Samuel Butler (poet)

 Samuel Butler(1612-1680)

Butler was one of Restoration England's most popular satirists and is best remembered for Hudibras, a mock-epic poem in which the author attacks the perceived hypocrisy of the Puritans who had ruled his country from 1642 to 1660. Influenced by Miguel de Cervantes's Don Quixote (1605), Butler related the comic adventures of the Puritan knight errant Sir Hudibras and his squire Ralpho. Butler's use in Hudibras of an eight-syllable line commonly reserved for "heroic" works and his unconventional rhymes comprise a distinctive and often-imitated poetic style that came to be known as "hudibrastic" verse. The popularity of Hudibras as a work of literature has declined, so that it is, according to Christopher Hill, "more quoted than read." However, Hudibras is still considered valuable commentary on the religious and political thought of seventeenth-century England, and Butler is admired for his incisive, biting wit.

Life:

Samuel Butler was born in the Parish of Strensham, in the county of Worcester, and baptized there on the 13th of Feb. 1612. His father, who was of the same name, was an honest country farmer, who had some small estate of his own but rented a much greater of the Lord of the Manor where he lived. However, perceiving in this son an early inclination to learning, he made a shift to have him educated in the free-school at Worcester, under Mr. Henry Bright; where having passed the usual time, and being become an excellent school-scholar, he went for some little time to Cambridge but was never matriculated into that University, his father's abilities not being sufficient to be at the charge of an academical education; so that Butler returned soon into his native county, and became clerk to one Mr. Jefferys, of Earl's-Croom, an eminent Justice of the Peace for that County, with whom he lived some years, in an easy and no contemptible service. Hereby the indulgence of a kind master, he had sufficient leisure to apply himself to whatever learning his inclinations led him, which were chiefly history and poetry; to which, for his diversion, he joined music and painting; and I have seen some pictures, said to be of his drawing, which remained in that family; which I mention not for the excellency of them, but to satisfy the reader of his early inclinations to that noble art; for which also he was afterwards entirely beloved by Mr. Samuel Cooper, one of the most eminent painters of his time.

He was after this recommended to that great encourager of learning, Elizabeth Countess of Kent, where he had not only the opportunity to consult all manner of learned books but to converse also with that living library of learning, the great Mr. Selden.

Butler lived some time also with Sir Samuel Luke, who was of an ancient family in Bedfordshire but, to his dishonour, an eminent commander under the usurper Oliver Cromwell: and then it was, as I am informed, he composed this loyal Poem. For, though fate, more than choice, seems to have placed him in the service of a Knight so notorious, both in his person and politics, yet, by the rule of contraries, one may observe throughout his whole Poem, that he was most orthodox, both in his religion and loyalty. And I am the more induced to believe he wrote it about that time because he had then the opportunity to converse with those living characters of rebellion, nonsense, and hypocrisy, which he so livelily and pathetically exposes throughout the whole work.

After the restoration of King Charles II. those who were at the helm, minding money more than merit, Butler found that verse in Juvenal to be exactly verified in himself:

Haud facile emergunt, quorum virtutibus obstat

Res angusta domi:

[They do not easily rise whose virtues are held back by the

straitened circumstances of their home]

And being endued with that innate modesty, which rarely finds promotion in princes' courts. 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, but no widow, as the Oxford Antiquary has reported; she had a competent fortune, but it was most of it unfortunately lost, by being put out on ill securities, so that it was of little advantage to him. He is reported by the Antiquary to have been Secretary to his Grace George Duke of Buckingham when he was Chancellor to the University of Cambridge; but whether that be true or no, it is certain, the Duke had a great kindness for him, and was often a benefactor to him. But no man was a more generous friend to him, than that Mecaenas of all learned and witty men, Charles Lord Buckhurst, the late Earl of Dorset and Middlesex, who, being himself an excellent poet, knew how to set a just value upon the ingenious performances of others, and has often taken care privately to relieve and supply the necessities of those, whose modesty would endeavour to conceal them; of which he was a signal instance, as several others have been, who are now living. In fine the integrity of his life, the acuteness of his wit, and easiness of his conversation had rendered him most acceptable to all men; yet he prudently avoided a multiplicity of acquaintance, and wisely chose such only whom his discerning judgment could distinguish (as Mr. Cowley expresseth it)

From the great vulgar or the small.

And having thus lived to a good old age, admired by all, though personally known to few, he departed this life in the year 1680, and was buried at the charge of his good friend Mr. Longuevil, of the Temple, in the yard belonging to the church of St. Paul's Covent-garden, at the west end of the said yard, on the north side, under the wall of the said church, and under that wall which parts the yard from the common highway. And since he has no monument yet set up for him, give me leave to borrow his epitaph from that of Michael Drayton, the poet, as the author of Mr. Cowley's has partly done before me:

And though no monument can claim

To be the treasurer of thy name;

This work, which ne'er will die, shall be

An everlasting monument to thee.

Hudibras:

Sr. Hudibras, His Passing Worth, The Manner How He Sally'd Forth

Hudibras is an English mock-heroic narrative poem from the 17th century written by Samuel Butler. Published in the aftermath of the English Civil War, it is a scathing satire of Puritanism and the Parliamentarian cause from a Royalist perspective.

The work is a satirical polemic upon Roundheads, Puritans, Presbyterians and many of the other factions involved in the English Civil War. The work was begun, according to the title page, during the civil war and published in three parts in 1663, 1664 and 1678, with the first edition encompassing all three parts in 1684. The Mercurius Aulicus (an early newspaper of the time) reported an unauthorised edition of the first part that was already in print in early 1662.

Published only four years after Charles II had been restored to the throne and the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell being completely over, the poem found an appreciative audience. The satire is not balanced as Butler was fiercely royalist and only the parliamentarian side are singled out for ridicule. Butler also uses the work to parody some of the dreadful poetry of the time.

The epic tells the story of Sir Hudibras, a knight errant who is described dramatically and with laudatory praise that is so thickly applied as to be absurd, revealing the conceited and arrogant person visible beneath. He is praised for his knowledge of logic, despite appearing stupid throughout, but it is his religious fervour that is mainly attacked:

For his Religion, it was fit

To match his Learning and his Wit:

'Twas Presbyterian true blew;

For he was of that stubborn Crew

Of Errant Saints, whom all men grant

To be the true Church Militant:

Such as do build their Faith upon

The holy text of Pike and Gun;

Decide all Controversies by

Infallible Artillery;

And prove their Doctrine Orthodox

By Apostolic Blows and Knocks;

Call Fire and Sword and Desolation,

A godly-thorough-Reformation,

Which always must be carry'd on,

And still be doing, never done:

As if Religion were intended

For nothing else but to be mended.

— First Part, Canto I, lines 189-206

His squire, Ralpho, is of a similar stamp but makes no claim to great learning, knowing all there is to know from his religion or "new-light", as he calls it. Butler satirises the competing factions at the time of the Protectorate by the constant bickering of these two principal characters whose religious opinions should unite them.

These are fawning but barbed portraits and are thought to represent personalities of the times but the actual analogues are, now as then, debatable. "A Key to Hudibras" printed with one of the work's editions (1709) and ascribed to Roger L'Estrange names Sir Samuel Luke as the model for Hudibras. Certainly, the mention of Mamaluke in the poem makes this possible, although Butler suggests Hudibras is from the West Country, making Henry Rosewell a candidate. The witchfinder Matthew Hopkins, John Desborough, parliamentarian general, and William Prynne, lawyer, all make appearances, and the character of Sidrophel is variously seen as either William Lilly or Paul Neale.

Other literary works:

Most of his other writings never saw print until they were collected and published by Robert Thyer in 1759. Butler wrote many short biographies, epigrams and verses the earliest surviving from 1644. Of his verses, the best known is "The Elephant on the Moon", about a mouse trapped in a telescope, a satire on Sir Paul Neale of the Royal Society. Butler's taste for the mock heroic is shown by another early poem Cynarctomachy, or Battle between Bear and Dogs, which is both a homage to and a parody of a Greek poem ascribed to Homer, Batrachomyomachia. He wrote the poem Upon Philip Nye's Thanksgiving Beard about the Puritan Philip Nye and later also mentioned him in Hudibras.

His supposed lack of money later in life is strange as he had numerous unpublished works which could have offered him income including a set of Theophrastan character sketches which were not printed until 1759. Many other works are dubiously attributed to him.