APPENDIX. I. BUTLER'S Hudibras; the first part printed by T. G. for Richard Marriott, under St. Dunstan's Church, Fleet Street, 1663, 8vo. p. 268.1 In the Mercurius Aulicus, Jan. 1-8, 1662, is an advertisement.-There is stolen abroad a most false and imperfect copy of Hudibras, without name, either of printer or bookseller; the true and perfect edition printed by the author's original, is sold by Richard Marriott, near St. Dunstan's Church, in Fleet Street. That other nameless impression is a cheat, and will but abuse the buyer as well as the author, whose poem deserves to have fallen into better hands. II. Hudibras, the second part, 1663. This spurious second part was published after Butler had printed his first part, and before he printed the second, and is very scarce. It ran through three editions in the same year; the first two do not differ except in the type. But there was another edition still," Hudibras, the second part, with the continuation of the third canto, to which is added a fourth canto." Hudibras; the second part, by the author of the first; printed by T. R. for John Martyn and James Allestrey, at the Bell, in St. Paul's Church-yard, 1664, 8vo. and 12mo. It has on the title page a wood-cut, with the publishers? 1 have also met with Mercurius Menippeus, the Loyal Satirist, or Hudibras in Prose; written by an unknown hand, in the time of the late rebellion, but never till now published, 1682,' a curious tract. device, a bell, and the letters at bottom, M. A. In the Mercurius Publicus for Nov. 20, 1663, is this very singular advertisement." Newly published, the second part of Hudibras, by the author of the former, which (if possible) has outdone the first."-In the B. Museum (Misc. Pap. Bibl. Birch. No. 4293), is the following injunction:-Charles R., our will and pleasure is, and we do hereby strictly charge and command, that no printer, bookseller, stationer, or other person, whatsoever within our kingdom of England, or Ireland, do print, reprint, utter, or sell, or cause to be printed, reprinted, uttered, or sold, a book or poem, called Hudibras, or any part thereof, without the consent and approbation of Samuel Boteler, Esq. or his assigns, as they, and every of them will answer the contrary at their perils. Given at our Court at Whitehall, the 10th day of September, in the year of our Lord God, 1677, and in the 29th year of our reign, by his Majesty's command. T. Berkenhead. Hudibras; the third and last part, written by the author of the first and second parts; printed for Simon Miller, at the sign of the Star, at the west end of St. Paul's, 1678, 8vo. p. 285. This part had no notes during the author's life, and who inserted them afterwards, is not known. The first and second parts were republished in 1674. Hudibras, the first and second parts, written in the time of the late wars, corrected and amended with several additions and annotations, London, 1674, part i. p. 202; part ii. pp. 223-412. III. See some lines from the first canto of Hudibras, admirably translated into Latin verse by Christopher Smart, published in the Student; or, Oxford and Cambridge Miscellany, published by Thornton in 1750.— See Beloe's Anecdotes, vol. vi. p. 419. Some also by Dr. Harmer, Greek Professor at Oxford, may be seen in the notes to the Biographia Britannica. IV. Dr. Grey's edition of Hudibras was published first in 1744. See on it Gent. Mag., 1819, vol. xii. N. S. p. 416, Dr. Grey's valuable but incorrect edition. In Grey's edition the Meditations of Justice Adam Overdo in the stocks are inserted from B. Jonson's Bartholomew Fair. The soliloquy is ingeniously split into a dialogue, and one-half given to Adam, the other half to Overdo. The consulship of Julius and Cæsar was nothing to this." Dr. Grey left large additional notes, designed for a new edition, which were in the hands of Mr. Nichols. As regards the posthumous works of Butler (v. Life, p. xv.) it appears from the authority of Mr. Thyer that very few (only three) of them are authentic. Jacob, in his Lives of the Dramatic Poets, p. 21, says 66 not one line of those poems lately published under his (Butler's) name is genuine." See also Gent. Mag. May, 1819, vol. xii. N. S. p. 417, and Thyer's Remains, vol. i. p. 145, 302, 327. One passage occurs in the speech of the Earl of Pembroke which is curious from its strong verbal coincidence with a passage in Burke's willMy will is that I have no monument, for then I must have epitaphs and verses, but all my life long I have - had too much of them," v. Burke's Will, in Bisset's Life, p. 578. "I desire that no monument beyond a middle-sized tablet, with a small and simple inscription on the church-wall, or on the flag stone, be erected; but I have had in my life time but too much of noise and compliment." 66 V. John Townley, the translator of Hudibras, was an officer of the Irish brigade, and a knight of the military order of St. Louis, he was uncle to Charles Townley, Esq. who possessed the marbles and statues. See Nichol's Hogarth, p. 145, and Notice sur la vie et les écrits de M. Larcher, p. 135, in Class. Journal, No. xix. When the critical reviewers reviewed Tytler's Essay on Translation, they would not believe in the existence of this book, it was so scarce. See Beloe's Anecdotes, i. p. 216, 220. The publication was superintended by M. L'Abbé Ad impertiendum amicis inter Gallos Caroli Towneley de Towneley Reprinted, Paris, 1819, 12mo. 3 vols. said to be a faithful reprint with the addition of notes by Larcher, and a Key to Hudibras by Zottin le jeune, and some account of the translator. From the Literary Cyclopædia, p. 83. VI. In estimating the poem of Hudibras, we should consider that genius takes every variety of form, adapts itself to every change of circumstance, and out of every object selects, according to its purpose, what is most essential to the view of truth, the exhibition of beauty or the chastisement of folly. There are conventional notions on the subject which would restrict the honours of genius to the few master minds which have led to the discovery of some great laws of nature, or displayed the highest forms of creative imagination. But it is sometimes as great proof of genius to draw pictures from daily and familiar life, and to work upon its elements, as it is to soar above them; and it is still a question for the philosophical critic to decide, whether to raise a gorgeous pyramid of dreams out of the abstractions of thought, be a higher task to master the fallacies of existence, and paint reality in all its strange and grotesque.com binations. The author of Hudibras might alone afford scope to a controversy of this nature, for while he presents few, if any, of those characteristics which belong to the loftier class of minds, he so wonderfully adopts whatever is to be found in the actual world, or learnt from books, as to make his memorable lesson against bigotry one of the most remarkable productions of human ingenuity. But whatever may be the class to which Butler belongs in the Temple of Fame, there can only be one opinion respecting the value of his works, as a rich collection of lively sarcasms, often intermingled with wit on those errors and foibles of human nature, which at once verge upon extravagance and mischief. A practical observer of the world, and an active sharer in its concerns, Butler never forgets the pleasant and every day character of mankind. His mind was thoroughly impressed with the subject on which he wrote, and that subject embraced the whole circle of motives, which set society in action at the period when he lived. His wit is consequently often spent upon follies which are no longer conspicuous, and his experience made lessons which it would now be unprofitable to study. There is yet so much imperishable wisdom in his writings-so many warnings against evil tempers and absurdities, of which the seeds have never to this hour been eradicated from human nature, that Butler may still be estimated as one of the noblest writers of sententious maxims to be found in the English language. VII. From Retrospective Review, vol. iii. 307. LIST OF THE IMITATIONS OF HUDIBRAS. 1 Hudibras, second part London 1663 ... 1682 1674 2 Butler's Ghost; or, Hudibras, the fourth part 3 Hogan Moganides; or, the Dutch Hudibras 4 The Irish Hudibras; or, Fingallian Prince, &c. . 1689 5 The Whig's Supplication, by S. Colvil 1695 6 Pendragon; or, the Carpet Knight, his Kalendar. 1698 |