but in 1714 he decided to enter the Church of England, and went to Oxf.
After holding various other preferments he became rector of the rich
living of Stanhope, Bishop of Bristol (1738), and Bishop of Durham
(1750), and was said to have refused the Primacy. In 1726 he _pub._
_Fifteen Sermons_, and in 1736 _The Analogy of Religion_. These two books
are among the most powerful and original contributions to ethics and
theology which have ever been made. They depend for their effect entirely
upon the force of their reasoning, for they have no graces of style. B.
was an excellent man, and a diligent and conscientious churchman. Though
indifferent to general literature, he had some taste in the fine arts,
especially architecture. B.'s works were ed. by W.E. Gladstone (2 vols.
1896), and there are Lives by Bishop W. Fitzgerald, Spooner (1902), and
others, _see_ also _History of English Thought in 18th Century_, by
Leslie Stephen.


BUTLER, SAMUEL (1612-1680).--Satirist, was the _s._ of a Worcestershire
farmer. In early youth he was page to the Countess of Kent, and
thereafter clerk to various Puritan justices, some of whom are believed
to have suggested characters in _Hudibras_. After the Restoration he
became Sec. to the Lord Pres. of Wales, and about the same time _m._ a
Mrs. Herbert, a widow with a jointure, which, however, was lost. In 1663
the first part of _Hudibras_ was _pub._, and the other two in 1664 and
1668 respectively. This work, which is to a certain extent modelled on
_Don Quixote_, stands at the head of the satirical literature of England,
and for wit and compressed thought has few rivals in any language. It is
directed against the Puritans, and while it holds up to ridicule the
extravagancies into which many of the party ran, it entirely fails to do
justice to their virtues and their services to liberty, civil and
religious. Many of its brilliant couplets have passed into the proverbial