well to say: "Il sait tout; il ne sait rien; il est poete."

Epitaphs always fascinated him, and formerly he used to say he should
like to be buried at Langar and to have on his tombstone the subject
of the last of Handel's 'Six Great Fugues'. He called this "The Old
Man Fugue," and said it was like an epitaph composed for himself by
one who was very old and tired and sorry for things; and he made
young Ernest Pontifex in 'The Way of All Flesh' offer it to Edward
Overton as an epitaph for his Aunt Alethea. Butler, however, left
off wanting any tombstone long before he died. In accordance with
his wish his body was cremated, and a week later Alfred and I
returned to Woking and buried his ashes under the shrubs in the
garden of the crematorium, with nothing to mark the spot.



Footnotes:

{1} I am indebted to one of Butler's contemporaries at Cambridge,
the Rev. Dr. T. G. Bonney, F.R.S., and also to Mr. John F. Harris,
both of St. John's College, for help in finding and dating Butler's
youthful contributions to the 'Eagle'.

{2} This gentleman, on the death of his father in 1866, became the
Rev. Sir Philip Perring, Bart.

{3} The late Sir Julius von Haast, K.C.M.G., appointed Provincial
Geologist in 1860, was ennobled by the Austrian Government and
knighted by the British. He died in 1887.