_Butler began to write sonnets in_ 1898 _when he was studying those of Shakespeare on which he published a book in the following year_. (Shakespeare’s Sonnets Reconsidered, _&c._) _He had gone to Flushing by himself and on his return wrote to me_: 24 _Aug._ 1898. “_Also at Flushing I wrote one myself_, _a poor innocent thing_, _but I was surprised to find how easily it came_; _if you like it I may write a few more_.” _The_ “_poor innocent thing_” _was the sonnet beginning_ “_Not on sad Stygian shore_,” _the first of those I have grouped under the heading_ “_The Life after Death_.” _It appears in his notebooks with this introductory sentence_: “_Having now learned Shakespeare’s Sonnets by heart—and there are very few which I do not find I understand the better for having done this—on Saturday night last at the Hotel Zeeland at Flushing_, _finding myself in a meditative mood_, _I wrote the following with a good deal less trouble than I anticipated when I took pen and paper in hand_. _I hope I may improve it_.” _Of course I liked the sonnet very much and he did write_ “_a few more_”—_among them the two on Handel which I have put after_ “_Not on sad Stygian shore_” _because he intended that they should follow it_. _I am sure he would have wished this volume to close with these three sonnets_, _especially because the last two of them were inspired by Handel_, _who was never absent from his thoughts for long_. _Let me conclude these introductory remarks by reproducing a note made in_ 1883: “_Of all dead men Handel has had the largest place in my thoughts_. _In fact I should say that he and his music have been the central fact in my life ever since I was old enough to know of the existence of either life or music_. _All day long—whether I am writing or painting or walking_, _but always—I have his music in my head_; _and if I lose sight of it and of him for an hour or two_, _as of course I sometimes do_, _this is as much as I do_. _I believe I am not exaggerating when I say that I have never been a day since I was_ 13 _without having Handel in my mind many times over_.” i—Translation from an Unpublished Work of Herodotus And the Johnians practise their tub in the following manner:—They select 8 of the most serviceable freshmen and put these into a boat and to each one of them they give an oar; and, having told them to look at the backs of the men before them, they make them bend forward as far as they can and at the same moment, and, having put the end of the oar into the water, pull it back again in to them about the bottom of the ribs; and, if any of them does not do this or looks about him away from the back of the man before him, they curse him in the most terrible manner, but if he does what he is bidden they immediately cry out: “Well pulled, number so-and-so.”