glimpse of young Mr. Pepys at the
bookseller's in London Strand on a February morning in 1663, making
haste to buy a new copy of 'Hudibras,' and carefully explaining that it
was "ill humor of him to be so against that which all the world cries up
to be an example of wit." The Clerk of the Admiralty had connections at
court; and between that February morning and a December day when Mr.
Battersby was at the Wardrobe using the King's time in gossip about the
new book of drollery, the merry Stuart had found out Sam Butler's poem
and had given it the help of his royal approval. Erstwhile, Samuel the
courtier had thought the work of Samuel the poet silly, and had given
warranty of his opinion by suffering loss of one shilling eightpence on
his purchase of the book. A view not to be wondered at in one who sets
down "Midsummer Night's Dream" as "insipid and ridiculous," and
"Othello" as a "mean thing"! Perhaps it was because Butler had a keen
knowledge of Shakespeare, and unconsciously used much of the actor's
quick-witted method, that his delicately feathered barbs made no dent on
the hard head of Pepys. Like his neighbor of the Avon, the author of
"Hudibras" was a merciless scourge to the vainglorious follies of the
time in which he poorly and obscurely lived; and like the truths which
he told in his inimitable satires, the virtue and decency of his life
was obscured by the disorder of the Commonwealth and the unfaith of the
restored monarchy.

[Illustration: SAMUEL BUTLER]

Samuel Butler was born near Strensham, Worcestershire, in 1612, the
fifth child and second son of a farmer of that parish, whose homestead
was known to within the present century as "Butler's tenement." The
elder Butler was not well-to-do, but had enough to educate his son at
the Worcester Grammar School, and to send him to a university. Whether
or what time he was at Oxford or Cambridge remains doubtful. A Samuel
Butler went up from Westminster to Christ Church, Oxford, 1623, too soon
for the Worcester lad of eleven years. Another doubtful tradition
places him at Cambridge in 1620. There is evidence that he was employed
as a clerk by Mr. Jeffreys, a justice of the peace at Earl's Croombe in
Worcestershire, and that while in this position he studied painting
under Samuel Cooper. A portrait of Oliver Cromwell attributed to his
hand was once in existence, and a number of paintings, said to have been
by him, hung on the walls at Earl's Croombe until they w