As easily learned virtuosos may

With the dog's blood his gentle kind convey
Into the wolf, and make him guardian turn
To th' bleating flock, by him so lately torn.
If this imperial juice once taint his blood,
'Tis by no potent antidote withstood.
Tyrants, like leprous Kings, for publick weal
Should be immured, lest the contagion steal
Over the whole. Th' elect of th' Jessan line
To this firm law their sceptre did resign:
And shall this base tyrannic brood invade
Eternal laws, by God for mankind made?
To the serene Venetian state I'll
From her sage mouth famed principles to know,
With her the prudence of the ancients read,
To teach my people in their steps to tread;
By their great pattern such a state I'll frame,
Shall eternise a glorious lasting name.

go,

Till then, my Ralegh, teach our noble youth To love sobriety, and holy truth.

Watch and preside over their tender age,

Lest court-corruption should their souls engage.
Teach them how arts, and arms, in thy young days
Employ'd our youth; not taverns, stews, and plays.
Tell them the generous scorn their rise does owe
To flattery, pimping, and a gaudy show.
Teach them to scorn the Carwells, Portsmouths, Nells,
The Clevelands, Osbornes, Berties, Lauderdales:
Poppaa, Tegoline, and Arteria's name,

All yield to these in lewdness, lust, and fame.
Make them admire the Talbots, Sidneys, Veres,
Drake, Cav'ndish, Blake, men void of slavish fears
True sons of glory, pillars of the state,

On whose famed deeds all tongues and writers wait.
When with fierce ardor their bright souls do burn,
Back to my dearest country I'll return.
Tarquin's just judge, and Cæsar's equal peers,
With them I'll bring to dry my people's tears:
Publicola with healing hands shall pour
Balm in their wounds, and shall their life restore;
Greek arts and Roman arms, in her conjoin'd,
Shall England raise, relieve oppress'd mankind.

As Jove's great son th' infested globe did free
From noxious monsters' hell-born tyranny,
So shall my England, in a holy war,
In triumph lead chain'd tyrants from afar;
Her true Crusado shall at last pull down
The Turkish crescent, and the Persian sun.
Freed by thy labours, fortunate, blèss'd Isle,

The earth shall rest, the heaven shall on thee smile;
And this kind secret for reward shall give,

NO POISON'D TYRANTS ON THY EARTH shall live.'

Cuidam qui, legendo Scripturam, descripsit formam, sapientiam,

sortemque Auctoris.

Illustrissimo Viro,

Domino Lanceloto Josepho de Maniban, Grammato-manti.

Quis posthac chartæ committat sensa loquaci,

Si sua crediderit fata subesse stylo;
Conscia si prodat scribentis litera sortem,

Quicquid et in vitá plus latuisse velit?
Flexibus in calami tamen omnia sponte leguntur:
Quod non significant verba, figura notat.
Bellerophonteas signat sibi quisque tabellas;
Ignaramque manum spiritus intus agit.
Nil præter solitum sapiebat epistola nostra,
Exemplumque meæ simplicitatis erat :
Fabula jucundos qualis delectat amicos;

Urbe, lepore, novis, carmine tota scatens.
Hic tamen interpres, quo non securior alter
(Non res, non voces, non ego notus ei).
Rimatur fibras notularum cautus aruspex,
Scripturæque inhians consulit exta meæ.
Inde statim vitæ casus, animique recessus,
Explicat (haud Genio plura liquere putem);
Distribuit totum nostris eventibus orbem,

Et

quo me rapiat cardine Sphæra docet.
Que Sol oppositus, quæ Mars adversa minetur,
Jupiter aut ubi me, Luna, Venusve juvet : &e..

124

SAMUEL BUTLER.*

[1612-1680.]

SAMUEL BUTLER, the son of a substantial farmer,† was born at Strensham in Worcestershire, and baptized February 14, 1612. His grammareducation he received at the free school of Worcester; and his father being informed by Mr. Henry Bright the master, that he possessed an acute genius and a ready disposition for learning, resolved to encourage it, and to bring him up to the profession of the law. With this view, he sent him (as it is most probably conjectured) to Cambridge, to pursue his studies : but though he resided six or seven years in that University, he was never matriculated; in consequence, it is said, of his narrow circumstances, which would not permit him to go through the regular gradations of degrees, and to support the other incidental expenses of the place. We are therefore

* AUTHORITIES. General Biographical Dictionary; Grey's Memoirs of Butler; Cibber's Lives of the Poets; and British Biography.

↑ His father's property was a house and a little land (as Dr. Nash has discovered) worth about eight pounds a year, still called Butler's Tenement.'

to suppose, that he only attended the public lectures, which at that time (as at present) were numerous and respectable. The accounts of his youth, however, are extremely defective; and we are only told, that when he quitted Cambridge, he became clerk to Mr. Jefferys of Earl's Croom,. an eminent Magistrate for the County of Worcester. With this gentleman he lived some years in great comfort, having leisure to apply himself to his favourite studies and amusements; history, poetry, music, and painting. He afterward obtained the patronage of Elizabeth Countess of Kent, a lady of considerable learning, and the protectress of men of letters. In her house he not only found an excellent library, but likewise formed an acquaintance with many of her enlightened visitors. Among others he became intimate with Selden, who often employed him in business connected with literature. But in what character, or for how long a period, he served that lady, and why he left her service is, like most of the other incidents of his life, unknown.

His next residence was with Sir Samuel Luke, a gentleman of an ancient family in Bedfordshire, and one of the Generals of Oliver Cromwell. Here he very probably planned, if he did not also write, the celebrated poem of HUDIBRAS, under which character it is supposed he intended to ridicule his employer. He had indeed, at this time, an opportunity

* Several pictures, traditionally assigned to his pencil, long remained in his first master's family, proving his early inclination to that noble art, for which also he was at a later period highly regarded by the distinguished artist, Mr. Samuel Cooper. Not long afterward, Dr. Nash found they had been employed to stop windows; and adds, that they hardly deserved a better fate!?

of conversing with those living characters of nonsense and hypocrisy, which he so vividly portrays and exposes throughout his whole work.

Some years after the Restoration, he was made Secretary to Richard Earl of Carbery, Lord President of Wales, and appointed Steward of Ludlow Castle, when the Lord President's Court was revived at that place. About the same time, likewise, he married Mrs. Hubert, a widow lady of good family and competent fortune, of which however the greater part, being placed on bad securities, was unfortunately lost but we have no dates to the few recorded events of his existence, and must therefore be guided in those respects by collateral circumstances. His Hudibras,' of which the First Part was published in 1663, introduced him, probably, to the notice of the courtiers, and particularly to that poet and patron of learning, the Earl of Dorset. By him it was made known to the King, who often pleasantly quoted it in conversation.

Every eye, says Dr. Johnson, now watched the golden shower which was to fall upon the author, who certainly was not without his share in the general expectation. In 1664, the Second Part appeared; the curiosity of the nation was rekindled, and the writer was again praised and elated. Rochester himself declared:

I loath the rabble; 'tis enough for me

If Sedley, Shadwell, Sheppard, Wycherly,

Godolphin, BUTLER, Buckhurst, Buckingham,
And some few more whom I omit to name,

Approve my sense: I count their censure fame.'

}

Alas! praise was his sole reward. Clarendon, says