Page:Hudibras - Volume 1 (Butler, Nash, Bohn; 1859).djvu/21



life of a retired scholar can furnish but little matter to the biographer: such was the character of Mr Samuel Butler, author of Hudibras. His father, whose name was likewise Samuel, had an estate of his own of about ten pounds yearly, which still goes by the name of Butler's tenement; he likewise rented lands at three hundred pounds a year under Sir William Eussel, lord of the manor of Strensham, in Worcestershire. He was a respectable farmer, wrote a clerk-like hand, kept the register, and managed all the business of the parish. From his landlord, near whose house he lived, the poet imbibed principles of loyalty, as Sir William was a most zealous royalist, and spent great part of his fortune in the cause, being the only person exempted from the benefit of the treaty, when Worcester surrendered to the parliament in the year 1646. Our poet's father was elected churchwarden of the parish the year before his son Samuel was born, and has entered his baptism, dated February 8th, 1612, with his own hand, in the parish register. He had four sons and three daughters, born at Strensham; the three daughters and one son older than our poet, and two sons younger: none of his descendants, however, remain in the parish, though some are said to be in the neighbouring villages.

Our author received his first rudiments of learning at home; but was afterwards sent to the college school at Worcester, then taught by Mr Henry Bright, prebendary