BUTLER, Charles, an ingenious and learned writer, born in 1559, at High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire. He entered of Magdalen Hall, Oxford, whence, after taking a degree in arts, he was translated to Magdalen College. He afterwards became master of the free school at Basingstoke, and curate of a neighbouring parish. He was promoted about the year 1600 to the vicarage of Lawrence-Wotton, in the same county, and there he died in 1647. He published a book entitled "The Principles of Music in singing and setting; with the twofold use thereof, ecclesiastical and civil;" 4to, London, 1636. This very learned and entertaining book is highly praised by Dr Burney in his History of Music. His various works are enumerated by Wood in the Athenæ Oxonienses. Among these is a curious English Grammar, published in 1633, in which he proposes a scheme of regular orthography, and makes use of peculiar characters, some borrowed from the Saxon, and others of his own invention; and of this imagined improvement he has made use in all his tracts.