It was natural to fuppofe, that after the restoration, and the publication of his Hudibras, our poet should have appeared in public life, and have been rewarded for the eminent service his poem did to the royal cause; but his innate modefty, and studious turn of mind, prevented folicitations ; never having tasted the idle luxuries of life, he did not make to himself needlefs wants, or pine after imaginary pleasures: his fortune, indeed, was small, and fo was his ambition; his integrity of life, and modeft temper, rendered him contented. However, there is good authority for believing that at one time he was gratified with an order on the treasury for 300%. which is faid to have paffed all the offices without payment of fees, and this gave him an opportunity of displaying his difinterested integrity, by conveying the entire fum immediately to a friend, in trust for the use of his creditors. Dr. Zachary Pearce,* on the authority of Mr. Lowndes of the Treasury, afferts, that Mr. Butler received from Charles the fecond an annual penfion of 100l.: add to this, he was appointed secretary to the lord prefident of the principality of Wales, and, about the year 1667, steward of Ludlow castle. With all this, the court was thought to have been guilty of a glaring neglect in his cafe, and the public were scandalized See Granger's Biographical Hiftory of England, octavo, vol iv. p. 40. b at the ingratitude. The indigent poets, who have always claimed a prescriptive right to live on the munificence of their contemporaries, were the loudeft in their remonftrances. Dryden, Oldham, and Otway, while in appearance they complained of the unrewarded merits of our author, obliquely lamented their private and particular grievances; Πατροκλον προφασιν, σφων δ' αυτων κηδέ εκαςος;* or, as Salluft fays, nulli Mortalium injuriæ fuæ parvæ videntur. Mr. Butler's own sense of the disappointment, and the impreffion it made on his spirits, are sufficiently marked by the circumstance of his having twice transcribed the following distich with fome variation in his MS. common-place book. To think how Spencer died, how Cowley mourn'd, In the fame MS. he fays, "wit is very chargeable, and not to be maintained in its neceffary expences at an ordinary rate it is the worst trade in the world to live upon, and a commodity that no man thinks he has need of, for those who have least believe they have moft." * Homer Iliad, 19. 302. + I am aware of a difficulty that may be started, that the Tragedy of Conftantine the Great, to which Otway wrote the prologue, according to Giles Jacob in his poetical Register, was not acted at the Theatre Royal till 1684, four years after our poet's death, but probably he had feen the MS. or heard the thought, as both his MSS. differ fomewhat from the printed copy. Ingenuity and wit Do only make the owners fit Much easier than if th' had none. Mr. Butler spent fome time in France, probably when Lewis XIV. was in the height of his glory and vanity : however, neither the language nor manners of Paris were pleafing to our modest poet; fome of his observations may be amusing, I fhall therefore infert them in a note.* He married Mrs. Herbert, whether fhe was a widow, or not, is uncertain; with her he expected a confiderable fortune, but, through various loffes, and knavery, he found himself difap *«The French use so many words, upon all occafions, that if they did not cut them short in pronunciation, they would grow tedious, and infufferable. "They infinitely affect rhyme, though it becomes their language the worst in the world, and spoils the little sense they have to make room for it, and make the fame fyllable rhyme to itself, which is worse than metal upon metal in heraldry: they find it much easier to write plays in verse than in profe, for it is much harder to imitate nature, than any deviation from her; and profe requires a more proper and natural fenfe and expreffion than verse, that has fomething in the ftamp and coin to anfwer for the alloy and want of intrinfic value. I never came among them, but the following line was in my mind: Raucaq; garrulitas, ftudiumq; inane loquendi ; For they talk fo much, they have not time to think; and if they had all the wit in the world, their tongues would run before it. "The prefent king of France is building a most stately triumphal arch in memory of his victories, and the great actions which he has performed: but, if I am not mistaken, those edifices which bear that name at Rome, were not raised by the emperors whofe names they bear (fuch as Trajan, Titus, &c.) but were decreed by the Senate, and built at the expence of the public; for that glory is loft, which any man defigns to confecrate to himself. pointed to this fome have attributed his severe ftrictures upon the profeffors of the law; but if his cenfures be properly confidered, they will be found to bear hard only upon the disgraceful part of each profeffion, and upon false learning in general: this was a favourite subject with him, but no man had a greater regard for, or was a better judge of the worthy part of the three learned profeffions, or learning in general, than Mr. Butler. How long he continued in office, as fteward of Ludlow Castle, is not known; but he lived the latter part of his life "The king takes a very good courfe to weaken the city of Paris by adorning of it, and to render it lefs, by making it appear greater and more glorious; for he pulls down whole streets to make room for his palaces and public structures. "There is nothing great or magnificent in all the country, that I have feen, but the buildings and furniture of the king's houses and the churches; all the reft is mean and paltry. "The king is neceffitated to lay heavy taxes upon his fubjects in his own defence, and to keep them poor, in order to keep them quiet; for if they are fuffered to enjoy any plenty, they are naturally so infolent, that they would become ungovernable, and use him as they have done his predeceffors: but he has rendered himself so ftrong, that they have no thoughts of attempting any thing in his time. "The churchmen overlook all other people as haughtily as the churches and steeples do private houses. "The French do nothing without oftentation, and the king himself is not behind with his triumphal arches confecrated to himself, and his impress of the fun, nec pluribus impar. “The French king having copies of the best pictures from Rome, is as a great prince wearing clothes at second hand: the king in his prodigious charge of buildings and furniture does the fame thing to himself that he means to do by Paris, renders himself weaker, by endeavouring to appear the more magnificent: lets go the substance for shadow." in Rose-street, Covent Garden, in a ftudious retired manner, and died there in the year 1680.-He is faid to have been buried at the expence of Mr. William Longueville, though he did not die in debt. Some of his friends wifhed to have interred him in Weftminster Abbey with proper folemnity; but not finding others willing to contribute to the expence, his corpfe was depofited privately in the yard belonging to the church of Saint Paul's Covent Garden, at the weft end of the said yard, on the north fide, under the wall of the faid church, and under that wall which parts the yard from the common highway.* I have been thus particular, because, in the year 1786, when the church was repaired, a marble monument was placed on the fouth fide of the church on the inside, by fome of the parishioners, which might tend to mislead pofterity as to the place of his interment: their zeal for the memory of the learned poet does them honour; but the writer of the verfes feems to have mistaken the character of Mr. Butler. The infcription runs thus, "This little monument was erected in the year 1786, by "fome of the parishioners of Covent Garden, in memory of *See Butler's Life, printed before the fmall edition of Hudibras, in 1710, and reprinted by Dr. Grey. |