The Works of Samuel Johnson Author:Samuel Johnson Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: BUTLER. Oi the great author of Hudibras there is a life prefixed to the later editions of his poem, by an unknown writer, and therefore of disputable authorit... more »y; and some account is incidentally given by Wood, who confesses the uncertainty of his own narrative ; more however than they knew cannot now be learned, and nothing remains but to compare and copy them. Samuel Butler was born in the parish of Strensham in Worcestershire, according to his biographer, in 1612. This account Dr. Nash finds confirmed by the register. He was christened Feb. 14. His father's condition is variously represented: Wood mentions him as competently wealthy; but Mr. Longueville, the son of Butler's principal friend, says he was an honest farmer with some small estate, who made a shift to educate his son at the grammar- school of Worcester, under Mr. Henry Bright, fromwhose care he removed for a short time to Cambridge ; but, for want of money, was never made a member of any college. Wood leaves us rather doubtful whether he went to Cambridge or Oxford; but at last makes him pass six or seven years at Cambridge, without knowing in what hall or college; yet it can hardly be imagined that he lived so long in either university but as belonging to one house or another; and it is still less likely that he could have so long inhabited a place of learning with so little distinction as to leave his residence uncertain. Dr. Nash has discovered that his father was owner of a house and a little land, worth about eight pounds a year, still called Butler's tenement. These are the words of the author of the short account of Butler prefixed to Hudibras, which Dr. Johnson, notwithstanding what he says above, seems to have supposed was written by Mr. Longuevillc, the father; but the contrary is to be inferred...« less