_The following article_, _which originally appeared in the_ CAMBRIDGE
MAGAZINE, 1 _March_, 1913, _is by Mr. A. T. Bartholomew_, _of the
University Library_, _Cambridge_, _who has most kindly allowed me to
include it in the present volume_. _Mr. Bartholomew’s discovery of
Samuel Butler’s parody of the Simeonite tract throws a most interesting
light upon a curious passage in_ THE WAY OF ALL FLESH, _and it is a great
pleasure to me to be able to give Butlerians the story of Mr.
Bartholomew’s_ “_find_” _in his own words_.
READERS of Samuel Butler’s remarkable story _The Way of All Flesh_ will
probably recall his description of the Simeonites (chap. xlvii), who
still flourished at Cambridge when Ernest Pontifex was up at Emmanuel.
Ernest went down in 1858; so did Butler. Throughout the book the
spiritual and intellectual life and development of Ernest are drawn from
Butler’s own experience.
“The one phase of spiritual activity which had any life in it during the
time Ernest was at Cambridge was connected with the name of Simeon.
There were still a good many Simeonites, or as they were more briefly
called ‘Sims,’ in Ernest’s time. Every college contained some of them,
but their head-quarters were at Caius, whither they were attracted by Mr.
Clayton, who was at that time senior tutor, and among the sizars of St.
John’s. Behind the then chapel of this last-named college was a
‘labyrinth’ (this was the name it bore) of dingy, tumble-down rooms,” and
here dwelt many Simeonites, “unprepossessing in feature, gait, and
manners, unkempt and ill-dressed beyond what can be easily described.
Destined most of them for the Church, the Simeonites held themselves to
have received a very loud call to the ministry . . . They would be
instant in season and out of season in imparting spiritual instruction to
all whom they could persuade to listen to them. But the soil of the more
prosperous undergraduates was not suitable for the seed they tried to
sow. When they distributed tracts, dropping them at night into good
men’s letter boxes while they were asleep, their tracts got burnt, or met
with even worse contumely.” For Ernest Pontifex “they had a repellent
attraction; he disliked them, but he could not bring himself to leave
them alone. On one occasion he had gone so far as to parody one of the
tracts they had sent round in the night, and to get a copy dropped into
each of the leading Simeonites’ boxes. The subject he had taken was
‘Personal Cleanliness.’”
Some years ago I found among the Cambridge papers in the late Mr. J. W.
Clark’s collection three printed pieces bearing on the subject. The
first is a genuine Simeonite tract; the other two are parodies. All
three are anonymous. At the top of the second parody is written “By S.
Butler. March 31.” It will be necessary to give a few quotations from
the Simeonite utterance in order to bring out the full flavour of
Butler’s parody, which is given entire. Butler went up to St. John’s in
October, 1854; so at the time of writing this squib he was in his second
term, and 18 years of age.