Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB
[ocr errors]

verse or in prose, bearing the name of Samuel Butler. It was not till after the Restoration that amid the general gathering of the old wits from their haunts, around the throne of Charles II., and the sudden crop of new and younger wits evoked by the license afforded to dramatic riot and all that had hitherto been repressed the face or the name of Butler emerged to challenge notice.

Of course it cannot be that Butler was positively idle with his pen all this time. He was not heard of as a writer prior to 1662; but the man who then came forth with such a poem as the first part of Hudibras must have had a good deal of quiet practice beforehand in the art of putting his thoughts on paper. It becomes of some importance, therefore, to find out, if possible, at what point in that obscure period in Butler's life which elapsed' before the Restoration, the literary impulse first seized him, what was the precise nature of that impulse, and what were the circumstances which retarded so long the public exhibition of his talent. For this purpose let us glance at the little that is known of this portion of his life.

could tolerate, was probably humming over their exile in France and Holland, we hear his old songs and fancies and writing new not a word of any publication pro or con, in ones to amuse his leisure in some cottage near his old parish; Hobbes was abroad, teaching mathematics to Charles II. in his exile, and writing his "Leviathan" and other works, which he afterwards came over to England to publish; Waller, Davenant, Denham, and Cowley, also lived abroad as royalist exiles, till towards the end of Cromwell's Protectorate, when they were permitted to return and write as much as they chose, and when Waller, at least, thought it wise to make his peace with Cromwell and become one of his panegyrists; Suckling had died almost at the beginning of his royal master's troubles; Izaak Walton, having quitted his cloth-shop, in Chancery Lane, in 1644, was dividing his time between fishing, the preparation of his book on that art, and pious recollections of Donne, Hooker, Wotton, and other good men whom he had known before the king's head had been cut off; and, lastly, Milton, the true literary representative of Puritanism and the Commonwealth, though he had forsaken for the time the softer muse of his youth, was still conspicuously at work, shaking the very soul of Royalism and Prelacy, by his noble prose treatises in defence of the Revolution and its leaders. Nay, there were others, not mentioned in the above list, whose literary career began, or was continued, during the stormy period of the Commonwealth. The manhood of the great Jeremy Taylor corresponds with this period, which he did not long survive; Richard Baxter, and other non-conforming divines, became famous during it; the quaint Fuller then penned bridge, and there is a still more vague account many of his writings; the philosophic Sir Thomas Browne, calm as a mollusc in the midst of the social perturbations, was pursuing his fantastic speculations in his study at Norwich; the vagabond trooper Cleveland, now abroad with his Royalist associates, and now risking his neck in England, was inditing his racketty squibs against the Roundheads, with especial reference to that grand topic of fun with all the satirists of his party, Oliver's copper nose; and Milton's friend, honest Andrew Marvell, had at least given evidence to those who knew him of his capacity of writing well on the other side. Yet, in the midst of all this cross-fire of writings from Royalists and Puritans, from poets and philosophers, from Englishmen at home and Englishmen in

Butler was the son of a substantial farmer in Worcestershire. He received a very good school education at the Cathedral school of Worcester, under a master who had a considerable reputation in his day for turning out pupils who afterwards became distinguished. It is not certainly known whether he was sent to either of the Universities. There is a vague account of his having been at Cam

of his having been at Oxford; but Mr. Bell
is disposed, and we think justly, to believe
that neither account is correct, and that But-
ler never received any university education. If
he was at either of the Universities, however,
we can well suppose that it was not then or
there that he began to write verses.
It is
easy to see, from the nature of his writings,
after he did become a writer, that he never
could have had anything about him of that
overflowing productive disposition, that rich
imitative instinct, which belongs to the young
sons of Apollo, and which made his contem-
poraries, Milton and Cowley, poets even in
their teens. Milton, a fond disciple at college
of all that was best in classical as well as in
modern poetry, was already himself a writer

of sweet verse; and Cowley was but a flowing-haired child when, meeting with Spenser's "Faery Queene," the imitative impulse seized him, and he began to lisp in numbers,

"The Muses did young Cowley raise;

They stole him from his nurse's arms,
Fed him with sacred love of praise,
And taught him all their charms."

A much tougher subject, if we guess aright, was young Butler, and not the kind of infant for any Muse to dandle. "When but a boy," says Aubrey," he would make observations and reflections on everything one said or did, and censure it to be either well or ill;" and, wherever Aubrey got his information, it has a singular smack of truth about it. Not a flowing-haired poetic child of the Cowley stamp at all, mildly stealing away from his companions into the fields to read, but a decidedly hard-headed if not stubbyhaired boy, keeping uncomfortably near to people when they were talking, and "censuring things to be either well or ill; "' such, even without Aubrey's hint, but merely on the principle of the boy being father to the man, should we have conceived young Butler have been in his school-days. If he did go to college he doubtless made the most of his time there, and read books and acquired knowledge assiduously, as would become a sensible farmer's son, receiving education at some expense to his family; but to Spenser's Faery Queene," and all that class of influences, we suspect he would have presented a cuticle of greater resistance than either Milton or Cowley did. In short, if he was at the University, we can well believe that he left it without ever having perpetrated verse at all, or at least anything more than a few lines of such hard downright doggrel as would not matter much one way or another. He may, however, have written good sound prose, of a quality quite sufficient for his purposes as a scholar.

64

ishing Justice of Peace in his native county
of Worcestershire. While in this service he
is said to have had some thoughts of turning
painter; and, as late as the middle of last
century, there were some portraits and other
pictures at Earl's Croombe which were said
to have been painted by Butler during his
residence there. They do not seem to have
been worth much; and, though Butler kept
up his taste for the art in after-life so as to
become acquainted with Samuel Cooper, the
first English portrait-painter of his day, his
own practice in it was probably never more
than that of an amateur. There was more
feasibility in the plan which he is said also
to have entertained about this time of becom-
ing a lawyer, or at least a country attorney;
and, as evidence of some such intention, there
is not only a tradition of his having entered
himself at Gray's Inn, but also the fact of
his having left behind him among his papers
a syllabus of Coke upon Littleton, drawn up
in law French in his own handwriting.
Not even to the dignity of an independent
country attorney, however, was Butler to be
promoted. From being law-clerk to the
Worcestershire Justice of Peace, we find him

through what intermediate stages of amateur portrait-painting, and law-studentship, is unknown-transferred to a superior situation, as secretary, or the like, in the household of the Countess of Kent, at Wrest, in Bedfordshire. Here, besides leisure to amuse himself with painting and music, he had the advantage of an excellent library, and of the conversation of the learned Selden, then steward of the Countess's estate, and, according to Aubrey's account, privately married to her. It is this circumstance of Selden's being domesticated at Wrest at the time of Butler's service there that enables us to form a guess as to dates. Mr. Bell, finding that Selden spent the Parliamentary recess of the year 1628 at the Earl of Kent's seat in Wrest, employing himself in the prepAccording to the very scanty notices that aration of his work on the Arundel marbles, remain, that period of Butler's life which assigns that year as the probable date of extends from his early youth till after the Butler's admission into the Countess' serRestoration, is to be considered as dividing vice. This supposition seems quite untenitself into three parts. First of all, from his able. Butler would then have been only early youth onwards, for an uncertain num- sixteen years of age, and there would be no ber of years, but probably till about 1639, room at all for his prior service at Earl's when he would be twenty-seven years of age, Croombe, not to speak of his painting and we find him acting as clerk in the service of other occupations attributed to him while Thomas Jeffries, of Earl's Croombe, a flour-there. It seems more natural to suppose,

F

When the King had returned, it would be natural, amid the general change of system, for Presbyterian knights and county magistrates to sink into comparative idleness and obscurity, and for their secretaries, especially if of Royalist connections, to look about for other situations.

as we have done, that he did not leave Earl's immediately antecedent to the King's recall. Croombe for Wrest till about the year 1639; in which year, as Mr. Bell himself informs us, Selden, by the death of the Earl of Kent, became permanently domesticated in the household of the Countess at Wrest, and that on a more intimate footing than when the Earl had been alive. The fact that Butler is always represented by his biographers Such is the meagre outline, with which as having entered the service of the Countess we must be content, of the first forty-eight of Kent, seems to confirm this; and in other years of Butler's life. It is possible, indeed, respects it accords with the facts. If Butler that farther research might disclose addidid enter this service in 1639, when he was tional facts, or at least verify or disprove the in his twenty-eighth year, he may have conjectures we have ventured to make as to remained in it till 1651, in which year the the dates of such facts as are known. Countess died, leaving Selden her executor Meanwhile, what concerns us is to ascertain, and part-heir; and still there would be if possible, at what point in the life, as thus ample time left for a third and different ser- laid out, Butler first felt his vocation to litervice which Butler is said to have discharged ature, and first secretly practised the talent before the Restoration—namely, that of which was afterwards to make him famous. secretary or general man of business to Sir Now, if our chronology is correct, we have Samuel Luke of Cople Hoo, in the same little hesitation in saying that it was somecounty of Bedfordshire. Sir Samuel was one where in what we have represented as the of the leading Presbyterians of the county, middle portion of his adult life prior to the and a Justice of Peace. He had been a Restoration - that is, during his service with Colonel in the Parliamentary army during the Countess of Kent at Wrest, in Bedfordthe Civil Wars, and Member in the Long shire, from 1639 to 1651. Parliament for Bedfordshire; and, though with others of the Presbyterian leaders, he had shrunk back from the extreme proceedings of the Parliament about the time of the King's death, and had, in consequence, been one of those members whom the army leaders and Independents "secluded" about this time from farther attendance in the House, he yet appears to have retained his zeal in the general cause of the Revolution, and to have been an active magistrate in Bedford- there is not one which we can ascertain to shire under Cromwell's government. The have been published prior to 1660, or, at all precise nature of Butler's duties in his ser- events, to 1659, if indeed any one of them vice cannot be known; but if he entered it was published prior to Hudibras itself in 1663. after 1651, when the Civil Wars in England But, though none of them was certainly pubwere over, and the Commonwealth was an lished before this period, there are one or two established fact, they may very well have of them which were certainly written before been such as a secretary, though of Royalist it. Among these, the earliest to which we connections and sentiments himself, might can assign a probable date is a piece of rude consistently enough discharge for a Presby-doggrel, calling itself a "Ballad," and seemterian master. As to the duration of this ingly meant as a squib against Cromwell, service, however, we are totally uninformed. about the time of his military successes and We have assumed it to have begun in 1651, paramount influence in the kingdom, just and it may have continued till 1660 or there- before the King's death. It occurs among abouts — i. e., through the period of the first Thyer's "Genuine Remains," where it is Rump, and the Protectorships of Cromwell printed from the manuscript. Here is a and his son Richard, down to the confusions specimen, part of a portrait, which must be of the second Rump and Monk's intrigues supposed to be that of Cromwell :

We found this opinion on the evidence afforded by what remains of his writings, in addition to Hudibras. Of all these writings

whether those included in the "Genuine Remains," published from the actual manuscripts by Mr. Thyer of Manchester in 1759, and which are indubitably authentic, or such other casual pieces in prose or verse, not included among these, as there is any probable ground for believing to have been really his

41 His face is round and decent

"As close as a goose

[ocr errors]

As is your dish or platter,
On which there grows
A thing like a nose,

But, indeed, it is no such matter.

"On both sides of th' aforesaid

Are

eyes, but th' are not matches, On which there are

To be seen two fair
And large well-grown mustaches.
"Now this with admiration

Does all beholders strike,
That a beard should grow
Upon a thing's brow
Did ye ever see the like?

“He has no skull, 't is well known
To thousands of beholders;
Nothing but a skin
Does keep his brains in

From running about his shoulders."

Sat a Parliament House

To hatch the royal gull;
After much fiddle-faddle,
The egg proved addle,

And Oliver came forth Noll."

The topic of this piece of doggrel fixes its date at about 1656-1657, when the propriety of Oliver's exchanging the title of Protector for that of King was a matter of general discussion. Butler, among others, had his notions on the subject, of which he relieved himself, for his own satisfaction, or probably for the amusement of those about him, as above. After the death of Cromwell, and amid the confusions of Richard's brief Protectorate and the second Rump, there was less reason for reserve in such expressions of opinion; and, accordingly, during the year im

And so on, through a score or so of stan-mediately preceding the Restoration, Butler's as more, the last of which, containing an pen seems to have been somewhat busy. Beallusion to the King and Parliament as both sides other scraps, there is one prose piece of still extant, and to the civil wars as still rag- some length, the composition of which may ing, enables one to assign the year 1648, or be certainly attributed to the year 1659–1660, thereby, as the probable date of the compo- though it remained unpublished till aftersition. Such as it is, it is the first authentic wards. This piece consists of "Two Speeches piece from Butler's pen that remains to us; made in the Rump-Parliament when it was and that which comes nearest to it in point restored by the Officers of the Army in the of time is a short prose tract, entitled "The year 1659," the said speeches being mockCase of King Charles I. truly stated," orig- harangues, invented by Butler, and put, the inally published from the manuscript in 1691, one into the mouth of an old Presbyterian by an anonymous editor, after Butler's death, member of the House, who is indignant at and reprinted by Thyer. This tract is in all that has been done by the Army during the form of a reply to a pamphlet, entitled the last ten years; and the other into the 'King Charles' Case, or an Appeal to all mouth of an Independent, or Army-man, who Rational Men concerning his Trial," prepared hates the Presbyterians. The composition by John Cook, Master of Gray's Inn, soli- is one of some vigor; and the writer makes the Parliament in the proceedings the two debaters abuse each other, very much against the King, and afterwards executed as as Hudibras and Ralph do in the poem, only in one of the chief regicides. The pamphlet sober earnest, and so as to produce an impreswas put in circulation with others after the sion unfavorable both to a continuance of milKing's death, in defence of the policy of the tary rule or Independency, and to a revival Commonwealth leaders; and Butler appears of mere Parliamentary government without a to have tried his hand at writing an answer, royal head. Had the pamphlet been published, with the intention of publishing it some time it would really have done some service in the or other. He never did so, however, and it cause of the Restoration, while that question was found among his papers. It may be was being debated, and Monk's intentions assumed to have been written some time be- were uncertain. It is evident, in short, that tween 1649 and 1654, the anonymous editor Butler took a great interest in that question; of 1691 speaking of it as having been "penned and it is possible that, though the composi about forty years since." Next, in point of tlon just mentioned was not printed, he may certain date, among Butler's remains, is a about this time have contributed other pieces piece of doggrel similar in style to that above of a political tenor which did find their way quoted, entitled, "A Ballad about the Par- into circulation. liament which deliberated about making Oliver King." It begins :

citor

The result of this brief investigation is, that it was not till about the 37th year of Butler's

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small]
« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »