LIFE OF BUTLER. SAMUEL BUTLER was born in the parish of Strensham, Worcestershire, in 1612. His father, though he owned only a small piece of land, worth about eight pounds a year, was enabled to educate him at a grammar school; but could not furnish him with money enough to make him a member of college. His brother and his anonymous biographer have agreed to give him a liberal education; but they have prudently abstained from informing us, at which university he was sent, or in what hall he resided. It seems sufficiently certain, however, that he was, for some time, the clerk to a justice of the peace, in Earl's Croomb, in Worcestershire; and that, for some reason, and in some capacity, that cannot now be discovered, he became afterwards an inmate of the family of the countess of Kent. Here he had the use of a library, and enjoyed the conversation of Selden. When or why he quitted so desirable a place, it is in vain to inquire; but we find him next in the family of Sir Samuel Luke, an officer under Cromwell; and it was in this situation, that he learned how to ridicule the principles and characters of the sectaries. But, notwithstanding his residence in so republican a family, he seems to have preserved his loyalty uncontaminated; and to have been one of the many, who expected, and VOL. IX. |