The Project Gutenberg eBook, Samuel Butler: A Sketch, by Henry Festing
Jones

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Title: Samuel Butler: A Sketch

Author: Henry Festing Jones

Release Date: May 1, 2007 [eBook #2993]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SAMUEL BUTLER: A SKETCH***

Transcribed from the 1921 Jonathan Cape edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org

SAMUEL BUTLER:
A Sketch, by Henry Festing Jones

Author of _Samuel Butler_: _A Memoir_

Jonathan Cape
Eleven Gower Street London

_First published in_ "_The Humour of Homer & Other Essays_" _by Samuel
Butler_ 1913. _Reissued by Jonathan Cape_ 1921

Samuel Butler: A Sketch

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