the King's time in gossip about the new book of drollery, the merry Stuart had found out Sam Butler's poem and had given it the help of his royal approval. Erstwhile, Samuel the courtier had thought the work of Samuel the poet silly, and had given warranty of his opinion by suffering loss of one shilling eightpence on his purchase of the book. A view not to be wondered at in one who sets down "Midsummer Night's Dream" as "insipid and ridiculous," and "Othello" as a "mean thing"! Perhaps it was because Butler had a keen knowledge of Shakespeare, and unconsciously used much of the actor's quick-witted method, that his delicately feathered barbs made no dent on the hard head of Pepys. Like his neighbor of the Avon, the author of "Hudibras" was a merciless scourge to the vainglorious follies of the time in which he poorly and obscurely lived; and like the truths which he told in his inimitable satires, the virtue and decency of his life was obscured by the disorder of the Commonwealth and the unfaith of the restored monarchy.

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler was born near Strensham, Worcestershire, in 1612, the fifth child and second son of a farmer of that parish, whose homestead was known to within the present century as "Butler's tenement." The elder Butler was not well-to-do, but had enough to educate his son at the Worcester Grammar School, and to send him to a university. Whether or what time he was at Oxford or Cambridge remains doubtful. A Samuel Butler went up from Westminster to Christ Church, Oxford, 1623, too soon for the Worcester lad of eleven years. Another doubtful tradition places him at Cambridge in 1620. There is evidence that he was employed as a clerk by Mr. Jeffreys, a justice of the peace at Earl's Croombe in Worcestershire, and that while in this position he studied painting under Samuel Cooper. A portrait of Oliver Cromwell attributed to his hand was once in existence, and a number of paintings, said to have been by him, hung on the walls at Earl's Croombe until they were used to patch broken windows there in the last century. Butler went into the service of Elizabeth, Countess of Kent, at Wrest in Bedfordshire, where he had the use of a good library and the friendship of John Selden, then steward of the Countess's estate. It was there and in association with Selden that he began his literary work. Some time afterward he held a servitor's position in the family of an officer of Cromwell's army, Sir Samuel Luke, of Woodend, Bedfordshire. A manuscript note in an old edition of 'Hudibras,' 1710, "from the books of Phil. Lomax by gift of his father, G. Lomax," confirms the tradition that this Cromwellian colonel was the original of Hudibras. The elder Lomax is said to have been an intimate friend of Butler. Another name on the list of candidates for this humorous honor—the honor of contributing with Don Quixote to the increase of language—is that of Sir Henry Rosewell of Ford Abbey, Devonshire. But it is unnecessary to limit to an individual sample the satirist and poet of the whole breadth of human nature. A presumption that Butler was in France and Holland for a time arises from certain references in his writings. It was about 1659, when the decline of the Cromwells became assured, that Butler ventured, but anonymously, into print with a tract warmly advocating the recall of the King. At the Restoration, and probably in reward for this evidence of loyalty, he was made secretary to the Earl of Carbury, President of Wales, by whom he was appointed steward of Ludlow Castle. About this time he married a gentlewoman of small fortune, and is said to have lived comfortably upon her money until it was lost by bad investments. The King having come to his own again, Butler obtained permission in November 1662 to print the first part of 'Hudibras.' The quaint title of this poem has attracted much curious cavil. The name is used by Milton, Spenser, and Robert of Gloucester for an early king of Britain, the grandfather of King Lear; and by Ben Jonson—from whom Butler evidently adopted it—for a swaggering fellow in the 'Magnetic Lady':—

"Rut—Where is your captain
Rudhudibrass de Ironside?"

Act iii., Scene 3.

Charles II. was so delighted with the satire that he not only read and reread it, but gave many copies to his intimates. The royal generosity, lavish in promises, never exerted itself further than to give Butler—or Boteler, as he is writ in the warrant—a monopoly of printing his own poem.