take which way she will, she seldom fails to lead him at long-running to the alehouse;' or the description of a prince's unworthy favourite as 'a fog raised by the sun to obscure his own brightness.' Many of Butler's miscellaneous thoughts, appended to the _Characters_, are highly acute, and exhibit a happy talent for illustrating abstract ideas by comparison with sensible objects, as for instance: 'Oaths and obligations in the affairs of the world are like ribands and knots in dressing, that seem to tie something, but do not.' In politics Butler is, of course, a loyalist, and one whose loyalty is intensified by his æsthetic dislike to Puritanism, in which he was constitutionally incapable of seeing anything but cant. At the same time, the contempt which as a man of understanding he could not help entertaining for the conduct of affairs under the Restoration, and disappointment at the neglect with which he was himself treated, seem to have almost reduced him to a condition of political scepticism. 'The worst governments are the best when they light in good hands; and the best the worst, when they fall into bad ones'--a remark condensed into a famous couplet by Pope, who appears to have become acquainted with Butler's MS. through Atterbury. It is worth observing that Butler not only prefers Ben Jonson to Shakespeare, but seems to take his superiority for granted: 'Virgil, who wanted much of that natural easiness of wit that Ovid had, did nevertheless with hard labour and long study arrive at a higher perfection than the other with all his dexterity of wit, but less industry, could attain to. The same we may observe of Jonson and Shakespeare; for he that is able to think long and judge well will be sure to find out better things than another man can hit upon suddenly, though of more quick and ready parts, which is commonly but chance, and the other art and judgment.' One special distinction of Butler's is to have been perhaps the first English satirist of mark who made parody a political weapon, or at least showed its capabilities for this purpose, as it does not appear that any of his political parodies were printed in his lifetime. Jack Cade's speeches in Shakespeare are, indeed, a sufficient model, but Butler worked out the hint elaborately in his fictitious speeches in the Rump Parliament; his mock eulogium of this body or segment of a body in the oration supposed to be delivered at Harrington's Rota; and the parody of Prynne's style in the imaginary correspondence between him and John Audland, the Quaker. Butler's remains were only partially printed in 1759, but the MSS. from which Thyer's publication was drawn were acquired in 1885 by the British Museum. His selection seems to have been in general exceedingly judicious, but the opportunity may be taken of giving some examples of Butler's unpublished thoughts: