AFTER the Restoration of King Charles II. had thrown the Puritans into the shade, a man of almost fifty years, who had seen the bloody drama of the Revolution played out, and had been thrown by the changes of those troubled years into close contact with both Cavaliers and Roundheads, wrote a poem which cast even deeper ridicule upon the men of the steeple-hat and the sad-coloured dress than all the studied mockeries of a plumed and ringleted court could do. The man was Samuel Butler; the poem was Hudibras. What Shakspere is among English dramatists, Milton among English epic poets, Bunyan among English allegorists, Butler is among the writers of English burlesque-prince and paramount. He sprang from a lowly stock. His father farmed a few acres in the parish of Strensham in Worcestershire; and there the poet came to life in 1612. His schooling he got in Worcester; but the want of money prevented him from enjoying the benefit of a college education, although he is thought to have resided for some time at Cambridge, hovering round the halls of learning without being able to find an entrance there. His abilities, however, gained him a few friends. He spent some time at Earl's Coomb in his native shire, acting as clerk to Justice Jeffreys; and his leisure hours, while he held this humble post, were devoted, not alone to study, but also to the refining enjoyments of music and painting. Not long ago some sorry daubs, patching the broken windows of a house at Earl's Coomb, 224 AMONG THE PURITANS. were shown as the productions of the poet's pencil. If these were his, they only afforded another proof, in addition to the myriads we already have, that there are few men who can excel in more than one branch of art or study. It was a happy day for Butler, which transferred him to the mansion of the Countess of Kent. We do not know in what capacity he served this rich and noble lady; but there he foundwhat, no doubt, deeply gladdered the heart of the rustic scholarthe free use of a fine library, and the conversation of a learned man, Selden, who then managed the affairs of that household. Here he lived how long we cannot say-revelling in books of all kinds, and often repaying by literary help the kindness of the scholarly steward. Butler's life, as it has come down to us, is full of gaps. Knocked about from one employment to another, he acquired by his very misfortunes that rare and varied knowledge of human life which he displays so admirably in "Hudibras." The next scene in which he appears is the grave household of Sir Samuel Luke, a strict Puritan of Bedfordshire, who held a county office that of scout-master-under Cromwell. The atmosphere which Butler here breathed must have been somewhat uncongenial; yet it was his residence among the Puritans that prepared him for his famous work, supplied material for his fine word-pictures, and sharpened his stinging pen. Little did the Roundhead knight and his quiet household think that the poor tutor, whose bubbling, irrepressible wit, no doubt often scandalized the circumspect decorum of the dining-hall, was, like a traitor in the camp, taking silent notes, soon to be printed with a vengeance. Another gap, and Butler re-appears as secretary to the Earl of Carbery, the President of Wales, who conferred on him the stewardship of Ludlow Castle. It was then after the Restoration, and brighter days seemed to be dawning for the Royalist wit. So good were his prospects, that, although there must have been grey hairs under the huge bush of false curls which it was then the fashion to wear, he ventured to marry, as he thought, a fortune. But ill-luck still pursued him; his wife's money vanished A QUEER AND CLEVER BOOK. 225 through the failure of the securities, and Butler found himself as A.De a favourite mark for the shafts of courtly ridicule. The loud "Hudibras" is justly considered the best burlesque poem in the English language. For drollery and wit it cannot be surpassed. Written in the short tetrameter line, to which Scott has given so martial a ring, its queer couplets are at once understood and easily remembered--none the less for the extraordinary rhymes, which now and then startle us into a laugh. What can we expect but broad satiric fun in a poem in which we find a canto beginning thus:"There was an ancient sage philosopher, That had read Alexander Ross over." The adventures of Don Quixote, no doubt, suggested the idea of this work. Sir Hudibras, a Presbyterian knight, and his clerk, Squire Ralpho, sally forth to seek adventures and redress grievances, much as did the chivalrous knight of La Mancha and his trusty Sancho Panza. Nine cantos are filled with the squabbles, loves, and woes of master and man, whose Puritan manners and opinions are represented in a most ludicrous light. (15) THE LEARNING OF HUDIBRAS. He was in logic a great critic, A hair 'twixt south and south-west side; 15 On either which he would dispute, A calf, an alderman-a goose, a justice- And pay with ratiocination: In mood and figure, he would do. His mouth but out there flew a trope; And when he happened to break off For all a rhetorician's rules Teach nothing but to name his tools. But, when he pleased to shew 't, his speech A Babylonish dialect, Which learned pedants much affect: It was a party-coloured dress Of patched and piebald languages; 'Twas English cut on Greek and Latin, It had an odd promiscuous tone, As if he had talked three parts in one; Which made some think, when he did gabble, Th' had heard three labourers of Babel; Or Cerberus himself pronounce A leash of languages at once. A BOOK which little children love to read, may safely be pronounced a good book. In our English literature there are two works that have been tried for many score of years by this unfailing test, and have never been found wanting. These are the Pilgrim's Progress of Bunyan and the, Robinson Crusoe of Defoe. For many generations golden heads and rosy cheeks have been bent over the never-tiring pages; nor can we imagine a time when children shall cease to care about the perilous travels of Christian, or shall not grow half-afraid, yet filled with a strange delight, when they read of Friday's footstep in the sand. That famous Puritan tinker, who wrote the "Pilgrim's Progress," was born in the village of Elstow, a mile from Bedford, in the year 1628. He was emphatically a man of the people. Few have passed through so fierce an ordeal of mental struggle and religious horror. He tells us in his Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, a sort of religious autobiography, that even at the age of nine or ten, fearful dreams, and thoughts of the burning lake and the devils chained down to wait for the great Judgment, haunted him at intervals. Then, when the pain lulled, he plunged into sin, running riot in many vices at an early age. While yet a boy, he enlisted in the army of the Parliament, and saw some service in the war. He tells us of a narrow escape he had. At a certain siege the siege of Leicester, it is said he was selected as sentinel for a certain post, and was on the point of going out to mount guard, when another soldier asked leave to go instead of him. |