Alderman Barber in Westminster Abbey. This was the occasion of some rather misplaced wit from Pope and others, In 178G a tablet was placed in St Paul s, Covent Garden, by some inhabitants of that parish. This was destroyed in 1845. Some thirty or forty years ago another was set up at Strensham by a Mr Taylor of that place. Perhaps the happiest epitaph on him is one by Dennis, which (borrowing, indeed, its most striking ex pression from Cowley) sets forth that Butler " was a whole
species of poets in one."Butler s published works during his life consisted of the three parts of Hudibras (the second and third were republished together in 1674, with notes by the author) ; of an Ode on Duval(iG famous highwayman) ; and of two pamphlets attributed to Prynne. In 1715 three volumes, entitled Posthumous Works of Mr S. JSutler, were published with great success. Their contents, however, are all spurious except one or two short pieces. The poet s papers remained in the hands of his friend Mr Longueville, and were not published till 1759, when Mr Thyer, librarian at Manchester, edited two volumes of verse and prose under the title of Genuine Remains. The most remarkable of the prose writings are characters of the kind popular in the 17th century, and partaking largely of the faults usual in such pieces. To this some additional fragments were added in 1822; a fragment of a tragedy on Nero is also spoken of. In 1726 Hogarth executed some illustrations to Hudibras, which are among his earliest but not, perhaps, happiest productions. In 1744 Dr Zachary Grey published an edition of Hudibras , which has been repeatedly reprinted, and has formed (with that of Nash in 1793) the basis of all subsequent editions. It contains an enormous mass of notes, displaying little critical or literary power, but abounding in curious information. A w r orthy edition is still to seek ; but that of the late Mr R. Bell is convenient, and supplies much information, which is generally accurate. Mr Bohn s (of Hudibras only) is also useful. Butler s lesser works would of themselves fairly sustain, though perhaps they would hardly create, a great reputation. Abundance of happy thought, of ingenious expression, and of vigorous verse, may be found in the Miscellaneous Thoughts, the Ode on Duval, and the Satires on the Royal Society (The Elephant in the Moon} and on Critics. But the splendour of Hudibras has somewhat paled their fire.
Hudibras itself, though probably quoted as often as ever, has perhaps dropped into the class of books which are more quoted than talked of, and more talked of than read. In reading it, it is of the utmost importance to compre hend clearly and to bear constantly in mind the purpose of the author in composing it. This purpose is evidently not artistic but polemic, to show in the most unmistakable characters the vileness and folly of the. anti-royalist party. Anything like a regular plot the absence of which has often been deplored or excused would have been for this end not merely a superfluity but a mistake, as likely to divert the attention and perhaps even enlist some sympathy for the heroes. Anything like regular character-drawing would have been equally unnecessary and dangerous for to represent anything but monsters, some alleviating strokes must have been introduced. The problem, therefore, was to produce characters just sufficiently unlike lay-figures to excite and maintain a moderate interest, and to set them in motion by dint of a few incidents not absolutely uncon nected, meanwhile to subject the principles and manners of which these characters were the incarnation to ceaseless satire and raillery. The triumphant solution of the pro blem is undeniable, when it has once been enunciated and understood. Upon a canvas thus prepared and outlined, Butler has embroidered a collection of flowers of wit, which only the utmost fertility of imagination could devise, and the utmost patience of industry elaborate. In the union of these two qualities he is certainly without a parallel, and their combination has produced a work which is unique. The poem is of considerable length, extending to more than ten thousand verses, yet Hazlitt hardly exaggerates when he says that "half the lines are got by heart ;" indeed a diligent student of later English literature has read great part of Hudibras though he may never have opened its pages. The tableaux or situations, though few and simple in construction, are ludicrous enough. The knight and squire setting forth on their journey ; the routing of the bear-baiters ; the disastrous renewal of the contest ; Hudibras and Ptalph in the stocks ; the lady s release and conditional acceptance of the unlucky knight ; the latter s deliberations on the means of eluding his vow ; the Skimmington ; the visit to Sidrophel, the astrologer ; the attempt to cajole the lady, with its woeful consequences ; the consultation with the lawyer, and the immortal pair of letters to which this gives rise complete the argument of the whole poem. But the story is as nothing ; through out we have little really kept before us but the sordid vices of the sectaries, their hypocrisy, their churlish ungracious ness, their greed of money and authority, their fast and loose morality, their inordinate pride. The extraordinary felicity of the means taken to place all these things in the most ridiculous light has never been questioned. The doggrel metre, never heavy or coarse, but framed so as to be the very voice of mocking laughter, the astounding similes and disparates, the rhymes which seem to chuckle and to sneer of themselves, the wonderful learning with which the abuse of learning is rebuked, the subtlety with which subtle casuistry is set at nought can never be missed. Keys like those of L Estrange are therefore of little use. It signifies nothing whether Hudibras was Sir Samuel Luke of Bedfordshire or Sir Henry Ilosewell of Devonshire, still less whether Ralph s name in the flesh was Robinson or Pendle, least of all that Orsin was perhaps Mr Gosling, or Trulla possibly Miss Spencer. Butler was probably as little indebted to mere copying for his characters as for his ideas and style. These latter are in the highest degree original. The first notion of the book, and only the first notion, Butler undoubtedly received from Don Quixote. His obligations to the Satyre Mtnippee have been noticed by Voltaire, and though English writers have sometimes ignored or questioned them, are not to be doubted by any student of the two books. The art (perhaps the most terrible of all the weapons of satire) cf making characters without any great violation of probability represent them selves in the most atrocious and despicable light was never perhaps possessed in perfection except by Pithou and his colleagues and by Butler. Against these great merits some defects must certainly be set. As a whole, the poem is no doubt tedious, if only on account of the very blaze of wit, which at length almost wearies us by its ceaseless demands on our attention. It should, however, be remembered that it was originally issued in parts, and therefore (it may be supposed) intended to be read in parts, for there can be little doubt that the second part was written before the first was published, A more real defect, but one which Butler shares with all his contemporaries from Jonson downwards, is the tendency to delineate humours instead of characters, and to draw from the outside rather than from within. This also may be partially palliated by some remarks made above.
the manner and versification of Hudibras, especially in Cleveland and in the Musarum Ddicice (lately reprinted) of Sir John Mennis (Pepys s Minnes) and Dr Smith. But
if it had few ancestors it had an abundant offspring. A.
