Some time after our author's return to England, from his travels with
Mr. Edward Howard, he was chosen president of the English College at St.
Omer's. That college was originally founded by the English Jesuits. On
the expulsion of the society from France, the English Jesuits shared the
fate of their brethren.
On his being named to the presidency of the English college at St.
Omer's, doubts were suggested to him on the justice or propriety of his
accepting the presidency of a college which, in fact, belonged to
others. He advised with the bishop of Amiens and the bishop of Boulogne
upon this point, and they both agreed in opinion that he might safely
accept it.
He continued president of the college of St. Omer's till his decease. It
was expected by his friends, that his office of president would leave
him much time for his studies; but these expectations wholly failed. He
was immediately appointed vicar-general to the bishops of Arras, St.
Omer's, Ipres, and Boulogne. This involved him in an immensity of
business; and, his reputation continually increasing, he was consulted
from every part of France on affairs of the highest moment. The
consequence was, that, contrary to the wishes and expectations of his
friends, he never was so little master of his time as he was during his
residence at St. Omer's. The editor has been favored with the following
letter, which will show the esteem in which our author was held by those
who, at the time we speak of, lived in habits of intimacy with him.
"You have occasioned me, sir, to experience a heartfelt satisfaction in
allowing me an intercourse with you on the subject of the late Mr.
Butler, your uncle; and to communicate to you the particulars within my
knowledge, concerning the life, the eminent virtues, and uncommon
abilities of that celebrated gentleman. Never was I acquainted with any
of my contemporaries who was at once so learned, so pious, so gentle, so
modest; and, whatever high opinion might be conceived of him from a
perusal of his immortal work on the Lives of the Saints,--that
masterpiece of the most extensive erudition, of the most enlightened
criticism, and of that unction which commands the affections,--such an
opinion is greatly inferior to the admiration which he inspired in those
persons who, like myself, had the happiness to live in intimate
connection with him. The paternal kindness, and, I am bold {036} say it,
the tender friendship with which he honored my youth, have indelibly
engraved on my heart the facts I am about to relate to you with the most
scrupulous exactness. Monsieur de Conzie, now bishop of Arras, having
been raised to the see of St. Omer's in 1766, caused me to be elected a
canon in his cathedral church: he nominated me one of his
vicars-general, and I repaired thither on the 5th of October, 1767.
"That prelate, whose high reputation dispenses with my encomiums,
mentioned your uncle to me on the very day of my arrival. 'I am here
possessed,' said he; 'of a hidden treasure; and that is Mr. Butler, the
president of the English college. I for the first time saw him,' added
he, 'during the ceremony of my installation. He was kneeling on the
pavement in the midst of the crowd; his countenance and deportment had
something heavenly in them: I inquired who he was, and upon his being
named to me, I caused him, though reluctant, to be conducted to one of
the first stalls in the choir. I will entreat him,' said moreover the
prelate, 'to favor you with his friendship: he shall be your counsel;
you cannot have a better.' I made answer, that Monsieur de Beaumont, the
illustrious archbishop of Paris, in whose palace I had enjoyed the
invaluable benefit of passing two years, had often spoken of him to me
in the most honorable terms; that he had commissioned me, at my
departure, to renew to him the assurance of his particular esteem; and
that I would neglect nothing to be thought worthy of his benevolence.
"I was so happy as to succeed in it within a short time. His lordship,
the bishop, condescended to wish the joy of it, and intrusted me with
the design he had formed of honoring the assembly of his vicars-general,
by making him our colleague. I was present when he delivered to him his
credentials; which moment will never forsake my remembrance. I beheld
your dear uncle suddenly casting himself at the prelate's knees, and
beseeching him, with tears in his eyes, not to lay that burden upon him.
_Ah! my lord_, said he to him, _I am unable to fill so important a
place_; nor did he yield but upon an express command: _Since you require
it shall be so_, said he, _I will obey; that is the first of my duties_.
What an abundant source of reflections was this for me, who was then but
twenty-six years of age. It was then especially that I resolved to make
up for my inexperience, by taking him for my guide who had been giving
me that great example of Christian humility.
"The bishop had already showed him his confidence, by placing his own
nephew in the English college, as also that of the bishop of Senlis, his
friend, and the son of one of his countrymen. I had the charge of
visiting them frequently. I used to send for them to dine with me on
every school holiday. If one of them had been guilty of a fault, the
punishment I inflicted was, that he should desire Mr. Butler to keep him
at home. But it almost always proved useless; he would himself bring me
the delinquent, and earnestly solicit his pardon; _Depend upon it_, said
he to me one day, _he will behave better for the future_. I asked him
what proof he had of it. _Sir_, answered he, in the presence of the lad,
_he has told me so_. I could not forbear smiling at such confidence in
the promises of a school-boy of ten years old; but was not long before I
repented. In a private conversation he observed to me, that one of the
most important rules in education is to impress children with a
persuasion that the vices we would keep them from, such as lying and
breaking one's word, are too shocking to be thought possible. A maxim
this worthy of the great Fenelon, his beloved model, and which common
tutors do not so much as surmise.
"Those three youths, our common functions of vicars-general, the
delightful company of your uncle, and the frequent need I had of drawing
from that source of light, carried me almost every day to the English
college. I could delineate to you, sir, his ordinary course of life in
the inward administration of that house; I could tell you of his
assiduousness at all the exercises; of his constant watchfulness; of the
public and private exhortations he made to his pupils, with that
persuasive eloquence we meet with in his writings; of his pious
solicitude for all their wants; and of their tender attachment to him.
His room was continually filled with them. He never put on the harsh end
threatening magisterial look: he was like a fond mother surrounded by
her children; or he was rather, according to the expression, the eagle
not disdaining to teach her young ones to soar, and carrying {037} them
on her expanded wings, to save them from a fatal fall. But I leave to
his worthy co-operators the satisfaction of detailing to you those
particulars, which I only transiently beheld, and which I never saw
without being affected. How many interesting anecdotes will they have to
acquaint you with!
"Every instant that Mr. Butler did not dedicate to the government of his
college he employed in study; and, when obliged to go abroad, he would
read as he walked along the streets. I have met him with a book under
each arm, and a third in his hands, and have been told that, travelling
one day on horseback, he fell a reading, giving the horse his full
liberty. The creature used it to eat a few ears of corn that grew on the
road-side. The owner came in haste, swearing he would be indemnified.
Mr. Butler, who knew nothing of the damage done, no sooner perceived it,
than, blushing, he said to the countryman, with his usual mildness, that
his demand was just; he then draws out a louis d'or, and gives it to the
fellow, who would have been very well satisfied with a few pence, makes
repeated apologies to him, easily obtains forgiveness, and goes on his
way.
"Notwithstanding such constant application, the extensiveness of his
knowledge was next to a prodigy. Whenever I happened to consult him on
any extraordinary question, upon which the authors most familiar to us
were silent, he would take me to the library of the abbey of St. Bertin,
would ask for old writers, whose names I was scarce acquainted with, and
point out to me, even before I had opened them, the section and chapter
in which I should find my difficulty solved.
"Nor would I have you think, sir, that the ecclesiastical sciences were
the only that he had applied to. A couple of anecdotes I am going to
relate, and which I could hardly have believed had I not been witness to
them, will prove to you that every kind of information was reunited in
his intellect, without the smallest confusion.
"Monsieur de Conzie, after his translation from the bishopric of St.
Omer's to that of Arras, invited him to come and see him there. My
brother vicars and myself sought one day for a question which he should
not be able to answer, and thought we had found one. Accordingly, we
asked him what was the name of a pear called, in French, _bon Chretien_,
before the coming of Christ, and Christianity. _There are_, answered he,
_two systems on that point_; and then quotes as two modern naturalists,
sets forth their opinions, and unfolds to us the authorities with which
they backed them. I had the curiosity to ascertain one of those
quotations, and found it accurate to a tittle.
"A few days after, the bishop of Arras, having his drawing-room filled
with company, Mr. President was announced. The bystanders thinking it to
be the first president of the council d'Artois, opened him a gangway to
come at the prelate; they behold a priest enter, whom, by his bashful
and modest looks, they take for some country curate, and, by a
simultaneous motion, they close up the passage which they had made. The
bishop, who had already descried his dear president of the English
college, perceived also the motion and resolved to put the authors of it
to the blush. He observed in one corner of the room a group of military
men; he goes up to them, and, finding they were conversing upon the
question keenly debated at that time, whether in battle the _thin
order_, observed in our days, be preferable to the _deep_ order of the
ancients; he called to Mr. Butler, and asked him what he thought of it.
I then heard that amazing man talk on the art of war with the modest
tone of a school-boy, and the depth of the most consummate military man.
I observed admiration in the countenance of all those officers; and saw
several of them, who, being too far off, stood up upon chairs to hear
and see him. They altogether put to him questions upon questions, and
each of his answers caused fresh applause.
"His lordship left us to go and join another group, consisting of
magistrates, who were discussing a point of common law; and, in like
manner, called upon his oracle, who, by the sagacity of his reflections,
bore away all suffrages, and united their several opinions.
"The prelate, next, taking him by the hand, presented him to the ladies,
seated round the fireplace, and asked him, whether the women in ancient
times wore their head-dresses as high as ours then did. _Fashions_,
answered he, _like the spokes of a wheel turning on its axis, are always
replaced by those very ones which they have set aside_. He then
described to us the dresses, both of the men and women, in the various
ages of our monarchy: _and, to go still further back_, added he, _the
{038} statue of a female Druid has been found, whose head-dress measured
half a yard to height; I have been myself to see it, and have measured
it._
"What astonished me most was, that studies so foreign to the
supernatural objects of piety, shed over his soul neither aridity nor
lukewarmness. He referred all things to God, and his discourse always
concluded by some Christian reflections, which he skilfully drew from
the topic of the conversation. His virtue was neither minute nor
pusillanimous: religion had, in his discourse as well as in his conduct,
that solemn gravity which can alone make it worthy of the Supreme Being.
Ever composed, he feared neither contradictions nor adversities: he
dreaded nothing but praises. He never allowed himself a word that could
injure any one's reputation; his noble generosity was such, that, as
often as I happened to prize in his presence any one of his books, or of
the things belonging to him, I the same day found them in my possession.
In short, I will confess it, to my confusion, that for a long time I
sought to discover a failing in him; and I protest, by all that is most
sacred, that I never knew one in him. These are the facts, sir, you were
desirous of knowing; in the relation of which I have used no
exaggeration, nor have had anything to dissemble. I have often related
these facts to my wondering friends, as a relief to my heart; and
indeed, notwithstanding the distance of time, they recur as fresh to my
remembrance as if just transacted before my eyes.
"I was at a distance from St. Omer's when death robbed me of my
respectable friend. Time has not alleviated the sorrow which the loss of
him fixed deeply in my breast. I have preciously preserved some of his
presents, and carefully concealed them at my leaving France. May I one
day find again those dear pledges of a friendship, the recollection of
which is, in our calamities, the sweetest of my consolations. I have the
honor to be, with the highest regard, sir, your most obedient, &c.
"L'Abbe de la SEPOUZE.
"_At the Hague, December_ 30, 1794."
During our author's stay at St. Omer's, a thesis was printed and
publicly defended, in a neighboring university, which excited his
attention. Mr. Joseph Berington presided at the defensions of it. It
certainly contained many propositions which were offensive to pious
ears; but respectable persons are said to have declared, that it
contained nothing materially contrary to the faith of the Roman Catholic
church; and the editor feels it a duty incumbent on him to add, that one
of the bishops, to whom our author was grand-vicar, mentioned to the
editor, that he thought his vicar had shown too much vivacity on that
occasion.
Footnotes:
1. Sieni aquila provocans ad volandam pullos suos et super eos
volians expandit alas suas--_Deuteron_. cap. 22.