nerously erected one in Westminster Abbey, where he eulogises his learning, acumen, integrity, and felicitous versification, and declares him, notwithstanding his numerous imitators, to be Scriptorum in suo genere primus et postamus Soon after the erection of this monument, Mr Samuel Wesley wrote the following epigram: While Butler, needy wretch, was yet alive, See him, when starv'd to death and turned to dust, The Poet's fate is here in emblem shown, He ask'd for bread, and he receiv'd a stone ! Mr Longueville has declared, that, notwithstanding the many disappointments Butler met with, he never was reduced to any thing like want or beggary, and that he did not die in any person's debt. He must, however, have been on the very verge of beggary, if he were compelled to be indebted to his friend for a decent interment of his body. His chief production, Hudibras, is now more talked of than read, and judged of by report, not from examination. The general idea of the poem was derived from Don Quixote; the knight's name, and Romething of his character, from Spenser's Fairy Queen. He that made love unto the eldest dame, B. 2. C. 1. St. 17. The remark has already been made, that the majority of persons are more familiar with the general character and reputation of Hudibras than with its contents. It has been observed, that no book is worth reading that is not worth quoting; an opinion, the truth of which would be more widely felt and acknowledged, were not the more usual object of reading to escape from thought, not to find food for reflection. If, however, the value of a book may be measured by its quotability, too high an appreciation cannot be set upon Hudibras. "Butler," says Di Johnson," had watched with great diligence the operations of human nature, and traced the effect of opinion, humour, interest, and passion. From such remarks proceeded that great number of sententious distichs which have passed into conversation, and are added as proverbial axioms to the general stock of practical knowledge." Such was the use made of it in all educated circles for many years from the date of its first appearance, whilst the opinions described or derided, the scenes and characters drawn, were still in the recollection of the reader; but there are two causes in operation to prevent its being much studied in the present day the blunt coarse vulgarisms with which it abounds, and which were enjoyed in Charles the Second's time, accord not with the present refined taste; next, the whole poem is occupied with sub jects of the day, and we are so remote from the time referred to, that a complete understanding of the allusions, or a just appreciation of the burlesque, cannot be possessed but as the result of an intimate acquaintance with the occurrences and opinions of the period. The reader of Hudibras should not only be familiar with the history, politics, and religion of the eventful times in which the author lived, but with its actions, feelings, follies, its science, literature, and superstitions. To enjoy it with a true relish, he should have sung catches in a tavern with a knot of jovial cavaliers,-been stifled in a conventicle of sturdy puritans,-deafened by the eloquent outpourings of Dr Burgess and Hugh Peters-he should have been bewildered in the mazes of scholastic divinity, with Aquinas and Duns Scotus,-had his fortune told by Booker or Lilly,-tried experiments with Sir Paul Neale,cross-examined the moon with the Royal Society,-" seen countries far and near" with "Le Blanc the Traveller,"--sympathised with Sir Kenelm Digby,-yawned over the romantic tomes of Calprenede and Scuderi, been witty upon Gondibert, and deep in Cervantes, and Coke upon Littleton. It is a common error among "the great vulgar and the small" to look upon Hudibras as extremely low-in fact, as a mere burlesque. It is as much above "the common cry" of burlesque as the novels of Fielding and Sir Walter Scott are above the ephemeral trash of the Minerva press. It is a mighty and comprehensive satire, --as powerful in argument, as pungent,-as rich in illustration, as any that united wit and learning have ever produced All the weapons of controversial warfare, invective, irony, sarcasm, ridicule, are in it alternately and successfully wielded. The most opposite and conflicting absurdities, the excrescences of learning, and the bigotries of ignorance, time-honoured prejudices, and follies of recent growth or importation, are laid prostrate" at one fell swoop." Butler makes none but palpable hits. His sentences have the pithy briefness of a proverb, with the sting of an epigram. His subject was local and transitory-his satire boundless and eternal. His greatest fault is profusion, -he revels and runs riot in the prodigality of his imaginings,-he bewilders himself and his readers amidst "thick-coming fancies,"-his poem is o'erinformed with wit; it dazzles and overpowers with an unremitting succession of brilliant coruscations. His narrative is to its embellishments, but as one poor half-pennyworth of bread to all this intolerable quantity of sack." The adventures are meagre and unsatisfactory: we might 66 "Make future times shake hand with latter, And that which was before come after," without impairing or confusing the story. Like Bayes, in the Rehear sal,' our author probably thought a plot was good for nothing but to bring in good things, and consequently troubled himself very little about its consistency or probability. His hero is a hydra of contradictions,he is not the representative of a class, sect, or party, but of all classes. sects, and parties. With wit and learning enough, if "sawed into quantities," to fit out all the heroes of the octosyllabic epics that ever have been written, he is turned out to make us sport as a coxcomb and a driveller. With more cunning than Nick Machiavel,' he is the butt and dupe of sullen spirits; and is abused, gulled, and buffetted, through eight long cantos, without mercy or measure. The poetry of Butler has been well described by Sir Walter Scott, in his life of Dryden, as being merely the comedy of that style of composition which Donne and Cowley practised in its more serious form, the difference between the two modes of writing being, to adopt his very felicitous illustration, just that which exists between a countenance of a peculiar cast of feature, when solemnized by deep reflection, and the same countenance when lighted up by cheerfulness, or distorted by outrageous merriment. And it is the gayer and more animated species of expression, it may be added, which is here, beyond all question, also the more graceful and appropriate. In choosing the sort of subject which he has done for the exercise of his most original genius, Butler has shown a wisdom which Donne and Cowley did not possess, and has just restored the manner of writing, which they so strangely misunderstood and abused, to its right and natural application: or rather we should say, that he was the first by whom it was ever thus correctly and happily employed for the illustration of the only sort of theme which was at all fitted to exemplify its rich although singular capabilities, and to give to it a title to be enumerated among the legitimate appurtenances of poetry. It were difficult for us to determine exactly in how far Butler may have been indebted to his two misguided predecessors for that habit of wild and fantastic combination, by which the imagery of his poetry is called into being;-that admirable sense of its true import and effect, by which he has given to it all its propriety and its power, is at least altogether and exclusively his own. And how much has he in this way made of that which, till he seized upon and appropriated it, was almost utterly valueless! If his poem is not to be accounted as belonging to the highest species of poetry, the genius that presided over its execution has at least seldom been equalled in that particular sort of power by which it achieved its wonders. The imagination of Butler does not rise, perhaps, to a very lofty altitude, but it never has been surpassed for vigour of pinion, and sustained and unflagging perseverance in that mode of flight to which it addicts itself. It neither luxuriates, it is true, in dreams and visions of transcendental glory, nor delights itself in hovering over the loveliness of earthly landscapes, nor glows or effervesces with the warmth of human passion; nor is it skilled in giving life and reality to any fiction, and making the beings of its own creation speak and move as if there were boiling blood in their veins, and beating hearts in their bosoms. But in rich, and varied, and searching wit,-in that piercing keenness of eye which no dexterity can escape, and no folding hide from,-in that exquisite sensibility to the grotesque in conduct and in character, by which he absolutely breaks open the sluices of our laughter, and brings down our exuberant merriment like a river's tide upon the hapless victims of his satire,—in ingenuity quick and subtle as the light of heaven, and universal as the realm of human knowledge and human speculation,-in one word, in nerve and elasticity of intellect, and unwearied play and brilliancy of fancy, who is be, among all that have ever written, with whom Butler is to be matched? There is more thought in one of his pages than in whole volumes of other men. The great defect of his poem, indeed, is that it fatigues the attention, not by allowing it to languish unfed, but by surfeiting it with superfluity of sustenance,— not by dragging it over the dreariness of deserts, but by over-exciting it on its way by the throng and hurry of incessant attractions. The wit that dazzles and astonishes us by its ever-flashing radiance was never so richly mixed up as it is in him with the humour that convulses our frame by the exaggeration of its pictures, and the violence of its incongruous combinations. His wit is almost always ludicrous, and his humour almost always not more titillating than it is pungent. The worst defects of Hudibras are such as necessarily result from its very excellencies. The banquet is in truth too rich a one to be long indulged in. But if it is not a book to be begun and finished, like most others, at a sitting, there are few others which will bear to be more frequently resorted to, or which will retain so fresh a relish after many perusals. Its wit, plentiful as it is, is at the same time all of so unique a description as to seem ever new. It is not like any thing we hear in the ordinary world, or read in ordinary books. The ruling character of that teeming mind from which it sprung was its intense originality. The very literature which it loved was of that remote and peculiar description, which has been resorted to by other inquirers merely as a treat for curiosity, but in which Butler seems to have revelled till he had sucked its substance, and imbued himself all over with the very spirit that rose from it. His poem is on this account, as well as from its many allusions to the passing events of a half-forgotten age, somewhat unintelligible in certain passages to readers of the present day; but there is abundance of sterling gold in it notwithstanding, which time shall never rust, but which, deriving none of its lustre from the reflected peculiarities of any one generation, shall abide in its first beauty, while the language which enshrines it exists, for the admiration and delight of all. The Remains' of Butler partake of all the characteristic excellencies of his greater work, but they are neither much read nor much known. The comparative neglect which the minor pieces of our author have experienced, is chiefly attributable to the currency obtained by a wretched compilation of contemporary ribaldry, dignified with the title of Butler's Posthumous works.' Out of fifty pieces which this publication contains, three only are genuine,-the Ode on Duvall, Case of Charles I., and Letters of Audland and Prynne. His 'Genuine Remains' were collected and published by Mr R. Thyer of Manchester, in the year 1759. Of the prose pieces, which form the most interesting and least known portion of this publication, the most important in number and talent are the characters, which occupy the whole of the second volume. In instinctive perception of character, in practical knowledge of the world, as well as in richness and variety of imagination, and in bold originality of thought, he far surpasses most of his rivals in this kind of composition. One short interesting sample shall serve as a specimen : "A BUSY MAN Is one that seems to labour in every man's calling but his own; and, like Robin Goodfellow, does any man's drudgery that will let him. He is like an ape, that loves to do whatever he sees others do; and is al ways busy as a child at play. He is a great undertaker, and commonly as great an under-performer. His face is like a lawyer's buckram bag, that has always business in it; and as he trots about, his head travels as fast as his feet. He covets his neighbour's business, and his own is to meddle, not do. He is very lavish of his advice, and gives it freely, because it is worth nothing, and he knows not what to do with it himself. He is a common barreter for his pleasure, that takes no money, but pettifogs gratis. He is very inquisitive after every man's occasions, and charges himself with them like a public notary. He is a great overseer of state affairs; and can judge as well of them before he understands the reasons, as afterwards. He is excellent at preventing inconveniences, and finding out remedies when 'tis too late; for, like prophecies, they are never heard of till it is to no purpose. He is a great reformer, always contriving of expedients, and will press them with as much earnestness, as if himself, and every man he meets, had power to impose them on the nation. He is always giving aim to state affairs, and believes, by screwing of his body, he can make them shoot which way he pleases. He inquires into every man's business, and makes his own commentaries upon it, as he pleases to fancy it. He wonderfully affects to seem full of employments, and borrows men's business only to put on and appear in; and then returns it back again only a little worse. He frequents all public places, and, like a pillar in the Old Exchange, is hung with all men's business, both public and private; and his own is only to expose them. He dreads nothing so much as to be thought at leisure, though he is never otherways, for though he be always doing, he never does any thing." Wilmot, Earl of Rochester. BORN A. D. 1647.-DIED A. D. 1681. THIS brilliant profligate was the son of Henry, earl of Rochester, whose steadfast adherence to Charles's cause was the chief means of the monarch's preservation after the battle of Worcester. Young Wilmot was born on the 10th of April, 1647, at Ditchley in Oxfordshire. He received the elements of education and of classical literature in the free school at Barford. In 1659 he was sent to Oxford. It thus appears that at the period of his joining the university he was only twelve years of age. From one so young, a very powerful display of intellect could not be expected, nor does it appear that he very eminently distinguished himself while at college. He displayed, indeed, that quickness of parts for which he was always distinguished; but he wanted the steadiness of a student, as well as that ripeness of judgment which comes only with more advanced years. He left college a gay and brilliant, but not deeply accomplished, youth, and immediately plunged into the gaieties and dissipation of the French metropolis. On his return from the continent he was appointed one of the gentlemen of the bed-chamber to the king. Wood says that the youth was at this early period a perfect Hobbist in principle. The situation in which he was now placed was little calculated to disabuse his mind of those pernicious sentiments which seem |