BUTLER, Samuel, a celebrated poet, was the son of a reputable Worcestershire farmer, and was born in 1612. He passed some time at Cambridge, but was never matriculated in that university. Returning to his native country, he lived some years as clerk to a justice of peace; where he found sufficient time to apply himself to history, poetry, and painting. Being recommended to Elizabeth countess of Kent, he enjoyed in her house, not only the use of all kinds of books, but the conversation of the great Mr Selden, who often employed Butler to write letters, and translate for him. He lived also some time with Sir Samuel Luke, a gentleman of an ancient family in Bedfordshire, and a famous commander under Oliver Cromwell: and he is supposed at this time to have wrote, or at least to have planned, his celebrated Hudibras; and under that character to have ridiculed the knight. The poem itself furnishes this key; where, in the first canto, Hudibras says,
"Tis sung, there is a valiant Mamaluke
"In foreign land yelep'd — — — — —
"To whom we oft have been compar'd
"For person, parts, address, and beard."
After the Restoration, Mr Butler was made secretary to the earl of Carbury, lord president of Wales, who appointed him steward of Ludlow castle, when the court was revived there. No one was a more generous friend to him than the earl of Dorset and Middlesex, to whom it was owing that the court tasted his Hudibras. He had promises of a good place from the earl of Clarendon, but they were never accomplished; though the king was so much pleased with the poem, as often to quote it pleasantly in conversation. It is indeed said, that Charles ordered him the sum of 3000l.: but the sum being expressed in figures, somebody through whose hands the order passed, by cutting off a cypher reduced it to 300l. which, though it passed the offices without fees, proved not sufficient to pay
what he then owed; so that Butler was not a shilling the better for the king's bounty. He died in 1680: and though he met with many disappointments, was never reduced to any thing like want, nor did he die in debt. Mr Granger observes, that Butler "stands without rival in burlesque poetry. His Hudibras (says he) is in its kind almost as great an effort of genius as the Paradise Lost itself. It abounds with uncommon learning, new rhymes, and original thought. Its images are truly and naturally ridiculous. There are many strokes of temporary satire, and some characters and allusions which cannot be discovered at this distance of time."