derstood to wish Butler had undertaken a different work. The measure is quick, sprightly, and colloquial, suitable to the vulgarity of the words, and the levity of the sentiments, but such numbers and such diction can gain regard only when they are used by a writer whose vigour of fancy and copiousness of knowledge entitle him to contempt of ornaments, and who in confidence of the novelty and justness of his conceptions, can afford to throw metaphors and epithets away. To another that conveys common thoughts in careless versification, it will only be said, 'Pauper videri Cinna vult, et est pauper.' The meaning and diction will be worthy of each other, and criticism may justly doom them to perish together. Nor even though another Butler should arise, would another Hudibras obtain the same regard. Burlesque consists in a disproportion between the style and the sentiments, or between the adventitious sentiments and the fundamental subject. It, therefore, like all bodies compounded of heterogeneous parts, contains in it a principle of corruption. All disproportion is unnatural, and from what is unnatural we can derive only the pleasure which novelty produces. We admire it awhile as a strange thing; but when it is no longer strange we perceive its deformity. It is a kind of artifice which by frequent repetition detects itself: and the reader, learning in time what he is to ex pect, lays down his book, as the spectator turns away from a second exhibition of those tricks, of which the only use is to show they can be played." NOTES. Page ix. On Sir Samuel Luke being represented by Hudibras, see Dr. Grey's Preface, p. iv., where by a reverend and learned person, Warburton is meant ; see D'Israeli's Curiosities of Literature (new series), vol. i. p. 235, on this point. The Grub Street Journal says, one Col. Rolle, a Devonshire man. The old tutelar saint of Devonshire was Hugh de Bras, see Edinburgh Review, No. LXVII. 159. The author of a curious article in the Censor, No. XVI. (v. Gent. Mag.) called "Memoirs of Sir Samuel Luke," observes, An unauthenticated story prevails that Butler once lived in the service of Sir Samuel Luke, and has increased with a succession of writers, like a rolling ball of snow. Wood and Aubrey, who had both access to credible information, say nothing about it; and it first occurs in an anonymous life prefixed to his poems. Towneley, in his Memoir, insinuates that he behaved with ingratitude; 'Il me semble qu'il doit épargner le chevalier Luke, son bienfaiteur, que la gratitude et la reconnaissance auraient du mettre a couvert contre les traits de la satire de votre auteur.' But for the climax of this representation we are indebted to the Edinb. Review (Art. Hogg's Jacobite Relics), in which the critic roundly asserts that "Butler lived in the family, supported by the bounty of Sir Samuel Luke, one of Cromwell's captains, at the very time he planned his Hudi bras, of which he was pleased to make his kind friend and hospitable patron the Hero." Now (he continues) we defy the history of whiggism to match this anec dote, or to produce so choice a specimen of the human nettle ! P. xiii. Gratitude of the king.] According to the verses in Butler's 'Hudibras at Court' (v. Remains). Now you must know, Sir Hudibras This prince, whose ready wit and parts Now after all, was it not hard That he should meet with no reward, That he should never reimburse But this good king, it seems, was told Such were the doctrines that were taught A poor reward for loyalty. Oldham, in his Satire against Poetry, writes thus: On Butler who can think without just rage, Fair stood his hopes, when first he came to town, Met every where with welcomes of renown. And promises of princely favour fed. The wretch, at summing up his misspent days, Unpitied Hudibras, your champion friend, P. xv. Epitaph on Butler, by John Dennis, never before published, in D'Israeli's Curiosities of Literature (new series), vol. i. p. 240. Near this place lies interred The body of Mr. S. Butler, Author of Hudibras. He was a whole species of poets in one, In which no one else has been tolerable; A manner which began and ended with him, And found no followers. |