ly, and Sherlock had held conversations in her presence. Butler, as a friend of Clarke's, may have been introduced at these during his preachership at the Rolls. Secker, who in 1733 had become chaplain to the king, mentioned his friend soon afterwards to the queen, who said that she thought he had been dead. She repeated this to Archbishop Blackburne of York, who replied, ‘No, madame, he is not dead, but he is buried.’ However this may be, the queen became interested in Butler, and commanded his attendance, we are told, every evening from seven till nine. The queen died next year (20 Nov. 1737), and just before her death commended Butler to Potter, the new archbishop of Canterbury. Butler, according to Lord Hervey (Memoirs, ii. 529), was the only person whom she recommended ‘particularly and by name’ during her illness. A month later, as Secker told Jekyll, who told Dr. Thomas Wilson, son of the bishop of Man, he preached a sermon before the king upon profiting by affliction; his hearer was much affected, and promised to ‘do something very good for him’ (Steere's Remains, p. 5).
George II, in any case, desired to carry out the queen's wishes. Butler received next year an offer from Walpole of the bishopric of Bristol, from which Dr. Gooch was translated to Norwich. In a letter to Walpole (dated Stanhope, 28 Aug. 1738) Butler accepts the offer, but says that it was ‘not very suitable either to the condition of my fortune or the circumstances of my preferment, nor, as I should have thought, to the recommendation’ (that is the queen's) ‘with which I was honoured.’ The bishopric was in fact the poorest in England. Butler was allowed to hold his prebend at Rochester (resigning that at Salisbury) and his rectory at Stanhope in commendam, until 1740, when he was appointed dean of St. Paul's. He was installed 24 May, and resigned his other preferments. Butler spent considerable sums in improving the bishop's palace at Bristol; some report from three to five thousand pounds, others the whole income of the see for twelve years (Bartlett's, Butler, p. 89, (Steere's Remains). The merchants of the town offered a large gift of cedar, part of which he carried afterwards to Durham. The few glimpses of Butler's private life belong to this period. In March 1737 John Byrom was introduced to him by the famous David Hartley, at whose house they met. A long argument took place, in which Butler supported the claims of reason, while Byrom defended the claims of authority. Byrom ends by wishing that he had ‘Dr. Butler's temper and calmness, yet not quite, because I thought he was a little too little vigorous’ (Byrom's Remains (Chetham Soc.), ii. 96–9). Byrom dined with Butler 14 Feb. 1749, when the bishop entertained a party of fifteen, and was ‘very civil and courteous’ (ib. p. 486). In August 1739 Wesley had an interview with Butler. Wesley was at the beginning of his career as a preacher, and his sermons had caused some of those phenomena which to Wesley appeared to be proofs of divine power, while Butler would regard them with suspicion as symptoms of ‘enthusiasm’ in the bad sense of the word. They had caused scandal, and the bishop probably felt it a duty to remonstrate. After some argument about faith and works, Butler spoke with horror of claims to ‘extraordinary revelations and gifts of the Holy Spirit;’ he spoke of people falling into fits at the meetings of the society, and ended by advising Wesley to leave his diocese. Wesley declined to give any promise (Tyerman's Life of Wesley, i. 247). At Bristol, Butler made the acquaintance of Josiah Tucker, afterwards the well-known dean of Gloucester. Butler made Tucker his domestic chaplain, and gave him a prebend in the cathedral. Tucker tells us that Butler used to walk for hours in the garden behind his palace at night, and upon one such occasion suddenly asked his chaplain whether public bodies might not go mad as well as individuals, adding that nothing else could account for most of the transactions in history (Tucker's Humble Address and earnest Appeal to the Landed Interest, p. 20, note).
On the death of Archbishop Potter in 1747 an offer of the primacy was made to Butler, who had in 1746 been made clerk of the closet to the king (on the death of Egerton, bishop of Hereford). Butler is said to have declined it on the ground that ‘it was too late for him to try to support a falling church’ (Bartlett, p. 96). One of his nephews, John Butler, a rich bachelor, had previously shown his appreciation of the ‘Analogy’ by exchanging a presentation copy from his uncle for an iron vice belonging to a ‘shrewd Scotch solicitor’ named Thomson. Hearing, however, that his uncle had a chance of the archbishopric, he came up to town prepared to advance 20,000l. to meet his first expenses. In 1750 the bishopric of Durham was offered to Butler. It was proposed to him that the lord-lieutenancy of the county, previously attached to the bishopric, should be given to a layman, and that the deanery of St. Paul's to be vacated by him should be conferred upon Secker on condition that Butler should give the stall at Durham vacated by Secker to Dr. Chapman (master of Magdalene, Cam-
