Notwithstanding discouragement and neglect, Butler still prosecuted his design, and in 1678, after an interval of nearly 15 years, published the third part of his Hudibras, which closes the poem somewhat abruptly. With this came out the Epistle to the Lady, and the Lady's Answer. How much more he originally intended, and with what events the action was to be concluded, it is vain to conjecture. After this period, we hear nothing of him till his death at the age of G8, which took place on the 25th of November, 1680, in Rose Street,[1] Covent Garden, where he had for some years resided. He was buried at the expense of Mr William Longueville, though he did not die in debt. This gentleman, with other of his friends, wished to have him interred in Westminster Abbey with proper solemnity; but endeavoured in vain to obtain a sufficient subscription for that purpose. His corpse was deposited privately six feet deep, according to his own request, in the yard belonging to the church of Saint Paul's, Covent Garden, at the west end of it, on the north side, under the wall of the church, and under that wall which parts the yard from the common highway. The burial service was performed by the learned Dr Patrick, then minister of the parish, and afterwards Bishop of Ely. In the year 1786, when the church was repaired, a marble monument was placed on the south side of the church on the inside,[2] by some of the parishioners, whose zeal for the memory of the learned poet does them honour: but the writer of the verses seems to have
- ↑ A narrow and now rather obscure street, which runs circuitously from King Street, Covent Garden, to Long Acre. The site of the house is not now known. Curll the bookseller carried on his business here at the same time, and Dryden lived within a stone's throw in Long Acre, "over against Rose Street."
- ↑ This monument was a tablet, which of late years was affixed under the vestry-room window in that part of the church-yard where his body is supposed to lie. In 1854, when the church-yard was closed against further burials, the tablet, then in a dilapidated condition, was carted away with other debris.
and go; but, like guests and strangers, they are not welcome if they stay long. This lays him open to all clients, quacks, and impostors, who apply to every particular humour while it lasts, and afterwards vanish. Thus with St Paul, though in a different sense, he dies daily, and only lives in the night. He deforms nature, while he intends to adorn her, like Indians that hang jewels in their lips and noses. His ears are perpetually drilled with a fiddlestick. He endures pleasures with less patience than other men do pains."
