*

Earl of Carbury, Lord President of the Principality of Wales, who made him Steward of Ludlow Castle, where the court of the marches was removed. About this time, he married Mrs. Herbert, a gentlewoman of good family, but who had lost most of her fortune, by placing it on bad securities, in those very dangerous and uncertain times. A. Wood says, that he was Secretary to George, Duke of Buckingham, when he was Chancellor of Cambridge; that the Duke treated him with kindness and generosity; and

not proved to be genuine. Nash says, "he was informed by a bencher of Gray's Inn, who had it from an acquaintance of Butler's, that the person intended was Sir Henry Rosewell, of Torr Abbey, in Devonshire," but adds, "these would be probable reasons to deprive Bedfordshire of the hero, did not Butler, in his Memoirs of 1649, give the same description of Sir Samuel Luke, and in his Dunstable Downs expressly style Sir Samuel Luke, Sir Hudibras;" the name was borrowed from Spenser, F. Q. 11. i. 17.

He that made love unto the eldest dame
Was hight Sir Hudibras, an hardy man.

It is supposed that Lilly the astrologer was represented under the person of Sidrophel; though Sir Paul Neal, who denied Butler to be the author of Hudibras, has been mentioned as the person intended. Vide Grey's Hudibras, ii. 388. 105. 1st edit.; and Nash's Hudibras, vol. ii. p. 308. That Whachum was meant for Sir George Wharton, does not appear to rest on any proof; v. Biographia, Art. Sherborne, note (B).

* A. Wood says, that she was a widow, and that Butler supported himself by her jointure, deriving nothing from the practice of the law.

that, in common with almost all men of wit and learning, he enjoyed the friendship of the celebrated Earl of Dorset. The author of his Life, prefixed to his Poems, says, that the integrity of his life, the acuteness of his wit, and the easiness of his conversation, rendered him acceptable to all; but that he avoided a multiplicity of acquaintance. The accounts both of the patronage of the Duke of Buckingham and the Secretaryship are disbelieved by Dr Johnson, on the following grounds: -"Mr. Wycherley," says Major Packe, “had always laid hold of an opportunity which offered of representing to the Duke of Buckingham how well Mr. Butler had deserved of the royal family, by writing his inimitable Hudibras, and that it was a reproach to the Court that a person of his loyalty and wit should suffer in obscurity, and under the wants he did. The Duke always seemed to hearken to him with attention enough, and after some time undertook to recommend his pretensions to his Majesty. Mr. Wycherley, in hopes to keep him steady to his word, obtained of his Grace to name a day, when he might introduce that modest and unfortunate poet to his new patron. At last an appointment was made, and the place of meeting was agreed to be the Roebuck. Mr. Butler and his friend attended accordingly; the Duke joined them, but as the devil would have it, the door of the room where they sat was open, and his Grace, who had seated himself near it,

observing a pimp of his acquaintance (the creature too was a knight) trip by with a brace of ladies, immediately quitted his engagement to follow another kind of business, at which he was more ready than to do good offices to those of desert, though no one was better qualified than he, both in regard to his fortune and understanding, to protect them; and from that time to the day of his death, poor Butler never found the least effect of his promise."

This story may be believed or not; to me, I confess, it appears more like a well-dressed fiction of Wycherley's than the truth; why the accidental interruption of the interview should never after have been repaired, does not appear; but there is a better testimony in some verses of Butler, which were published by Mr. Thyer: "which are written (says Johnson) with a degree of acrimony, such as neglect and disappointment might naturally excite, and such as it would be hard to imagine Butler capable of expressing against a man who had any claim to his gratitude."

In 1663, the first part of Hudibras, in three cantos, was published,* when more than fifty years

* Some verses in the first edition of Hudibras were afterwards omitted for reasons of state, as

Did not the learned Glynne and Maynard,

To make good subjects traitors, strain hard.
Was not the king, by proclamation,

Declared a traitor through the nation.

In

had matured the author's genius, and given large scope to his experience of mankind. It was speedily known at Court, through the influence of the Earl of Dorset.* The king praised, the courtiers, of course, admired, and the royalists greeted a production which certainly covered their now fallen enemies with all the derision and contempt which wit and genius could command. 1664, the second part appeared; and the author, as well as the public, watched with anxiety for the reward which he was to receive from the gratitude of the king; like the other expectants of Charles's bounty, which was drained off into very different channels, they watched in vain. Clarendon, says Wood, gave him reason to hope for places and employments of value and credit, but he never received them; and the story of the king's presenting him with a purse of three hundred guineas appears also to rest on no competent authority. To compensate for the neglect of the court, and of a king, who, in truth, cared for no one but himself, and who possessed neither public honour nor private principle, it is difficult to say, whether Butler may have been satisfied with the approbation of the people; or how far the love of his art, confidence in his own genius, and a natural fondness for a successful production, may have induced him to continue his poem; certainly

*See Prior's Dedication to his Poems.

in four years more he published the third part, which still leaves the work unfinished. What he ultimately intended, it is impossible to conjecture from a narrative which has no consistent plan, or progress. He may have been wearied of it, or he may not have had time to continue it; for he died two years after its appearance, on the 25th of September, in the year 1680;* and was buried very privately by his friend Mr. Longueville, in the church-yard of St. Paul, Covent Garden, at his private expense; for he had in vain solicited an honourable and public funeral in Westminster Abbey. About seven or eight persons followed his remains. His grave, which, according to his desire, was six feet deep, was at the west end of the church-yard on the north side; and the burial service was read over him by the learned Dr. Patrick, then minister of the parish, and afterwards Bishop of Ely. Dr. Johnson says, that Mr. Lowndes of the Treasury informed Dr. Zachary Pearce,† that Butler was allowed a yearly pension of a hundred pounds; but this, as Johnson says, is contradicted

* A. Wood says he died of a consumption; Oldham says he was carried off by a fever; but as he was near fourscore, we may be spared any further investigation. Mr. Longueville says he lived for some years in Rose Street, Covent Garden, and probably died there: that notwithstanding his disappointments he was never reduced to want or beggary, and that he did not die in any person's debt.

† See Granger's Biog. Hist. of England, vol. iv. p. 40.