solid pretensions you have for Rugby. You were educated on the spot, and must thoroughly understand the peculiarities of the system which is established there. You stood high in the esteem of Dr. James, to whose erudition, and activity, and integrity, every boy, every parent, every trustee concerned in the school, must owe the most important obligations. You 5 did credit to your Master by the whole course of your academical life, and it will give you pleasure to be told that your literary qualifications are highly valued in this place, and that a great anxiety for your success has, in my presence, been repeatedly expressed by persons whose praise must be animating to you, and whose good wishes are founded on their conviction IO of your distinguished merit. To ample, and, I add, more than sufficient store of erudition, you add acknowledged diligence, long experience, and, what I value yet more, a sincere and generous zeal for the improvement of every person entrusted to your care.'

Ibid. 530-532: 'Dr. Butler did not succeed. It was the good fortune 15 of Shrewsbury not to lose him: for from thence have proceeded, since Dr. Butler's system has been in full work, more prize scholars than from any one other establishment, of similar magnitude, in England. The letter to Mr. Brougham may this year (1828) be enlarged by the addition of 23 public prizes gained in the English Universities...by his scholars, among 20 whom my affectionate friendship for an eminently learned and distinguished young man irresistibly impels me to insert the name of Benjamin Hall Kennedy...

'Some domestic disturbances having occasioned the removal of Mrs. Wynne (Dr. Parr's eldest daughter) to Shrewsbury, she received the kind- 25 est attentions that declining health and unhappy circumstances permitted, from Dr. and Mrs. Butler. Their kindness was of such a nature, and was so bestowed, as to demand more than common gratitude. The two great scholars were united inseparably, and when, in a moment of anguish, Parr, torn from the natural ties of his family, was obliged to look out for heirs to 30his fortunes in aliens to his blood, he fixed on John Bartlam and Samuel Butler. In happier times, restored to his grand-children, and with increased resources, he finally bequeathed to Dr. Butler £1000, with many smaller tokens of kindness to his family.'

Ibid. 837, 838: 'On the 26th of January [1825], his birthday, Arch- 35 deacon Butler came; I took him to the bed-side of his dying friend, whose countenance beamed with joy at his approach. The manner in which he clasped our hands together and blessed us, as the two friends whom, next to his own grand-children, he loved best on earth, can never be forgotten by Dr. Butler or myself.' 40

Parr to Butler, Hatton, April 1, 1814 (Works, VII. 363): 'I shall say plainly that you are the best Greek scholar among all the schoolmasters in England, and as honest a man as this day adorns either the English Church or society. Namesake, we must have patience with these foolish petticoats. ...Oh, my dear namesake, you have a heart as well as a head, and with the 45 head you would approve, and with the heart you would love me for what has lately been passing in my mind about Samuel Butler, S. T. P. May God Almighty bless you and yours. I am really your friend.' On April 3, 1808, Parr wrote to criticise Butler's Latin inscription on his father (pp.

363, 364): 'Pray, namesake, leave room on the monument for what you will hereafter say of your excellent mother, and of her it may be more truly said than of most women in the heathenish phrase, quacum vixit sine querela....Let us meet, and let us discuss, and let us wrangle, and let us 5 make it let us doubt, and then let us resolve. O that nominative case!' Same to same (Hatton, 19 July 1815, ibid. 365): 'You are in the pursuit of health, and may heaven grant it you. I think you fortunate in having such an enlightened companion as Corrie. How cruel was the caprice of fortune in making him a Presbyterian parson!'

IO

up,

Lord John Townshend writing to Sam. Parr, 25 Oct. 1815, tells him of an objection taken by Dr. Butler to his becoming a candidate for the university at a very early age (ibid. 168, 169).

Parr to Butler, 7 Oct. 1816 (Johnstone, 532): 'God bless you. Dr. Samuel Butler, you are a real Scholar. You have taste and sense; you 15 have integrity and magnanimity. You are my esteemed, beloved, and respected friend.'

Parr to Butler, 7 Jan. 1817 (Works, ibid. 367): 'Never, never, never, shall we forget your noble present-never, never, never! George Butler gave the boys a holiday at Harrow in honour of my marriage; you must do the same 20 at Shrewsbury. God bless you all. The other day a friend of Bartlam's told him that Otter said that Butler is the next Grecian after in the opinion of the Cantabs. Otter did not make himself responsible. Jack Bartlam kindled and said, "I should like to see or any of them,

write a piece of Latin fit to stand by Sam. Butler's." I add, that I should 25 like to see a page of their criticism upon Greek fit to be compared to Sam. Butler's notes on Eschylus. Namesake, you and I belong to no critical gang. I am truly your friend, S. PARR. And so am I, J. BARTLAM.' Same to same, 19 July 1817 (ibid.): 'Lose not one moment in writing earnestly to Mr. Dauncy, who is a Bencher of Gray's Inn. The Preacher30 ship will soon be vacant. Edward Maltby is a candidate, and surely by his publications, literary and theological, he has entitled himself to the highest situations in the church. The obstacles are his principles in religious toleration, and his attachment to civil liberty.'

Same to Dr. Burney 5 Febr. 1818 (Johnstone, 532): 'In heart Samuel 35 Butler, of Shrewsbury, is equal to any man in Christendom-in head, he has only two superior through the whole circle of my friends. He has no envy, no INSOLENCE-no servility.'

Same to C. P. Burney 26 Febr. 1818 (Works, VIII. 636): "The only persons whom I think worthy of being permitted to look at what I write are, 40 the President of Magdalen [Dr. M. J. Routh], Dr. Butler of Shrewsbury, and Dr. Kaye.'

Same to Butler 22 June 1819 (VII. pp. 368, 369), requesting him to act as his executor.

In 1819 Parr (ibid. 498) writes to Dr. Gabell: 'I am writing to you in 45 the spacious and well-furnished library at Shrewsbury, and the presence of Dr. Butler, and surely these circumstances are not ill-suited to the contents of my letter' [on a book 'on the subjunctive with qui'].

Leonard Horner to Parr, Edinburgh, 13 Nov. 1819 (ibid. 300): 'Pillans

and his colleague, Mr. Carson, have been very highly gratified by your ap probation of the little grammatical work of the latter....Pillans has had letters from Dr. Gabell and Dr. Butler of Shrewsbury, ordering several copies of the book.'

Butler to Parr, Shrewsbury 26 Febr. 1821 (ibid. 369, 370): 'The Bishop 5 of Lichfield and Coventry has appointed me to the Archdeaconry of Derby... I returned from Lichfield yesterday, where I went to take possession, but more forms remain to be gone through, before I am thoroughly established, such as induction and reading in. The Bishop [James Cornwallis] has shewn me great kindness for the last two and twenty years. He has but 10 little to give, and he has twice thought of me, and given me that preferment which is most acceptable to me, for if he had offered me the living of St. Philip's, I must have left this school, and even independently of that consideration, it is a species of preferment which nothing would have induced me to accept; I would not live in Birmingham to be master of all its 15 wealth.'

In two undated letters (pp. 370, 371) Butler states his political creed: 'I neither court, nor contemplate the courting, nor aim at the possession of, any favours, nor would I surrender my freedom of opinion to any man, or any set of men, upon any terms which they could offer.... If I am to be 20 under any tyrant, I would rather be under an educated man than the rabble. I hope never to be under either, though times are serious, and the rabble, not the people, are furious.'

25

'If my preferment depends on my asking for it, you may be assured I shall die as little beneficed as you are...I think Lord John Russell's speech in the House of Commons, on parliamentary reform, one of the ablest and most convincing productions I ever read: and Mr. Canning's on the same subject one of the most unsatisfactory. But I am not therefore bound to applaud every thing said by the former, should he put forth what I cannot approve ; or to condemn everything said by the latter, should he advance what I 30 cannot in my heart condemn, for instance, Catholic emancipation.... In a word, as a friend to liberty, I claim the exercise of it....I conceive no despotism so truly tyrannical as that of the radicals, and will never join them in their attacks on the Christian religion, or on our constitution, both which I am sure they would gladly destroy.'

35

Same to same, not dated (ibid. 371, 372), but sent with a wedding present to Parr's grand-daughter Miss Wynne, and therefore written (Field's Memoirs of Parr, II. 107) in Aug. or Sept. 1822: 'I sent you my Charge, not because you will like it, but because it is due to our friendship, and my deep respect for you, that you should have all I publish.' [This charge is 40 not in the Bodl. or the Cambr. library.]

'I shall hope to see you see Thy tetáptnv yeveńv, like my good mother.' 'My journey, though very laborious, and not free from peril, completely succeeded. I visited every spot connected with the most interesting parts of the Roman history-including Mons Sacer, Tibur, Tusculum, and Alba, 45 and, of course, part of the old Appian way. From Cicero's Tusculan Villa I looked down upon that of his neighbour Cato, and from what may have been his Portico had a fine view of Mons Algidus, still covered with wood, and the site of ancient Alba. I visited the Alban Villa of Domitian, of

which there are great remains, but no turbot, and the emissary of the Alban Lake, made by Camillus, a stupendous work before the invention of gunpowder, piercing a mountain. At the grotto of Egeria I trod upon a fragment of marble, and drank from the stream running once more through its 5 native tophus. I returned, not sad, from the Fabrician bridge; I descended into the sepulchre of the Scipios, where, instead of the sarcophagus of L. Scipio Barbatus, which I saw in the Vatican, I found a huge tun of wine.' Same to same, without date (pp. 372, 373), siding with Keate against Maltby.

ΙΟ

Parr to Butler, 28 Aug. 1824 (ibid. 373): 'Now let me thank you once, twice, thrice, and the square of three, and the cube of the square, for your generous contribution....All my Oxford friends are Hebrews [supporters of Richard Heber for M.P.], but I told the President of Magdalen [M. J. Routh], that, among other objections to his friend and relative Heber, I 15 was displeased with him for not treating a Shropshire neighbour, far more learned than himself [i. e. Butler], with the respect due to him.'

A charge delivered to the clergy of the archdeaconry of Derby, at the Visitations held at Derby and Chesterfield, June 22 and 23, 1825; and published at their request. By the Rev. S. Butler, D.D., F.R.S. &c. archdeacon of 20 Derby, and head master of Shrewsbury school. London: printed for Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, Paternoster-Row. pp. 15. [In Cambridge university library.]

1826. 4to.

Has during the last two summers visited every parish in the archdeaconry. Summary account of the tithes, impropriations, parsonages, number of resi25 dent clergy, schools.

Pp. 9-11: At the time of my own survey there were 29 parishes, containing 14,000 inhabitants, without any school whatever.... Some of the innovators, and system-framers of the present day,...do not like that instruction should be conveyed by the clergy to the rising generation; for, in 30 spite of all their clamour they know, and feel, and fear, the moral as well as the religious influence of the clergy in society; and though they would gladly exclude them from a participation in its general duties, and as far as possible disfranchise them from their civil rights, under the specious pretence of confining them to the peculiar duties of their profession (which, be 35 it remembered, as long as religion is of a social nature, must be social duties too), yet, I say, they know that the clergy, as a body, must command respect, and must oppose a great check to the inroads of dissolute infidelity. ...I have said enough, I trust, to draw your attention to the importance of forming schools in every parish connected with the church establishment, 40 and of personally attending and inspecting the management of them. This is the only NATIONAL education, which, as long as the nation has an established church, the NATION can give.'

Pp. 11, 12. Repairs of churches ordered. 'I cannot but avail myself of this opportunity, when so many churchwardens are assembled, to announce 45 that I shall be bound to order proceedings to be commenced in the ecclesiastical court against those who wilfully neglect to comply with the injunctions I have given... I may add, that though in many... churches, I found no free sittings provided for the poor, yet I every where found a wish to provide them; and I trust that in several instances I may have succeeded

in obtaining space, or in having enlargements made for this particular purpose.'

Pp. 13-15. State of parsonages; dilapidations press hardly on widows; importance of life assurance.

A charge, delivered to the clergy of the archdeaconry of Derby, at the Visi- 5 tations at Derby and Chesterfield, June 15 and 16, 1826; and published at their request. By the Rev. S. Butler, D.D., F.R.S. &c. archdeacon of Derby, and head master of Shrewsbury school. London: printed for Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, Paternoster-Row. 1826. 4to. pp. 16. [In Cambridge university library]. On popular education. Vast improve- 10 ment within the past forty years. P. 7: 'It is now almost as unusual to meet with an adult (unless in the most abject state of poverty and neglect) unable to read, as it was then rare to find one of the lower orders who possessed that acquirement.... We live in an age of all others the most experimental. I cannot but add, and I wish to give offence to none while I say 15 it, but truth compels the assertion, that we live also in a time unexampled for morbid sensibility. This is the natural result of wealth, luxury, and indulgence. I grieve to subjoin, that as far as my observation and historical reading go, this symptom of disease in the moral feeling has not unfrequently been the precursor of decline in great and powerful states.'

20

Pp. 8, 9: To this cause I think we may attribute the innumerable schemes and societies for the improvement of mankind-many, we may almost say all of them, springing from virtuous principles, and directed, in their intention at least, to benevolent or pious purposes—which of late years have sprung up among us. Some of which, for the sake of promoting some 25 distant, contingent, or doubtful good, overlook the nearer and closer claims of country and affinity....To this cause we may also attribute the many chimerical attempts and hardy pretensions of some self-nominated professors; who, impatient of the ordinary process, have invented shorter roads to every kind of learning, and...undertake to enlighten the minds of their 30 pupils by almost instantaneous technical illuminations.... Now, if it be true, ...that solid and substantial learning is a plant of slow growth, even in minds that are best prepared to nourish it, I would ask to what really useful purpose can the general education of the poor, beyond the acquirements of reading, writing, and plain religious instruction, be applied. Nothing is so 35 dangerous to the possessor, or so irksome and offensive to his neighbours, as superficial knowledge.'

P. II: 'So that the equalization of learning is as great, and considering the various degrees of talent and capacity which God has given to mankind, a greater chimera, than that of property. But the question with which we 40 have more concern is, would it add to virtue or happiness? With regard to this we must consider the nature of the knowledge to be acquired. If it be true and substantial knowledge, giving us juster notions of the relations in which we stand to God and man, of the constitution of our nature, and the means of regulating our passions; and thus making us better Christians 45 and better subjects; then, no doubt, it would conduce to both. But if it be of a more unsubstantial and unprofitable kind, if it dazzle with the glitter of sophistry, or perplex with the abstractions of science, or delude with the