around her, from seven to nine in the evening, a number of congenial spirits, to furnish her with the excitement of intelligent and philosophical conversation in a free, easy, and familiar manner, unrestrained by the strict etiquette of the court. To these meetings of learned and ingenious men, most of those who had attained any eminence by their literary abilities were welcomed. The clever, good-tempered, beautiful, and sternly Protestant Queen-who had refused Charles VI., Emperor of Austria, rather than change her religion, and had vanquished a Jesuit, who had been sent to convert her, in an argument regarding the true faith-dearly delighted in controversy, especially religious controversy. Among those who attended these " evenings at home" we read the names of Clarke, Butler's co-respondent in regard to the demonstration of the being and attributes of God; Berkeley, author of the "Principles of Human Knowledge;" Hoadley, the biographer of Clarke, and the leader in the Bangorian controversy; Sherlock, also a Bangorian and author of "The Use and Intent of Prophecy;" Secker, the fellow-student and life-friend of Butler; Warburton; the poet Young; and Butler himself, of whose writings, conversation, and virtues her Majesty entertained the highest possible opinion, and from whose own hands she received the sacrament privately. George II. did not neglect his wife's favourite after her decease.

The thoughtful hours spent in Stanhope had, meanwhile, produced their well-matured fruit. In 1736 he had published "The Analogy of Natural and Revealed Religion to the Order of Nature,” which Lord Brougham calls "the most argumentative and philosophical defence of Christianity ever submitted to the world;" and Sir James Mackintosh pronounces to be "the most original and profound work extant in any language on the philosophy of religion." These opinions we may afterwards estimate, but shall now follow the course of events by which, as Walpole epigrammatically asserts," he was wafted to the see of Durham on a cloud of metaphysics;" though the process, as Archbishop Secker observes," so far from being sudden and unexpected, was a gradual and natural rise through a variety of preferments and a period of thirty-two years." Before proceeding with this narrative, however, it may be well to deflect from our course to gather an estimate from other sources of Butler's influence and worth. Henry Home (Lord Kames, 16961782), who to the end of his life regarded Butler as a manly and acute writer," who "hath gone farther than any other to assign a just foundation for moral duty," was engaged, in the midst of professional pursuits and the production of legal works, in investigations relating to "the principles of morality and natural religion, and felt some doubts concerning the Christian evidences. Attracted by the sincerity and ability of Butler's two volumes, he wrote to their author, expressing an earnest desire to be favoured with an interview, for the clearing up of his doubts. Butler, distrustful of his powers as an oral debater excused himself, but offered to consider any matter laid before him in writing. A correspondence

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ensued, and a friendship was, after a sort, established between them. Though the letters are lost, we are justified in believing that they were effective for their end, because we find David Hume, in a letter addressed to Henry Home, from London, 2nd Dec., 1737, writing in these terms:-"Your thoughts and mine agree with respect to Dr. Butler, and I should be glad to be introduced to him. I am at present castrating my work ["A Treatise of Human Nature"], that is, cutting off its nobler parts; that is, endeavouring it shall give as little offence as possible, before which I could not pretend to put it into the Doctor's hands. This is a piece of cowardice for which I blame myself, though I believe none of my friends will blame me." On the 4th of March, 1738, we find him writing to Home again :-" I shall not trouble you with any formal compliments or thanks, which would be but an ill return for the kindness you have done me in writing on my behalf to one you are so little acquainted with as Dr. Butler; and, I am afraid, stretching the truth in favour of a friend. I have called upon the Doctor with a design of delivering him your letter, but find he is at present in the country. I am a little anxious to have the Doctor's opinion." We do not know what judgment Butler passed upon the earliest work of the remarkable Scottish thinker. It is not probable that the theories contained in it could win Butler's approval; but it is almost certain that the philosophical acumen, and the grounding of all speculation on experience, would gain his suffrage and receive his praise. We are not surprised, therefore, to find that on the publication of Hume's " Essays, Moral and Political," in 1741, for which a second edition was called in 1742, the author should write to Henry Home exultingly,-"I am told that Dr. Butler has everywhere recommended them, so that I hope they will have some success.' From the facts above stated we feel inclined to infer that Butler was, while thoroughly conscientious in his orthodoxy (else why should Hume have been afraid of him?), honestly liberal in his sentiments; and that his philosophical defence of Christianity had impressed the higher minds of the age with a singular sense of his power and

candour.

We see him in a tenderer relation as the friend and adviser of the learned and pious Mrs. Elizabeth Carter (1717-1806), daughter of Dr. N. Carter, of Deal, in Kent, and niece of the head of Oriel; of Miss Catherine Talbot (1720-1770), daughter of his college friend and patron-getter, Edward Talbot, authoress of "Essays," &c.; and Mrs. Chapone (Miss Hester Mulso),-ladies who added the charms of a thorough education to those of a character founded on earnest Christian principles. With these, and many others, he maintained a friendship as lasting as life-perhaps more so.

Secker had been made Bishop of Bristol in 1735, but in 1737 he was advanced to the see of Oxford, and on his recommendation Butler was appointed his successor. He was consecrated on 3rd December, 1738. One of his first acts of patronage was to confer on his grammar school master, Mr. Barton, the rectory of Hutton,

in Essex. Dr. Butler, though the income of the see was small, contributed munificently to the numerous charitable institutions of Bristol, and expended the entire income of his episcopal office in improving the palace of the incumbent. In his zeal for ecclesiastical decoration-which seems to have been quite a hobby with him-he erected a cross in his own chapel, an act which subsequently exposed him to suspicion as having a leaning towards Popery. While here he continued his strange habit of walking for hours in his garden in the darkest nights, sometimes accompanied by friends, but frequently solitarily. The concentration of his thoughts appears to have demanded the exclusion of all excitements to the sense. When all around him was drearest, his ideas were clearest. In February, 1739, he preached a sermon on behalf of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. In 1740 he preached before the Lord Mayor in St. Bride's Church, London, having been inducted to a Deanery of St. Paul's on 24th May of that year. On attaining this preferment he resigned the rectory of Stanhope, rich though it was, and common as was the retention of pluralities in these days of lukewarm ecclesiasticism. In the calm performance of his Bristolian duties, and of the requirements of his Deanery, a few years more of Butler's life glided by in unaspiring calmness and content. In 1746 Dr. Egerton, Bishop of Hereford, died, and a vacancy having thus occurred in the clerkship of the King's closet, Butler accepted the office, at the express request of his sovereign. In the following year Archbishop Potter, author of The Antiquities of Greece," died, and the Primacy was offered to Butler, who had preached in the same year a sermon before the House of Lords on the anniversary of the accession of George II., June 11th. For such a charge he felt incompetent; and, in consideration of the weighty care which that mitre laid upon the incumbent's brow in the state of the Church of his day, refused to become the head of the ecclesiastical hierarchy of England. One of his nephews at this juncture, Presbyterian though he was, under the impression that his uncle hesitated to occupy the topmost pinnacle of the Church's honours on account of his incompetency to bear the expense, offered to supply the primate-designate with £20,000 to enable him to fill the office with complete acceptance in a pecuniary point of view. He was greatly astonished at finding him intractable and impracticable; and out of this incident, perhaps, arises the family myth that the Bishop had expressed himself dolefully to the effect that "it was too late for him now to attempt to uphold a falling church." It does not appear, however, that he thought the Church in so hopeless and helpless a state; for on the death (16th Oct., 1750) of Dr. Edward Chandler, Bishop of Durham, author of the "Defence of Christianity from the Prophecies,' who had succeeded his former patron, Dr. Butler accepted the office. But even here the stern, conscientious, unplacemanlike dealing of Butler had a work to do. The Duke of Newcastle, then Premier, wished to confer the dignity of Lord Lieutenant of the

County Palatine upon Lord Barnard. Hitherto this secular office had been joined to the episcopate. On hearing that this was the case, Butler objected to the bishopric's being denuded of any honour in his hands, and insisted upon the continuance of the lieutenancy in connection with the see. By the King's command the Duke yielded, and Butler was installed as Bishop of Durham, with all its dignities attached to it and unharmed.

On taking possession of the diocese, he determined to emulate his former patron, Bishop Talbot, in hospitality and liberality. While continuing his large contributions to the Bristol Infirmary and his subscriptions to three of the London hospitals, he engaged, with great eagerness, in setting the infirmary at Newcastle on a better and firmer footing. He regarded the income of his bishopric not as a personal allowance, but as a means of maintaining his station. Public benefactions and private benevolence, therefore, made great claims upon his purse. The poorer clergy were welcomed to his home, and he condescended to visit them at theirs. He spent large sums in improving the episcopal residences, and in entertaining the gentry of the diocese at his dwelling with princely munificence. In the distribution of his vast patronage he was strictly conscientious and impartial. A nephew of his, who had betaken himself to the Church, exclaimed, on being refused a preferment, because he did not seem sufficiently devoted to his duty, "Methinks, my lord, it is a misfortune to be related to you"! He chose, on account of his talents alone, Dr. Nathaniel Forster (1717-1757), author of "Popery Destructive of the Evidences of Christianity," &c., for his domestic chaplain, who remained his fast friend, and was appointed his executor and residuary legatee. In 1751, Bishop Butler delivered to the diocese of Durham his first and last charge. This tractate was printed and published at Durham immediately on its delivery. The chief topic on which it laid stress was the decency and reverence requisite in the external rites and forms of religion, and the usefulness of outward observances in the promotion of inward piety. The choice of this subject, and the rumour regarding the Bristol cross, seem to have set some men's minds against the prelate, as one holding views savouring of Popery; and in the following year a critical pamphlet was issued, containing "A Serious Inquiry into the Use and Importance of External Religion; occasioned by some passages in the Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Durham's Charge to the Clergy of that Diocese," -the only direct criticism to which Butler was subjected in his lifetime. The scandal, however, was revived, with the usual accumulations of virulence which time imparts to that commodity, fifteen years after the prelate's demise, in the assertion that he died a papist. By this date, Forster, hwo saw him die, was dead, but Secker came instantly to the rescue of his friend's memory, and denied the lying imputation.

Shortly after the delivery of this charge Butler's health began to decline, and then it failed rapidly. Mildly and meekly he bore the

woe of sickness, only lamenting that he should be taken from the world just at the moment when it seemed he might have been of use to it. There can be little doubt that, during the fifteen years which intervened between the issue of the "Analogy" and this illness, his mind was brooding over some other work of higher aim and broader grasp than even that magnificent exercise of reasoning, and that his ripened thoughts would have been valuable to the race who were to follow him in the pilgrimage of life-and of death. He was ordered to Bath to try the effects of the hot springs of that famous Somersetshire watering-place. There, taken by slow, short stages, he arrived on 3rd June, 1752; on the 8th he was sinking rapidly; on the 12th, disease had eclipsed thought; on the 16th, the Messenger arrived about 11 a.m., and the body alone of Butler was left to the care of friends. His end, it is said, was peace. His corpse was interred in Bristol Cathedral, where a monument, bearing an inscription written by Dr. Forster, was erected to his memory. There his dust reposes still; but his writings have achieved a life beyond life for his name and fame.

Butler was not a professed logician, but he had noted with a discerning eye the necessity of his age. Bacon's realism had caught the world, and had given the desire for certainty an overweight in its esteem. The magnificent discoveries of Newton had not only gratified all thinkers, but had ratified the legislation for science which Bacon had elaborated. Trust in probabilities and dependence upon faith were looked upon as figments and insanities. This distrust in faith too soon manifested itself in not merely speculative, but practical faithlessness. "There was a general decay of religion in the nation, observed by every one, for some time the complaint of all serious persons-the influence of it more and more wearing out the minds of men, even of those who did not pretend to enter into speculations on the subject; whilst the numbers of those who did, and who professed themselves unbelievers, increased, and with their numbers their zeal, zeal for nothing, but against everything that was good and sacred among men." To win such a state of society to the investigation of religion, expository discourses were not required; nothing could have made them successful. To find a new starting-point for thought-to find a point of view in harmony with the spirit of his age, yet able to lead to higher and holier thoughts-was the requirement. This Butler found. To reason from facts determined to others beyond the immediate reach of thought; to pass from indisputable premises to conclusions transcending the mere scope of the senses; to infer identity in the whole from the identity of the parts noticeable in the panorama of objects; and to deduce arguments regarding the affinity of objects from perceiving their resemblances, were the great aims of the time. Butler recalled to men's minds the other tendency and effect of the soul's love of making identity or similarity a ground of inference; and laid before men who boasted themselves of their skill in reasoning a grand scheme of well-knit logical thought singularly