been but moderate, for Mr Nash tells us that he recollects "seeing at Earl's Croombe, some portraits said to be painted by him, which did him no great honour as an artist, and were consequently used to stop up windows."[1] He heard also of a portrait of Oliver Cromwell, said to be painted by him.
After continuing some time at Earl's Croombe, how long is not exactly known, he quitted it for a more agreeable situation in the household of Elizabeth Countess of Kent, who lived at Wrest, in Bedfordshire. He seems to have been attached to her service,[2] as one of her gentlemen, to whom she is said to have paid £20 a year each. The time when he entered upon this situation, which Aubrey says he held for several years, may be determined with some degree of accuracy by the fact that he found Selden there, and was frequently engaged by him in writing letters and making translations. It was in June, 1628, after the prorogation of the third parliament of Charles I., that Selden, who sat in the House of Commons for Lancaster, retired to Wrest for the purpose of completing, with the advantages of quiet and an extensive library, his labours on the Marmora Arundelliana; and we may presume that it was during the interval of the parliamentary recess, while Selden was thus occupied, that Butler, then in his seventeenth year, entered her service. Here he enjoyed a literary retreat during great part of the civil wars, and here probably laid the groundwork of his Hudibras, as, besides the society of that living library, Selden, he had the benefit of a good collection of books. He lived
- ↑ In his MS. common-place book is the following observation:
"It is more difficult, and requires a greater mastery of art in painting, to foreshorten a figure exactly, than to draw three at their just length; so it is, in writing, to express anything naturally and briefly, than to enlarge and dilate:
And therefore a judicious author's blots
Are more ingenious than his first free thoughts." - ↑ The Countess is described by the early biographer of Butler as "a great encourager of learning." After the death of the Earl of Kent in 1639 Selden is said to have been domesticated with her at Wrest, and in her town house in White Friars. Aubrey affirms that he was married to her, but that he never acknowledged the marriage till after her death, on account of some law affairs. The Countess died in 1651, and appointed Selden her executor, leaving him her house in White Friars.
