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It is significant of the popularity of Hudibras, that numerous imitations
of it have been written from his day to ours.
Butler died on the 25th of September, 1680. Sixty years after, the hand of
private friendship erected a monument to him in Westminster Abbey. The
friend was John Barber, Lord Mayor of London, whose object is thus stated:
"That he who was destitute of all things when alive, might not want a
monument when he was dead." Upon the occasion of erecting this, Samuel
Wesley wrote:
While Butler, needy wretch, was yet alive,
No generous patron would a dinner give;
See him, when starved to death and turned to dust,
Presented with a monumental bust.
The poet's fate is here in emblem shown,
He asked for bread, and he received a stone.
To his own age he was the prince of jesters; to English literature he has
given its best illustration of the burlesque in rhetoric. To the reader of
the present day he presents rare historical pictures of his day, of far
greater value than his wit or his burlesque.


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