Samuel Butler (1613-1680)

Samuel Butler was born in Worcestershire and may have studied at the King's School, Worcester; he served as a private secretary before marrying and publishing the first part of Hudibras in 1663. He was secretary to the Duke of Buckingham (1670-74). While Butler's unsuccessful attempts at preferment became the matter of legend, Hudibras was imitated in hundreds of seventeenth and eighteenth-century burlesque poems. William Hazlitt remarked, "He has exhausted the moods and figures of satire and sophistry. His rhymes are as witty as his reasons."

TEXT RECORDS:

1664Hudibras.
1668 ca.A Squire of Dames.

PUBLICATIONS:

Mola asinaria by William Prynne. 1659.
The Lord Roos his answer to the Marquess of Dorchester's letter. 1660.
Hudibras: the first part. 1663.
Hudibras: the second part. 1664.
To the memory of the most renowned Du-Vall. 1671.
Two letters. 1672.
Hudibras: the third and last part. 1678.
Cydippe her answer to Acontius. In Ovid's epistles, 1680.
Mercurius Menippeus: the loyal satirist. 1682.
The plagiary exposed: or an answer to a newly revived calumny against the memory of King Charles I. 1691.
The posthumous works. 1715-17, 1732, 1734.
Genuine remains in verse and prose, ed. R. Thyer. 1759.
Complete works, ed. A. R. Waller and Rene Lamar. 3 vols, 1905-28.
Satires and miscellaneous poetry and prose, ed. R. Lamar. 1928.
Characters, ed. Charles W. Daves. 1970.
Hudibras, ed. John Wilders. 1967.
Prose observations, ed. de Quehen. 1979.

PROFILE AND
ASSOCIATES:

English
Anglican

King's School Worcester
Gray's Inn
Inns of Court

secretary
poet
essayist

REFERENCE:

DNB; NCBEL; DLB.

John Aubrey, Brief Lives (1669-1696) ed. Clark (1898); Sir James Astry, Life in Hudibras (1704); Giles Jacob, An Historical Account of ... English Poets (1720); M. J. "On Hudibras" Grub-Street Journal (1, 15 October, 12 November 1730, 18 March 1731); Biographia Britannica (1747-66) 2:1077-82; Cibber-Shiels, Lives of the Poets (1753); "Life of Samuel Butler" London Magazine 25 (February 1756) 80-81 [portrait]; "Life of Samuel Butler" Universal Magazine 36 (Supplement, 1765) 337-45 [portrait]; James Granger, Biographical History (1769; 1824) [portrait]; Bell's Poets of Great Britain (1776-82); Samuel Johnson, Life in Works of the English Poets (1779-81); Biographia Dramatica (1782; 1812); Philip Neve, Cursory Remarks on Ancient English Poets (1789) 73-83; Robert Anderson, British Poets (1795); "History of Knowledge, Learning, and Taste" Universal Magazine 109 (October 1801) 282-87; "Life of Samuel Butler" Port Folio [Philadelphia] 2 (10 April 1802) 110; William Beloe, Anecdotes of Literature 1 (1807) 216-21; Samuel Jackson Pratt, Cabinet of Poetry (1808); Alexander Chalmers, English Poets (1810); Alexander Chalmers, General Biographical Dictionary (1812-17); "Comparison between Hudibras and Mac Fingal" Port Folio [Philadelphia] S3 2 (October 1813) 428-30; Thomas Campbell, Specimens of the British Poets (1819); Ezekiel Sanford, British Poets (1819); Retrospective Review 2 (1820) 256-70; "Eminent Authors: Butler" Literary Speculum 2 (June 1822) 35-37; William Hazlitt, Select British Poets (1824); Robert Watt, Bibliotheca Britannica (1824); "Samuel Butler" The Minerva [New York] NS 3-4 (11 June 1825) 156-57; Henry Southern, "Butleriana, from unpublished Manuscripts" London Magazine NS 3 (September 1826-January 1826) 136-40, 425-30, 94-98; "Butler's Hudibras" Western Monthly Review [Cincinnati] 1 (April 1828) 732-45; William Howitt, Homes and Haunts of the ... British Poets (1847); Allibone, Critical Dictionary of English Literature (1858-71; 1882); The English Poets, ed. Thomas Humphry Ward (1880); Moulton, Library of Literary Criticism (1901-05); E. S. de Beer, "The Later Life of Butler" Review of English Studies 4 (1928); E. A. Richards, Hudibras in the Burlesque Tradition (1937); Earl Miner, The Restoration Mode from Milton to Dryden (1974); Spenser Encyclopedia (1990) 125.

COMMENTARY RECORDS
for Samuel Butler:

1.	1672 Andrew Marvell, 1672; in Isaac D'Israeli, Quarrels of Authors (1814) 2:310.
2.	1683 John Oldham, in "A Satyr" Poems and Translations (1683) 173-74.
3.	1700 ca. William King, 1700 ca.; Remains of the late learned and Ingenious William King (1732) 59.
4.	1721 ca. Samuel Wesley, 1721 ca.; Joseph Ritson, English Anthology (1793-94) 1:336.
5.	1721 Anonymous, Butler's Epitaph in Westminster Abbey; The Daily Post (1, 3 July 1721).
6.	1721 ca. Anonymous, "On Butler's Monument. Perhaps by Mr. Pope" 1721 ca.; Additions to the Works of Alexander Pope (1776) 1:13.
7.	1721 ca. Anonymous, "Butler's Complaint against his pretended Monument in Westminster Abbey" 1721 ca.; Additions to the Works of Alexander Pope (1776) 1:113.
8.	1721 ca. Anonymous, "On Setting up Mr. Butler's Monument in Westminster Abbey" 1721 ca.; D. Lewis, Miscellaneous Poems by Several Hands (1726) 18.
9.	1723 Anonymous, "On Hudibras's Monument" Weekly Journal or British Gazetteer (5 January 1723) 2437.
10.	1738 Alexander Pope, 1738; Spence, Anecdotes, ed. Osburne (1966) 1:198-99.
11.	1738 Anonymous, in "The Apotheosis of Milton" Gentleman's Magazine 8 (October 1738) 521.
12.	1741 Anonymous, in London Magazine 10 (1741) 500.
13.	1749 Anonymous, in Westminster Abbey, an Heroic Poem (1749) 19-21.
14.	1750 ca. Charles Wesley, 1750 ca.; in Robert Southey, Specimens of the Later English Poets (1807) 1:369.
15.	1757 John Free, in Poems on Several Occasions (1757) xxviii.
16.	1759 William Warburton to Richard Hurd, 17 July 1759; in Letters of a Late eminent Prelate (1808) 214.
17.	1769 James Granger, in Biographical History of England (1769; 1824) 241-43.
18.	1772 Anonymous, in "Ode to Independence" Two Lyric Essays (1772) 20-21.
19.	1782 William Hayley, in Essay on Epic Poetry (1782) 64.
20.	1782 Joseph Warton, in Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope (1782) 2:246n.
21.	1786 Anonymous, "Samuel Butler's Monument in St. Paul's Covent Garden" General Evening Post (19 December 1786).
22.	1789 Elizabeth Hands, "Critical Fragments on some of the Engish Poets" Hands, The Death of Amnon. A Poem (1789) 126-27.
23.	1795 Robert Anderson, in Works of the British Poets (1795) 5:520.
24.	1797 Anonymous, in Universal Magazine 101 (November 1797) 322.
25.	1797 George Dyer, in The Poet's Fate, a Poetical Dialogue (1797) 30-31n.
26.	1800 Thomas Dermody, in "The Pursuit of Patronage" Poems Moral and Descriptive (1800) 53-54.
27.	1805 Samuel Egerton Brydges, in Censura Literaria 1 (1805) 355.
28.	1806 John Aikin, in Letters to a Young Lady (1806) 237-38.
29.	1808 George Gregory, in Letters on Literature, Taste, and Composition (1808) 2:177-78.
30.	1812 George Dyer, in Poetics: or a Series of Poems and Disquisitions on Poetry (1812) 2:18-19.
31.	1812 Anonymous, in Biographia Dramatica (1812) 1:80.
32.	1812 William Henry Ireland, "Samuel Butler" Neglected Genius (1812) 15-17 &n.
33.	1814 Edward Mangin, in A View of the Pleasures arising from Books: in Letters to a Lady (1814) 195-97.
34.	1818 William Hazlitt, in Lectures on the English Poets (1818; 1909) 110.
35.	1819 Thomas Campbell, in Specimens of the British Poets (1819; 1845) 269.
36.	1822 Tobias Oldschool, Gentleman, "Eminent Authors: Butler" Literary Speculum 2 (July 1822) 35-37.
37.	1824 Bryan Waller Procter, in Effigies Poeticae, or, the Portraits of the British Poets (1824) 53.
38.	1827 Henry Neele, in Russell Institution Lectures on English Poetry (1827); Remains (New York, 1829) 117-18.
39.	1835 L. L., in "English Poets" Southern Literary Messenger [Richmond] 1 (June 1835) 563.
40.	1842 C. H. Timperley, in Encyclopaedia of Literary and Typographical Anecdote (1842) 2:558-59.
41.	1850 Leigh Hunt, in Autobiography of Leigh Hunt (1850) 1:94.
42.	1859 David Masson, in Life of John Milton (1859-94; 1965) 6:300.
43.	1880 W. E. Henley, in The English Poets: Selections with Critical Introductions, ed. Thomas Humphry Ward (1880) 2:396-99.
44.	1882 Epes Sargent, in Harper's Cyclopaedia of British and American Poetry (1882) 104.

BIOGRAPHY RECORDS
for Samuel Butler:

1.	1680 ca. John Aubrey, in Brief Lives, 1669-1696; ed. Clark (1898) 1:135-38.
2.	1720 Giles Jacob, in Historical Account of the Lives and Writings of our most considerable English Poets (1720) 19-21.
3.	1769 James Granger, in Biographical History of England (1769; 1824) 5:242-43.
4.	1779 Samuel Johnson, Lives of the English Poets (1779-81); ed. Hill (1905) 1:201-18.
5.	1808 Samuel Jackson Pratt, in Cabinet of Poetry (1808) 2:44-45.
6.	1844 Robert Chambers, in Cyclopaedia of English Literature (1844; 1850) 1:345-47.
7.	1847 William Howitt, "Samuel Butler" Homes and Haunts of the Most Eminent British Poets (1847) 1:105-11.

AUTHOR AS CRITIC:
(commentary records)

1.	1670 ca. Edward Benlowes: Samuel Butler, in A Small Poet, 1670 ca.; Genuine Remains (1759) 2:115-20.
2.	1670 ca. Edward Howard: Samuel Butler, "To a Person of Honour: upon his Incomparable, Incomprehensible Poem" 1670 ca.; Examen Poeticum: being the Third Part of Miscellany Poems (1693) 159-61.