He never eat, nor drank, nor slept,
But Hudibras still near him kept;
Never would go to church or so,
But Hudibras must with him go;
Nor yet to visit concubine,

Or at a city feast to dine,

But Hudibras must still be there,
Or all the fat was in the fire.
Now, after all, was it not hard

That he should meet with no reward,

That fitted out this Knight and Squire,
This monarch did so much admire?
That he should never reimburse
The man for th' equipage or horse,
Is sure a strange, ungrateful thing,
In any body but a King.

But this good King, it seems, was told,
By some that were with him too bold,
If e'er you hope to gain your ends,
Caress your foes, and trust your friends.
Such were the doctrines that were taught,
Till this unthinking King was brought
To leave his friends to starve and die,
A poor reward for loyalty."

We are, indeed, informed, that Butler was once in a fair way of obtaining a royal gratuity, as the following account will show. "Mr. Wycherly had always laid hold of any opportunity which offered, to represent to his Grace 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 seemed always to hearken to him with attention enough, and, after some time, undertook to recommend his pretensions to his Majesty. Mr. Wycherly, in hopes to keep

him steady to his word, obtained of his Grace to name a day when he might introduce the modest and unfortunate poet to his new patron: at last an appointment was made, and the place of meeting was appointed to be the Roebuck. Mr. Butler and his friend attended accordingly, and the Duke joined them, but by an unlucky incident this interview was broke off; and it will always be remembered, to the reproach of the age, that this great and inimitable poet was suffered to live and die in want and obscurity."

It would, however, be unfair not to mention, that Butler at one time received from King Charles II. a gratuity of three hundred pounds; and this honorable circumstance attended the grant, that it passed through all the offices without a fee. Butler, on this occasion, showed himself a man of honesty and integrity, as well as of genius, for calling to mind that he owed to different persons more than the amount of the royal donation, he generously directed the whole sum to be paid towards the satisfaction of his creditors.

If Butler was disappointed of royal, he does not appear to have been altogether destitute of private patronage. Soon after the restoration, he became secretary to Richard, Earl of Carbury, Lord President of the Principality of Wales, who made him steward of Ludlow Castle, when the court there was revived. About this time he married one Mrs. Herbert, a gentlewoman of a very good family, and a competent fortune, but the greater part of it unfortunately lost, by being put out on ill securities, so that it was little advantage to him.

Wood, the Oxford antiquary, reports Butler to have been secretary to George, Duke of Buckingham, when he was Chancellor to the University of Cambridge; but this is not confirmed by any other authority, and the pro

bability is, that he was only an occasional partaker of the Duke's bounty. His most generous friend was Charles, Lord Buckhurst, afterwards Earl of Dorset and Middlesex, who, being an excellent poet himself, knew how to set a just value on the genius and talents of others, and often privately relieved those necessities of our poet which his modesty would have led him to conceal.

That he had other generous friends, to whom the integrity of his life, the acuteness of his wit, and the easiness of his conversation, endeared him, may readily be conceived; yet no fact comes to us more strongly established than that Butler, if he did not absolutely perish of want, terminated his day in the utmost indigence and misery, and was indebted for a decent interment to the charity of a friend *. This melancholy circumstance in the history of this great man, comes to us so well authenticated by contemporaries who must have known the truth of what they related, that not a

* Butler died in the year 1680, and was buried at the charge of his friend, Mr. Longueville, of the Temple, in the yard belonging to the church of St. Paul, Covent Garden, at the west end of the said yard, on the north side, under the wall which parts the yard from the common highway. The Editors of the "General Historical Dictionary," say, that Mr. Longueville would fain have buried Butler in Westminster Abbey; and spoke in that view to some of those wealthy persons who had admired him so much in his lifetime, offering to pay his part; but none of them would contribute; upon which Mr. Longueville buried him with the greatest privacy (but at the same time very decently) in Covent Garden Churchyard, at his own expense, himself and seven or eight persons more following the corpse to the grave." Dr. Grey adds, "That the burial service was read over him by the learned and pious Dr. Patrick, afterwards Lord Bishop of Ely, then minister of the parish."

doubt can be entertained on the subject. Oldham, in his "Satire against Poetry," introduces the ghost of Spenser dissuading him from it, upon experience and example, that poverty and contempt were its inseparable attendants. After Spenser has gone over his own lamentable case, and mentioned Homer and Cowley in the same view, he thus movingly bewails the great and unhappy Butler:

"On Butler who can think without just rage,
The glory and the scandal of the age?

Fair stood his hopes when first he came to town,
Met every where with welcomes of renown;
Courted and lov'd by all, with wonder read,
And promises of princely favour fed:
But what reward for all had he at last?
After a life in dull expectance past.

The wretch, at summing up his mispent days,
Found nothing left but poverty and praise;
Of all his gains by verse he could not save
Enough to purchase flannel and a grave :
Reduc'd to want, he in due time fell sick,
Was fain to die, and be interr'd on tick :
And well might bless the fever, that was sent

To rid him hence, and his worse fate prevent."

Otway, who, if tradition speaks truly of him, perished as miserably as our poet himself, has the following lines on the same subject, in his prologue to Constantine the Great:

"All

you who have male issue, born

Under the starving sign of Capricorn,

Prevent the malice of their stars in time,

And warn them early from the sin of rhyme :

Tell them how Spenser starv'd, how Cowley mourn'd,

How Butler's faith and service were return'd;

And if such warning they refuse to take,

This last experiment, O parents! make :

With hands behind him, see the offender ty'd,
The parish whip and beadle by his side;
Then lead him to some stall that does expose
The authors he loves most, there rub his nose,
"Till, like a spaniel lash'd to know command,
He by the due correction understand

To keep his brains clean, and not foul the land;
'Till he against his nature learn to strive,

And get the knack of dulness how to thrive."

In 1721, a handsome monument was erected to the memory of Butler, in Westminster Abbey, at the expense of Alderman Barber, a printer of great eminence, who was much distinguished by Dean Swift, Dr. Arbuthnot, Pope, and the other wits of the Tory party in Queen Anne's reign. The following inscription, which sums up the character of Butler, both justly and eloquently, was probably the composition of Dr. Arbuthnot, with some touches from the pen of Swift.

M. S.

SAMUELIS BUTLERI,

Qui Strenshamiæ, in agro Vigorn. Nat. 1612, Obiit Lond. 1680.

Vir doctus imprimis, acer, integer;
Operibus ingenii, non item præmiis felix;
Satyrici apud nos carminis artifex egregius ;
Qui simulatæ religionis larvam detraxit,
Et perduellium scelera liberrime exagitavit :
Scriptorum in suo genere, primus et postremus.

Ne, cui vivo deerant fere omnia,
Deesset etiam mortuo tumulus,

Hoc tandem posito marmore, curavit

Johannes Barber, Cives Londinensis, 1721.