"Hudibras (says Mr Nash) is Mr Butler's capital work, and though the Characters, Poems, Thoughts, &c. published as Remains by Mr Thyer, in two volumes octavo, are certainly written by the same masterly hand, though they abound with lively sallies of wit, and display a copious variety of erudition, yet the nature of the subjects, their not having received the author's last corrections, and many other reasons which might be given, render them less acceptable to the present taste of the public, which no longer relishes the antiquated mode of writing characters, cultivated when Butler was young, by men of genius, such as Bishop Earle and Mr Cleveland.
The three small volumes, entitled Posthumous Works, in prose and verse, by Mr Samuel Butler, author of Hudibras, printed 1715, 1716, 1717, are all spurious, except the Pindaric Ode on Duval the highwayman, and one or two of the prose pieces. Mr Nash says, "As to the MSS. which after Mr Butler's death came into the hands of Mr Longueville, and from which Mr Thyer published his Genuine Remains in the year 1759; what remain unpublished are either in the hands of the ingenious Doctor Farmer of Cambridge, or myself. For Mr Butler's Common-place Book, mentioned by Mr Thyer, I am indebted to the liberal and public-spirited James Massey, Esq., of Rosthern, near Knotsford, Cheshire."
The poet's frequent and correct use of law terms[1] is a sufficient proof that he was well versed in that science: but if further evidence were wanting, says Mr Nash, "I can produce a MS. purchased of some of our poet's relations, at the Hay, in Brecknockshire, which appears to be a collection of legal cases and principles, regularly related from Lord Coke's Commentary on Littleton's Tenures. The language is Norman, or law French, and the authorities in the margin of the MS. correspond exactly with those given on the same positions in the first institute. The first book of the MS. ends with the 84th section, which same number of sections also terminates the first institute; and the second book is entitled Le second livre del premier part del Institutes de Ley d'Engleterre. It may, therefore, reasonably be presumed to have been compiled by Butler solely from Coke
- ↑ Butler is said to have been a member of Gray's-inn, and of a club with Cleveland and other wits inclined to the royal cause.
