decoration. He is said to have expended upwards of £4000 on the episcopal palace, and the adornment of his chapel greatly interested him. He was transferred to the bishopric of Durham in 1750. Shortly afterwards his health began to decline. He sought restoratives from the waters at Bath, attended by his faithful chaplain and friend. Dr. Forster, whose letters to Secker, now archbishop, give a minute and painful account of his illness. All efforts failed to rally him. He died on the morning of June 16, 1752, and was buried in the cathedral of Bristol.
All that we know of Butler gives us the impression of a character pure and elevated, candid and unostentatious; simple, yet with a touch of reserve; practical and active, yet with a tinge of melancholy. His works are comprised in two volumes, published at the Oxford University Press, 1850. There are besides numerous editions of his "Sermons" and "Analogy;" the best of the latter being that of Dr. Fitzgerald, bishop of Cork (Dublin, 1849), to whose interesting memoir we have been much indebted in the above sketch.—T.
BUTLER, Samuel, born at Vigorn in the parish of Strensham, Worcestershire; died in London in 1680. The accounts of Butler's early life are conflicting. He is represented as educated at the grammar school of Worcester, and from that sent to Cambridge, which, according to one narrative, he had almost immediately to leave from want of money, and where, according to another, he remained for seven years. Another account sends him to Oxford, but no particular college of either university is specified, nor is any document, public or private, referred to by his biographers. We lean to think the university education an ornamental fiction. He is first met in anything that looks like authentic narrative, as clerk to a justice of the peace in his native county. His occupations left him leisure for music and painting, of both of which he was fond. He was afterwards employed as clerk by Selden, at that time steward to the countess of Kent. He next passes into the service of Sir Samuel Luke, one of Cromwell's officers, and his study of his master's character led to the creation of "Hudibras." Sir Samuel Luke's name is made jingle into an odd rhyme, but there can be no doubt that a hundred whimsical peculiarities of different individuals, and as many as the poet's imagination could conjure up, either from reading or reflection, united to build up the personality of the immortal hero. The Sir Hudibras or Huddibras of the Faery Queen gave him his name.
Butler is said to have studied the common law, but he never practised it. The earl of Carbury, president of the principality of Wales, on the king's return made him his secretary, and gave him the stewardship of Ludlow castle. Butler married: his wife was supposed to have some property, but her money was lent on bad securities. In 1663 the first part of "Hudibras" was published, and in the next year the second. The poem was admired and quoted by the king, and was the great armoury from which the royal party were supplied with abundant and irresistible weapons of ridicule against puritan and presbyterian, but the author was wholly neglected. In 1678—Butler was now sixty-six—he published the third part, and within two years he died. Sixty years after his death the monument in Westminster abbey was put up by John Barber, lord mayor of London. "Hudibras"—inimitable, as the fact that there has been no successful imitation has shown it to be—called up a host of imitators. There was the Dutch Hudibras, the Scotch Hudibras, the Irish Hudibras, there was Butler's Ghost, and the Occasional Hypocrite. The author of a spurious second part of "Hudibras" was punished severely by Butler, when the genuine second part appeared, in which he figures as Whackum. Butler's distress appears to have been overstated. The language on Barber's monument to him, and Samuel Wesley's epigram—
" He asked for bread, and he received a stone,"
have led to the belief that he was in a state of entire destitution, which does not appear to have ever been the case. The story of "Hudibras" is unfinished, and through what further scenes he was to have been carried it would be hazardous to conjecture. There seems, however, strong reason to believe, as Mr. Gilfillan has suggested in his Life of Butler, that the satirist was preparing for an attack on the dissolute court of Charles II. If the poem called "Hudibras at Court," printed in "the Remains," be Butler's, there can be little doubt that such was his purpose. We are inclined to believe that "Hudibras at Court" was Butler's, though not acknowledged as such by Thyer or later editors. The king's admiration of Butler made him disliked and envied by the persons about the court. His was the misfortune which Spenser before him had endured in the court of Elizabeth—"To have thy prince's grace, but want his peers'." He suffered injuries and injustice, and, at the close of his career, seems not to have been indisposed to retaliate. Butler—we quote Aubray—"was of a middle stature, strong-set, high-coloured, with a head of sorrel hair, a good fellow, and latterly much troubled with the gout."—J. A., D.
BUTLER, Samuel, bishop of Litchfield, born at Kenilworth in Warwickshire in 1774, was educated at Rugby school, and at St. John's college, Cambridge. His career at the university was in the highest degree successful. In 1797 he was elected fellow of St. John's college, and the following year he accepted the mastership of the Royal Free Grammar school at Shrewsbury. About the same time he was selected by the syndics of the university press to prepare a new edition of Æschylus, with the text and notes of Stanley. This task he accomplished in 4 vols. 4to, 1809-1816. In 1802 he was presented to the vicarage of his native town; in 1822 created archdeacon of Derby, and in 1836, on the recommendation of Viscount Melbourne, raised to the episcopal bench. During the last four years of his life, according to one of his biographers, he knew no day of health, scarcely an hour free from suffering. He died in 1839. Besides his edition of Æschylus, above noticed. Dr. Butler published "M. Masuri Carmen in Platonem;" "Is. Casauboni in Josephum Scaligerum Ode; accedunt Poemata et Exercitationes utriusque Linguæ," 8vo, 1797; "A Praxis on the Latin Prepositions," and a few sermons. He was much beloved for the benevolence and sincerity of his character, and admired for his multifarious learning and brilliant talents.—J. S., G.
BUTLER, Walter, younger brother of James Butler, as already stated, entered the imperial service. In 1631, his battalion of Irish musketeers formed part of the garrison which defended Frankfort-on-the-Oder against Gustavus, and to him was assigned the post of greatest danger. So sturdy was the resistance of Butler and his Irish musketeers, that Gustavus drew off his forces from the point they defended, and carried the town through another quarter. Butler at length fell wounded, and with the remnant of his gallant Irish surrendered; the other generals having fled and reported that the town was betrayed by Butler to Gustavus. At a banquet that evening, Gustavus said—"Cavaliers, I will not eat a morsel until I have seen this brave Irishman of whom we hear so much; and yet I have that to say to him which he may not be pleased to hear." Butler thereupon was brought into his presence on a litter. "Sir," said the king with stern anger, "art thou the elder or the younger Butler?" "May it please your majesty, I am but the younger." "God be praised," said Gustavus; "thou art a brave fellow. Hadst thou been the elder I meant to run my sword through thy body." As soon as Butler was able to travel, Gustavus set him at liberty. Returning to the army he took possession of Prague, and rose high in the favour of Wallenstein. Of the conspiracy formed by his brother James, Walter was kept in complete ignorance, and the news of it filled him with horror and dismay. He was at the siege of Nordlingen in 1634, where his valour and example decided the victory in favour of the imperialists. He died shortly afterwards.—J. F. W.
BUTLER, Weeden, an English divine, well known from his connection with the celebrated Dr. Dodd, whom he assisted in preparing for the press his Commentary on the Holy Bible, and in editing the Christian Magazine; born in 1742 at Margate; died in 1823. He succeeded Dodd as preacher at Charlotte chapel, Pimlico, and afterwards kept a classical school at Chelsea. Dodd mentions him with respect in his Thoughts in Prison.
BUTLER, Rev. William Archer, professor of moral philosophy in the university of Dublin, was born at Annerville, near Clonmel, in Ireland, in the year 1814, or perhaps a year or two earlier. At the age of nine he was sent to the endowed school at Clonmel, whose able master, the Rev. Dr. Bell, sent many eminent scholars into the world. Here Butler gave his mind full scope. He perused the classics with the ardour of a poet. Oratory too attracted him, and he soon distinguished himself as a speaker. He read discursively as well as deeply, and while every branch of the belles-lettres captivated him, the profounder subjects of philosophy and metaphysics engaged his serious attention. Butler's mother was a Roman catholic, and in that religion he was brought up most strictly. About his
