an almost Chinese reverence for his ancestor and, after getting the
Archaeological Society to absolve him from his promise to write the
memoir, set about a full life of Dr. Butler, which was not published
till 1896. The delay was caused partly by the immense quantity of
documents he had to sift and digest, the number of people he had to
consult, and the many letters he had to write, and partly by
something that arose out of 'Narcissus', which we published in June,
1888.

Butler was not satisfied with having written only half of this work;
he wanted it to have a successor, so that by adding his two halves
together, he could say he had written a whole Handelian oratorio.
While staying with his sisters at Shrewsbury with this idea in his
mind, he casually took up a book by Alfred Ainger about Charles Lamb
and therein stumbled upon something about the 'Odyssey'. It was
years since he had looked at the poem, but, from what he remembered,
he thought it might provide a suitable subject for musical treatment.
He did not, however, want to put Dr. Butler aside, so I undertook to
investigate. It is stated on the title-page of both 'Narcissus' and
'Ulysses' that the words were written and the music composed by both
of us. As to the music, each piece bears the initials of the one who
actually composed it. As to the words, it was necessary first to
settle some general scheme and this, in the case of 'Narcissus', grew
in the course of conversation. The scheme of 'Ulysses' was
constructed in a more formal way and Butler had perhaps rather less
to do with it. We were bound by the 'Odyssey', which is, of course,
too long to be treated fully, and I selected incidents that attracted
me and settled the order of the songs and choruses. For this
purpose, as I out-Shakespeare Shakespeare in the smallness of my
Greek, I used 'The Adventures of Ulysses' by Charles Lamb, which we