But if he is neglected in the present day as a household poet, he stands
prominently forth to the literary student as an historic personage of no
mean rank, a type and representative of his age, country, and social
conditions.
SAMUEL BUTLER.
BUTLER'S CAREER.--The author of Hudibras, a satirical poem which may as
justly be called a comic history of England as any of those written in
prose in more modern times, was born in Worcestershire, on the 8th of
February, 1612. The son of poor parents, he received his education at a
grammar school. Some, who have desired to magnify his learning, have said
that he was for a time a student at Cambridge; but the chronicler Aubrey,
who knew him well, denies this. He was learned, but this was due to the
ardor with which he pursued his studies, when he was clerk to Mr.
Jeffreys, an eminent justice of the peace, and as an inmate of the mansion
of the Countess of Kent, in whose fine library he was associated with the
accomplished Selden.
We next find him domiciled with Sir Samuel Luke, a Presbyterian and a
parliamentary soldier, in whose household he saw and noted those
characteristics of the Puritans which he afterward ridiculed so severely
in his great poem, a poem which he was quietly engaged in writing during
the protectorate of Cromwell, in hope of the coming of a day when it could
be issued to the world.
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