the Fathers, Martyrs, and other principal Saints; compiled from original monuments and other authentick records; illustrated with the remarks of judicious modern criticks and historians.’ The original edition, bearing the imprint of London, but without the printer's name, appeared in four bulky octavo volumes, the first two in 1756; the third, consisting of two parts, in 1757 and 1758; and the fourth in 1769. The notes were omitted from this edition on the suggestion of Bishop Challoner. The second edition was undertaken after Butler's death by Dr. Carpenter, archbishop of Dublin, and published in that city in 12 vols. 8vo, 1779-80. It contains all the notes omitted from the previous edition, and other matter prepared by the author. The third edition, also in 12 vols., appeared at Edinburgh in 1798-1800. Other editions were published at London, 12 vols., 1812; and at Dublin, 2 vols., 1833-6, 8vo. Dr. Husenbeth's edition was begun in 1857. A 'free' translation into French, by the Abbé Godescard, and Marie Villefranche, in 12 vols. 8vo, was published in 1763 and subsequent years; a new edition, in 10 vols., appeared at Besançon in 1843. The work has been translated into Italian by G. Brunati.
Soon after his return to England he was chosen president of the English college at Saint-Omer. This office he continued to hold during the remainder of his life. He was also appointed vicar-general to the bishops of Arras, Saint-Omer, Ypres, and Boulogne-sur-Mer. He died at Saint-Omer on 16 May 1773.
He projected many works besides the 'Lives of the Saints.' His 'Life of Mary of the Cross,' a nun in the English convent of Poor Clares at Rouen, appeared in his lifetime; but his treatise on the 'Moveable Feasts and Fasts, and other Annual Observances of the Catholic Church,' was left incomplete, and was published after his death by Bishop Challoner in 1774. He made large collections for lives of Bishop Fisher and Sir Thomas More; and he began a treatise to explain the evidence and truths of natural and revealed religion, being dissatisfied with what Bergier had published on those subjects. He composed many sermons and an immense number of pious discourses. From what remained of the latter the 'Meditations and Discourses on the sublime Truths and important Duties of Christianity,' published by his nephew Charles Butler (1750-1832) [q. v.] (3 vols., London, 1791-3), were collected. He was also the author of 'The Life of Sir Tobie Matthews,' published at London in 1795 by his nephew, who also edited his uncle's 'Travels tnrough France and Italy, and part of Austrian, French, and Dutch Netherlands, during the years 1745 and 1746' (Edinburgh, 1803).
His portrait has been engraved by Finden.
[Life of his nephew, Charles Butler (Edin. 1800, with portrait); Catholicon, iv. 184; Catholic Magazine and Review (Birmingham, 1832), ii.451; Edinburgh Catholic Magazine (1832-3), i. 166; Notes and Queries (1st series), viii. 387, ix. 360, (2nd series) ix. 502, x. 79, (3rd series) vi. 538, (5th series) vi. 409, vii. 35; Evans's Cat. of Engraved Portraits, ii. 65; The True State of the Case of John Butler, B.D., a Minister of the True Church of England; in answer to the Libel of Martha, his sometimes wife (Lond. 1697); Lowndes's Bibl. Man. (Bohn), 332; Cat. of Printed Books in Brit. Mus.]
BUTLER, CHARLES (d. 1647), philologist and author of 'The Feminine Monarchie,' was born at one of the Wycombes ('Great Wycomb, I suppose,' says Wood) in Buckinghamshire. He entered Magdalen Hall, Oxford, in 1579, and afterwards became a bible-clerk at Magdalen College, where he took the degree of B.A. on 6 Feb. 168S-4, and proceeded M.A. on 28 June 1587. On leaving the university he received the mastership of the free school in Basingstoke, Hampshire, which appointment, together with the cure of a small church named Skewres, he held for seven years. Afterwards he was advanced to the poor vicarage of Laurence-Wotton (three miles from Basingstoke), where he continued to officiate for forty-eight years. He died on 29 March 1647, and was buried in the chancel of Laurence-Wotton church.
Butler is the author of 'The Feminine Monarchie, or a Treatise concerning Bees and the due ordering of Bees,' 1609, 8vo. Prefixed to the treatise are some commendatory verses by Warner, South, and H. Crosby; the preface to the reader is dated from Wotton, 11 July 1609. A second edition, with commendatory verses by Wither, and a frontispiece, appeared in 1623. The third edition (1634) is printed in phonetic spelling, under the title of 'The Feminin' Monarchi', or the Histori of Bees.' A Latin translation by Richard Richardson, of Emmanuel College, was published in 1673. The most curious part of this entertaining book is the bees' song, a stave of musical notes, arranged in triple time, to represent the humming of bees at swarming. Butler had previously written a Latin treatise on rhetoric, 'Rhetoricæ Libri Duo. Quorum Prior de Tropis & Figuris, Posterior de Voce & Gestu præcipit,' 4to, which is not known to have been published before 1629, although the dedicatory epistle to Lord Keeper Egerton is dated from Basingstoke '5 Idus Martii 1600.' In 1625 Butler pub-
