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 soon became the one great figure in Irish popular politics. Butt was probably the inventor of the phrase Home Rule. He was certainly the first to use it as an effective election cry. Soon it was taken up and echoed by men of all shades of political opinion throughout the kingdom of Ireland. Latterly he found himself unable to manage the party he had created. It would perhaps be too much to say that the disobedience and disagreements of his party broke the leader's heart. A man in his sixty-sixth year, who had lived hard and worked hard, and who, besides his many public anxieties, had private troubles, was not in a fit state to resist a severe illness. He died at Roebuck Cottage, near Dundrum, county Dublin, 5 May 1879, and was buried at Stranorlar 10 May.

The following is a list of writings to which his name is found appended: 1. ‘Ovid's Fasti Translated,’ 1833. 2. ‘An Introductory Lecture delivered before the University of Dublin,’ 1837. 3. ‘The Poor Law Bill for Ireland, examined in a Letter to Lord Viscount Morpeth,’ 1837. 4. ‘Irish Corporation Bill. A Speech at the Bar of the House of Lords,’ 1840. 5. ‘Speech delivered at the Great Protestant Meeting in Dublin,’ 1840. 6. ‘A Voice for Ireland—the Famine in the Land: What has been done and what is to be done?’ 1847. 7. ‘Zoology and Civilisation: a Lecture delivered before the Royal Zoological Society of Ireland,’ 1847. 8. ‘The Rate in Aid: a Letter to the Earl of Roden,’ 1849. 9. ‘The Transfer of Land by means of a Judicial Assurance: its Practicability and Advantages,’ 1857. 10. ‘The History of Italy, from the Abdication of Napoleon I, with Introductory References to that of Earlier Times,’ 1860. 11. ‘Daniel Manin and Venice in 1848–49, by B. L. H. Martin, with an introduction by Isaac Butt.’ 12. ‘Chapters of College Romance,’ 1863. 13. ‘The Liberty of Teaching Vindicated: Reflections and Proposals on the subject of Irish National Education,’ 1865. 14. ‘The Irish People and the Irish Land: a Letter to Lord Lifford,’ 1867. 15. ‘A Practical Treatise on the New Law of Compensation to Tenants in Ireland, and the other provisions of the Landlord and Tenant Act,’ 1871. 16. ‘The Irish Deep-Sea Fisheries: a Speech delivered at a meeting of the Home Government Association of Ireland,’ 1874. 17. ‘Home Government for Ireland—Irish Federalism: its Meaning,’ 1874, of which four editions were printed. 18. ‘The Problem of Irish Education, an Attempt at its Solution,’ 1875.

[Dublin University Magazine, iii. 710–15 (1879); Sullivan's New Ireland, ii. 306–10, 319 (1877); Graphic, with portrait, iv. 483, 485 (1871), xix. 499, 508, with portrait (1879); Illustrated London News, with portrait, iv. 40 (1844).] 

BUTTER, JOHN, M.D. (1791–1877), ophthalmic surgeon, was born at Woodbury, near Exeter, on 22 Jan. 1791. He was educated at Exeter grammar school, and studied for his profession at Devon and Exeter Hospital. He obtained the M.D. degree at Edinburgh in 1820, and was chosen a member of the Royal Society in 1822. He was appointed surgeon of the South Devon Militia, and ultimately settled at Plymouth, where he specially devoted himself to diseases of the eye. Along with Dr. Edward Moore, he was the originator of the Plymouth Eye Dispensary. He was the author of ‘Ophthalmic Diseases,’ 1821, ‘Dockyard Diseases, or Irritative Fever,’ 1825, and of various medical and chirurgical memoirs. In recognition of his services to the dispensary he was, in 1854, presented with his portrait, which hangs in the board room. He lost one eye through ophthalmic rheumatism, contracted by exposure while examining recruits for the Crimea, and in 1856 became totally blind.

[Plymouth Western Daily Mercury, 15 Jan. 1877.] 

BUTTER, NATHANIEL (d. 1664), printer and journalist, was the son of Thomas Butter, a small London stationer, who died about 1589. His mother carried on the business after his father's death from 1589 to 1594, when she married another stationer named Newbery. On 20 Feb. 1603–4 Nathaniel was admitted a freeman of the Stationers' Company per patrimonium, and on 4 Dec. 1604 he entered on the company's registers his first publication (‘The Life and Death of Cavaliero Dick Boyer’). On 12 Feb. 1604–5 he obtained permission to print ‘“The Interlude of Henry the 8th” … if he get good allowance for it.’ Between 1605 and 1607 Butter published several sermons and tracts of no great value. On 26 Nov. 1607 he, together with John Busby, undertook the publication of Shakespeare's ‘Lear;’ in 1609 he printed Dekker's ‘Belman of London,’ and in 1611 he published a folio edition of Chapman's translation of the ‘Iliad’ But from an early date he turned his attention to the compilation and publication of pamphlets of news, and in this department he subsequently achieved very eminent success. He issued in June 1605 an account of two recent murders, one of them being the famous ‘Yorkshire tragedy;’ on 24 Aug. a report of the trial of the Yorkshire murderer, Walter Calverley [q. v.], which had taken place