10. SAMUEL BUTLER (+1612-1680+), the wittiest of English poets, was born at Strensham, in Worcestershire, in the year 1612, four years after the birth of Milton, and four years before the death of Shakespeare. He was educated at the grammar-school of Worcester, and afterwards at Cambridge-- but only for a short time. At the Restoration he was made secretary to the Earl of Carbery, who was then President of the Principality of Wales, and steward of Ludlow Castle. The first part of his long poem called +Hudibras+ appeared in 1662; the second part in 1663; the third in 1678. Two years after, Butler died in the greatest poverty in London. He was buried in St Paul’s, Covent Garden; but a monument was erected to him in Westminster Abbey. Upon this fact Wesley wrote the following epigram:-- “While Butler, needy wretch, was yet alive, No generous patron would a dinner give; See him, when starved to death, and turned to dust, Presented with a monumental bust. The poet’s fate is here in emblem shown,-- He asked for bread, and he received a stone.” 11. The +Hudibras+ is a burlesque poem,-- a long lampoon, a laboured caricature,-- in mockery of the weaker side of the great Puritan party. It is an imaginary account of the adventures of a Puritan knight and his squire in the Civil Wars. It is choke-full of all kinds of learning, of the most pungent remarks-- a very hoard of sentences and saws, “of vigorous locutions and picturesque phrases, of strong, sound sense, and robust English.” It has been more quoted from than almost any book in our language. Charles II. was never tired of reading it and quoting from it-- “He never ate, nor drank, nor slept, But Hudibras still near him kept”-- says Butler himself. The following are some of his best known lines:-- “And, like a lobster boil’d, the morn From black to red began to turn.” “For loyalty is still the same, Whether it win or lose the game: True as the dial to the sun, Altho’ it be not shin’d upon.” “He that complies against his will, Is of his own opinion still.”