That great Original, the author of HUDIBRAS, has been recently censured
for exposing to ridicule the Sir Samuel Luke, under whose roof he dwelt,
in the grotesque character of his hero. The knowledge of the critic in
our literary history is not curious; he appears to have advanced no
further than to have taken up the first opinion he found; but this
served for an attempt to blacken the moral character of BUTLER! "Having
lived," says our critic, "in the family of Sir Samuel Luke, one of
Cromwell's captains, at the very time he planned the Hudibras, of which
he was pleased to make his _kind and hospitable patron_ the hero. We
defy the history of Whiggism to match this anecdote,"[310] as if it
could not be matched! Whigs and Tories are as like as two eggs when they
are wits and satirists; their friends too often become their victims! If
Sir Samuel resembled that renowned personification, the ridicule was
legitimate and unavoidable when the poet had espoused his cause, and
espoused it too from the purest motive--a detestation of political and
fanatical hypocrisy.[311] Comic satirists, whatever they may allege to
the contrary, will always draw largely and most truly from their own
circle. After all, it does not appear that Sir Samuel sat for Sir
Hudibras; although from the hiatus still in the poem, at the end of Part
I., Canto I., his name would accommodate both the metre and the rhyme.
But who, said Warburton, ever compared a person to himself? Butler might
aim a sly stroke at Sir Samuel by hinting to him how well he resembled
Hudibras, but with a remarkable forbearance he has left posterity to
settle the affair, which is certainly not worth their while. But
Warburton tells, that a friend of Butler's had declared the person was a
Devonshire man--one Sir Harry Rosewell, of Ford Abbey, in that county.
There is a curious life of our learned wit, in the great General
Dictionary; the writer, probably Dr. Birch, made the most authentic
researches, from the contemporaries of Butler or their descendants; and
from Charles Longueville, the son of Butler's great friend, he obtained
much of the little we possess. The writer of this Life believes that Sir
Samuel was the hero of Butler, and rests his evidence on the hiatus we
have noticed; but with the candour which becomes the literary historian,
he has added the following marginal note: "Whilst this sheet was at
press, I was assured by Mr. Longueville, that Sir Samuel Luke _is not
the person_ ridiculed under the name of HUDIBRAS."
It would be curious, after all, should the prototype of Hudibras turn
out to be one of the heroes of "the Rolliad;" a circumstance which, had
it been known to the copartnership of that comic epic, would have
furnished a fine episode and a memorable hero to their line of descent.
"When BUTLER wrote his Hudibras, _one Coll. Rolle_, a Devonshire man,
lodged with him, and was exactly like his description of the Knight;
whence it is highly probable, that it was this gentleman, and not Sir
Samuel Luke, whose person he had in his eye. The reason that he gave for
calling his poem _Hudibras_ was, because the name of the old tutelar
saint of Devonshire was _Hugh de Bras_." I find this in the Grubstreet
Journal, January, 1731, a periodical paper conducted by two eminent
literary physicians, under the appropriate names of Bavius and
Mævius,[312] and which for some time enlivened the town with the
excellent design of ridiculing silly authors and stupid critics.
It is unquestionably proved, by the confession of several friends of
Butler, that the prototype of Sir Hudibras was a Devonshire man; and if
Sir _Hugh de Bras_ be the old patron saint of Devonshire, (which however
I cannot find in Prince's or in Fuller's Worthies,)[313] this discovers
the suggestion which led Butler to the _name_ of his hero; burlesquing
the _new saint_ by pairing him with the chivalrous saint of the county;
hence, like the Knight of old, did
Sir _Knight_ abandon dwelling,
And out he rode a _Colonelling!_
This origin of the name is more appropriate to the character of the work
than deriving it from the Sir Hudibras of Spenser, with whom there
exists no similitude.
It is as honourable as it is extraordinary, that such was the celebrity
of Hudibras, that the workman's name was often confounded with the work
itself; the poet was once better known under the name of HUDIBRAS than
of BUTLER. Old Southern calls him "Hudibras Butler;" and if any one
would read the most copious life we have of this great poet in the great
General Dictionary, he must look for a name he is not accustomed to find
among English authors --that of _Hudibras_! One fact is remarkable:
that, like Cervantes, and unlike Rabelais and Sterne, Butler in his
great work has not sent down to posterity a single passage of indecent
ribaldry, though it was written amidst a court which would have got such
by heart, and in an age in which such trash was certain of popularity.
We know little more of Butler than we do of Shakspeare and of Spenser!
Longueville, the devoted friend of our poet, has unfortunately left no
reminiscences of the departed genius whom he so intimately knew, and who
bequeathed to Longueville the only legacy a neglected poet could
leave--all his manuscripts; and to his care, though not to his spirit,
we are indebted for Butler's "Remains." His friend attempted to bury him
with the public honours he deserved, among the tombs of his
brother-bards in Westminster Abbey; but he was compelled to consign the
bard to an obscure burial-place in Paul's, Covent Garden.[314] Many
years after, when Alderman Barber raised an inscription to the memory of
Butler in Westminster Abbey, others were desirous of placing one over
the poet's humble gravestone. This probably excited some competition:
and the following fine one, attributed to Dennis, has perhaps never been
published. If it be Dennis's, it must have been composed in one of his
most lucid moments.
Near this place lies interred
The body of Mr. Samuel Butler,
Author of Hudibras.
He was a whole species of Poets in one!
Admirable in a Manner
In which no one else has been tolerable;
A Manner which began and ended in Him;
In which he knew no Guide,
And has found no Followers.[315]
To this too brief article I add a proof that that fanaticism which is
branded by our immortal Butler can survive the castigation. Folly is
sometimes immortal, as nonsense is sometimes irrefutable. Ancient
follies revive, and men repeat the same unintelligible jargon: just as
contagion keeps up the plague in Turkey by lying hid in some obscure
corner, till it breaks out afresh. Recently we have seen a notable
instance where one of the school to which we are alluding declares of
Shakspeare that "it would have been happy if he had never been born, for
that thousands will look back with incessant anguish on the guilty
delight which the plays of Shakspeare ministered to them."[316] Such is
the anathema of Shakspeare! We have another of Butler, in "An Historic
Defence of Experimental Religion;" in which the author contends, that
the best men have experienced the agency of the Holy Spirit in an
immediate illumination from heaven. He furnishes his historic proofs by
a list from Abel to Lady Huntingdon! The author of Hudibras is
denounced, "_One_ Samuel Butler, a celebrated _buffoon_ in the abandoned
reign of Charles the Second, wrote a mock-heroic poem, in which he
undertook to burlesque the pious puritan. He ridicules all the gracious
promises by comparing the _divine illumination_ to an _ignis fatuus_,
and dark lantern of the spirit."[317] Such are the writers whose ascetic
spirit is still descending among us from the monkery of the deserts,
adding poignancy to the very ridicule they would annihilate. The satire
which we deemed obsolete, we find still applicable to contemporaries!
The FIRST part of Hudibras is the most perfect; that was the rich fruit
of matured meditation, of wit, of learning, and of leisure. A mind of
the most original powers had been perpetually acted on by some of the
most extraordinary events and persons of political and religious
history. Butler had lived amidst scenes which might have excited
indignation and grief; but his strong contempt of the actors could only
supply ludicrous images and caustic raillery. Yet once, when villany was
at its zenith, his solemn tones were raised to reach it.[318]
The SECOND part was precipitated in the following year. An interval of
fourteen years was allowed to elapse before the THIRD and last part was
given to the world; but then everything had changed! the poet, the
subject, and the patron! The old theme of the sectarists had lost its
freshness, and the cavaliers, with their royal libertine, had become as
obnoxious to public decency as the Tartuffes. Butler appears to have
turned aside, and to have given an adverse direction to his satirical
arrows. The slavery and dotage of Hudibras to the widow revealed the
voluptuous epicurean, who slept on his throne, dissolved in the arms of
his mistresses. "The enchanted bower," and "The amorous suit," of
Hudibras reflected the new manners of this wretched court; and that
Butler had become the satirist of the party whose cause he had formerly
so honestly espoused, is confirmed by his "Remains," where, among other
nervous satires, is one, "On the licentious age of Charles the Second,
contrasted with the puritanical one that preceded it." This then is the
greater glory of Butler, that his high and indignant spirit equally
satirised the hypocrites of Cromwell and the libertines of Charles.