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Reference
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Cambridge History
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The Age of Dryden
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Samuel Butler
> Butler in the Employ of Sir Samuel Luke and the Earl of Carbery
Butlers Life before and after the Restoration
Penury of his Later Days
CONTENTS
·
VOLUME CONTENTS
·
INDEX OF ALL CHAPTERS
·
BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD
The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes
(190721).
Volume VIII. The Age of Dryden.
II.
Samuel Butler
.
§ 4. Butler in the Employ of Sir Samuel Luke and the Earl of Carbery.
Some years of his early life were spent in the capacity of clerk to a succession of county magistrates; but the most important of these employments was that under Sir Samuel Luke, of Cople Hoo near Bedford, who was a fanatical puritan, one of Cromwells colonels in the civil war, and scoutmaster for Bedfordshire and several midland counties. In this gentlemans house were frequent meetings of members of various religious and political sects, and Butler had an opportunity of noting the peculiarities and pretentions of a motley crew, which he afterwards mercilessly ridiculed in his comic epic. Here, no doubt, he composed many of his
Characters
and notes, which sometimes appear in his
Hudibras,
though some of the
Characters
were obviously written, partly, at least, after the restoration. One hundred and twenty of these
Characters,
by Robert Thyer, had appeared (but not till 1759) in
The Genuine Remains in Verse and Prose of Mr. Samuel Butler,
and, recently, sixty-eight more, together with a number of miscellaneous
Observations and Reflexions,
have been published.
3
In 1660, Butler became secretary to Richard, earl of Carbery, lord president of Wales, who appointed him steward of Ludlow castle, where many
Characters
and other compositions were written out fair for the press, as they came afterwards into the hands of his friend William Longueville.
6
After the restoration, Butler published the first part of his
Hudibras
in 1663, the second part in 1664, but the third part did not see the light till 1678. It was at once received with great enthusiasm, especially by Charles II, to whom it became a kind of
vade mecum,
and who rewarded the poet with a gratuity of £300.
4
7
Note 3
. Ed. Waller, A. R. (Cambridge English Classics), 1908.
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Note 4
. Thus, especially if the difference in the value of money be remembered, the observation of Dennis (
Reflections on Popes Essay on Criticism,
p. 539), that Butler was starved at the same time that the king had his book in his pocket is hardly fair to Charles II.
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CONTENTS
·
VOLUME CONTENTS
·
INDEX OF ALL CHAPTERS
·
BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD
Butlers Life before and after the Restoration
Penury of his Later Days
Shakespeare
·
Bible
·
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·
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