Page:Hudibras - Volume 1 (Butler, Nash, Bohn; 1859).djvu/25

Rh subsequently in the service of Sir Samuel Luke, of Cople Hoo farm, or Wood End, in that county, and his biographers are generally of opinion that from him he drew the character of Hudibras: but there is no actual evidence of this, and such a prototype was not rare in those times. Sir Samuel Luke lived at Wood End, or Cople Hoo farm. Cople is three miles south of Bedford, and in its church are still to be seen many monuments of the Luke family, who flourished in that part of the country as early as the reign of Henry VIII. He was knighted in 1624, was a rigid Presbyterian, high in the favour of Cromwell: a colonel in the army of the parliament, a justice of the peace for Bedford and Surrey, scoutmaster-general for Bedfordshire, which he represented in the Long Parliament, and governor of Newport Pagnell. He possessed ample estates in Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire, and devoted his fortune to the promotion of the popular cause. His house was the open resort of the Puritans, whose frequent meetings for the purposes of counsel, prayer, and preparation for the field, afforded Butler an opportunity of observing, under all their phases of inspiration and action, the characters of the men whose influence was working a revolution in the country. But Sir Samuel did not approve of the king's trial and execution, and therefore, with other Presbyterians, both he and his father, Sir Oliver, were among the secluded members. It has been generally supposed that the scenes Butler witnessed on these occasions suggested to him the subject of his great poem. That it was at this period he threw into shape some of the striking points of Hudibras, is extremely probable. He kept a commonplace book, in which he was in the habit of noting down particular thoughts and fugitive criticisms; and Mr Thyer, the editor of his Remains, who had this book in his possession, says that it was full of shrewd remarks, paradoxes, and witty sarcasms.

The first part of Hudibras came out at the end of the year 1662, and its popularity was so great, that it was pirated almost as soon as it appeared. In the Mercurius Aulicus,