ott), who was also Vice-Chancellor of the
University, was in the chair, and a vote of thanks was proposed by
Professor William Bateson, F.R.S.

As the full Memoir of Butler on which I am engaged is not yet ready
for publication, I have again revised the sketch, and it is here
published in response to many demands for some account of his life.

H. F. J.
August, 1913.

Sketch of the Life of Samuel Butler
Author of Erewhon (1835-1902)

Samuel Butler was born on the 4th December, 1835, at the Rectory,
Langar, near Bingham, in Nottinghamshire. His father was the Rev.
Thomas Butler, then Rector of Langar, afterwards one of the canons
of Lincoln Cathedral, and his mother was Fanny Worsley, daughter of
John Philip Worsley of Arno's Vale, Bristol, sugar-refiner. His
grandfather was Dr. Samuel Butler, the famous headmaster of
Shrewsbury School, afterwards Bishop of Lichfield. The Butlers are
not related either to the author of Hudibras, or to the author of
the Analogy, or to the present Master of Trinity College, Cambridge.

Butler's father, after being at school at Shrewsbury under Dr.
Butler, went up to St. John's College, Cambridge; he took his degree
in 1829, being seventh classic and twentieth senior optime; he was
ordained and returned to Shrewsbury, where he was for some time
assistant master at the school under Dr. Butler. He married in 1832
and left Shrewsbury for Langar. He was a learned botanist, and made
a collection of dried plants which he gave to the Town Museum of
Shrewsbury.

Butler's childhood and early life were spent at Langar among the
surroundings of an English country rectory, and his education was
begun by his father. In 1843, when he was only eight years old, the
first great event in his life occurred; the family, consisting of
his father and mother, his two sisters, his brother and himself,
went to Italy. The South-Eastern Railway stopped at Ashford, whence
they travelled to Dover in their own carriage; the carriage was put
on board the steamboat, they crossed the Channel, and proceeded to
Cologne, up the Rhine to Basle and on through Switzerland into
Italy, through Parma, where Napoleon's widow was still reigning,
Modena, Bologna, Florence, and so to Rome. They had to drive where
there was no railway, and there was then none in all Italy except
between Naples and Castellamare. They seemed to pass a fresh
custom-house every day, but, by tipping the searchers, generally got
through