and a friend to Mr. Butler's principles, bestowed on him a monument in Weftminster Abbey, thus infcribed:

M. S.

SAMUELIS BUTLERI, Qui Strenshamia in agro Vigorn. nat. 1612, obiit Lond. 1680.

Vir doctus imprimis, acer, integer; Operibus Ingenii, non item præmiis, fœlix: Satyrici apud nos Carminis Artifex egregius; Quo fimulatæ Religionis Larvam detraxit, Et Perduellium fcelera liberrime exagitavit : Scriptorum in fuo genere, Primus et Poftremus. Ne, cui vivo deerant ferè omnia, Deeffet etiam mortuo Tumulus,

Hoc tandem pofito marmore, curavit JOHANNES BARBER, Civis Londinenfis, 1721.

After

After his death were published three fmall volumes of his pofthumous works: I know not by whom collected, or by what authority ascertained; and, lately, two volumes more have been printed by Mr. Thyer of Manchester, indubitably genuine. From none of thefe pieces can his life be traced, or his character difcovered. Some verfes, in the last collection, fhew him to have been among thofe who ridiculed the institution of the Royal Society, of which the enemies were for fome time very numerous and very acrimonious, for what reafon it is hard to conceive, fince the philofophers profeffed not to advance doctrines, but to produce facts; and the moft zealous enemy of innova

tion must admit the gradual progress of experience, however he may oppose hypothetical temerity.

In this mist of obfcurity paffed the life of Butler, a man whofe name can only perish with his language. The date of his birth is doubtful; the mode and place of his education are unknown; the events of his life are varioufly related; and all that can be told with certainty is, that he was poor.

THE poem

of Hudibras is one of thofe compofitions of which a nation. may justly boaft; as the images which it exhibits are domeftick, the fenti

ments

ments unborrowed and unexpected, and the strain of diction original and peculiar. We must not, however, fuffer the pride which we affume as the country. men of Butler to make any encroachment upon justice, nor appropriate those honours which others have a right to fhare. The poem of Hudibras is not wholly English; the original idea is to be found in the hiftory of Don Quixote ; a book to which a mind of the greateft. powers may be indebted without difgrace.

Cervantes fhews a man, who, having, by the inceffant perufal of incredible tales, fubjected his understanding to his imagination, and familiarifed his mind by pertinacious meditation to think

on

of incredible events and scenes of impoffible existence, goes out in the pride: of knighthood, to redrefs wrongs, and defend virgins, to refcue captive princeffes, and tumble ufurpers from their thrones; attended by a fquire, whose cunning, too low for the fufpicion of a generous mind, enables him often to cheat his master.

. The hero of Butler is a Prefbyterian Justice, who, in the confidence of legal authority, and the rage of zealous ignorance, ranges the country to reprefs fuperftition and correct abufes, accompanied by an Independant clerk, difputatious and obftinate, with whom he often debates, but never conquers him. Cervantes had fo much kindness for Don Quixote, that, however he embarraffes

Vor. VI.

C