a
review of Erewhon, which appeared in the number for 8th June, 1872,
and Butler quoted a sentence from her review among the press notices
in the second edition. She persuaded him to write for Mrs. Briggs
notices of concerts at which Handel's music was performed. In 1901
he made a note on one of his letters that he was thankful there were
no copies of the Drawing-Room Gazette in the British Museum, meaning
that he did not want people to read his musical criticisms;
nevertheless, I hope some day to come across back numbers containing
his articles.

The opening of Erewhon is based upon Butler's colonial experiences;
some of the descriptions remind one of passages in A First Year in
Canterbury Settlement, where he speaks of the excursions he made
with Doctor when looking for sheep-country. The walk over the range
as far as the statues is taken from the Upper Rangitata district,
with some alterations; but the walk down from the statues into
Erewhon is reminiscent of the Leventina Valley in the Canton Ticino.
The great chords, which are like the music moaned by the statues,
are from the prelude to the first of Handel's Trois Lecons; he used
to say:

"One feels them in the diaphragm--they are, as it were, the groaning
and labouring of all creation travailing together until now."

There is a place in New Zealand named Erewhon, after the book; it is
marked on the large maps, a township about fifty miles west of
Napier in the Hawke Bay Province (North Island). I am told that
people in New Zealand sometimes call their houses Erewhon and
occasionally spell the word Erehwon which Butler did not intend; he
treated wh as a single letter, as one would treat th. Among other
traces of Erewhon now existing in real life are Butler's Stones on
the Hokitika Pass, so called because of a legend that they were in
his mind when he described the statues.

The book was translated into Dutch in 1873 and into German in 1897.

Butler wrote to Charles Darwin to explain what he meant by the "Book
of the Machines": "I am sincerely sorry that some of the critics
should have thought I was laughing at your theory, a thing which I
never meant to do and should be shocked at having done." Soon after
this Butler was invited to Down and paid two visits to Mr. Darwin
there; he thus became acquainted with all the family and for some
years was on intimate terms with Mr. (now Sir) Francis Darwin.

It is easy to see by the light of subsequent events