TO THE REV. WILLIAM LISLE BOWLES, CANON OF SALISBURY, ETC. UNHONOUR'D lay poor Butler's nameless grave, Such were the lines insulted virtue pour'd, And theirs the deed immortalized in shame, Which raised a monarch to a martyr's name. Oh! friend! with me thy thoughtful sorrows join, Thy heart will answer each desponding line; Say, when thy hand o'er KEN'S neglected grave At once the flowers of love and learning gave; vi Or when was heard, beneath each listening tree, J. M. BENHALL, Feb. 1835. LIFE OF SAMUEL BUTLER. BY THE REV. JOHN MITFORD. SAMUEL BUTLER, the author of Hudibras, was born in the parish of Strensham, in Worcestershire, in 1612,* and christened February the 14th. A. Wood says, that his father was competently wealthy; † but the anonymous author of a life prefixed to his Poems describes him as in the condition of a yeoman, possessing a very small estate, and renting another; who with difficulty found means to educate his son at the grammarschool at Worcester, under Mr. Henry Bright, a man of high reputation as a scholar, and a Prebendary of the Cathedral. Butler is said to have * This date is contradicted by Charles Longueville, the son of Butler's friend, and who declared that the poet was born in 1600. Nash dates his baptism February 8, 1612, and says it is entered in the writing of Nash's father, who was churchwarden: he had four sons and three daughters; the three daughters and one son older than the poet. † Dr. Nash discovered that his father was owner of a house and a little land, worth about 107. a year, still called Butler's tenement, of which he has given an engraving in the title page of his first volume. A. Wood affirms that he had a competent estate of nearly 300l. a year, but held on lease of William Russell, lord of the manor of Strensham. |