domineering parties in the College, or it was a very striking poem
on Napoleon in St. Helena, or it was a play dealing with a visit to
the Paris Exhibition, which he sent to PUNCH, and which, strange to
say, the editor never inserted, or it was an examination paper set
to a gyp of a most amusing and clever character." One at least of
the pieces mentioned by Canon McCormick has unfortunately
disappeared. Those that have survived are here published for what
they are worth. There is no necessity to apologise for their faults
and deficiencies, which do not, I think, obscure their value as
documents illustrating the development of that gift of irony which
Butler was afterwards to wield with such brilliant mastery.
'Napoleon at St. Helena' and 'The Shield of Achilles' have already
appeared in THE EAGLE, December, 1902; the "Translation from
Herodotus," "The Shield of Achilles," "The Two Deans II," and "On
the Italian Priesthood," in THE NOTE-BOOKS OF SAMUEL BUTLER; the
"Prospectus of the Great Split Society" and "A Skit on Examinations"
in THE EAGLE, June, 1913.


And the Johnians practise their tub in the following manner: They
select eight of the most serviceable freshmen and put these into a
boat, and to each one of them they give an oar; and having told them
to look at the backs of the men before them they make them bend
forward as far as they can and at the same moment, and having put
the end of the oar into the water pull it back again in to them
about the bottom of the ribs; and if any of them does not do this or
looks about him away from the back of the man before him they curse
him in the most terrible manner, but if he does what he is bidden
they immediately cry out: