The Note-Books of Samuel Butler Part 68

i. Translation from an Unpublished Work of Herodotus

ii. The Shield of Achilles, with Variations

iii. The Two Deans

iv. On the Italian Priesthood

Butler wrote these four pieces while he was an undergraduate at St.

John's College, Cambridge. He kept no copy of any of them, but his friend the Rev. Canon Joseph McCormick, D.D., Rector of St. James's, Piccadilly, kept copies in a note-book which he lent me. The only one that has appeared in print is "The Shield of Achilles," which Canon McCormick sent to The Eagle, the magazine of St. John's College, Cambridge, and it was printed in the number for December 1902, about six months after Butler's death.

"On the Italian Priesthood" is a rendering of the Italian epigram accompanying it which, with others under the heading "Astuzia, Inganno," is given in Raccolta di Proverbi Toscani di Giuseppe Giusti (Firenze, 1853).

v. A Psalm of Montreal

This was written in Canada in 1875. Butler often recited it and gave copies of it to his friends. Knowing that Mr. Edward Clodd had had something to do with its appearance in the Spectator I wrote asking him to tell me what he remembered about it. He very kindly replied, 29th October, 1905:

The 'Psalm' was recited to me at the Century Club by Butler. He gave me a copy of it which I read to the late Chas. Anderson, Vicar of S.

John's, Limehouse, who lent it to Matt. Arnold (when inspecting Anderson's Schools) who lent it to Richd. Holt Hutton who, with Butler's consent, printed it in the Spectator of 18th May, 1878."

The "Psalm of Montreal" was included in Selections from Previous Works (1884) and in Seven Sonnets, etc.

vi. The Righteous Man

Butler wrote this in 1876; it has appeared before only in 1879 in the Examiner, where it formed part of the correspondence "A Clergyman's Doubts" of which the letter signed "Ethics" has already been given in this volume (see p. 304 ante). "The Righteous Man" was signed "X.Y.Z." and, in order to connect it with the discussion, Butler prefaced it with a note comparing it to the last six inches of a line of railway; there is no part of the road so ugly, so little travelled over, or so useless generally, but it is the end, at any rate, of a very long thing.

vii. To Critics and Others.

This was written in 1883 and has not hitherto been published.

viii. For Narcissus

These are printed for the first time. The pianoforte score of Narcissus was published in 1888. The poem (A) was written because there was some discussion then going on in musical circles about additional accompaniments to the Messiah and we did not want any to be written for Narcissus.

The poem (B) shows how Butler originally intended to open Part II with a kind of descriptive programme, but he changed his mind and did it differently.

ix. A Translation Attempted in Consequence of a Challenge

This translation into Homeric verse of a famous pa.s.sage from Martin Chuzzlewit was a by-product of Butler's work on the Odyssey and the Iliad. It was published in The Eagle in March, 1894, and was included in Seven Sonnets.

I asked Butler who had challenged him to attempt the translation and he replied that he had thought of that and had settled that, if any one else were to ask the question, he should reply that the challenge came from me.

x. In Memoriam H. R. F.

This appears in print now for the first time. Hans Rudolf Faesch, a young Swiss from Basel, came to London in the autumn of 1893. He spent much of his time with us until 14th February, 1895, when he left for Singapore. We saw him off from Holborn Viaduct Station; he was not well and it was a stormy night. The next day Butler wrote this poem and, being persuaded that we should never see Hans Faesch again, called it an In Memoriam. Hans did not die on the journey, he arrived safely in Singapore and settled in the East where he carried on business. We exchanged letters with him frequently; he paid two visits to Europe and we saw him on both occasions. But he did not live long. He died in the autumn of 1903 at Vien Tiane in the Shan States, aged 32, having survived Butler by about a year and a half.

xi. An Academic Exercise

This has never been printed before. It is a Farewell, and that is why I have placed it next after the In Memoriam. The contrast between the two poems ill.u.s.trates the contrast pointed out at the close of the note on "The Dislike of Death" (ante, p. 359):

"The memory of a love that has been cut short by death remains still fragrant though enfeebled, but no recollection of its past can keep sweet a love that has dried up and withered through accidents of time and life."

In the ordinary course Butler would have talked this Sonnet over with me at the time he wrote it, that is in January, 1902; he may even have done so, but I think not. From 2nd January, 1902, until late in March, when he left London alone for Sicily, I was ill with pneumonia and remember very little of what happened then. Between his return in May and his death in June I am sure he did not mention the subject. Knowing the facts that underlie the preceding poem I can tell why Butler called it an In Memoriam; not knowing the facts that underlie this poem I cannot tell why Butler should have called it an Academic Exercise. It is his last Sonnet and is dated "Sund. Jan.

12th 1902," within six months of his death, at a time when he was depressed physically because his health was failing and mentally because he had been "editing his remains," reading and destroying old letters and brooding over the past. One of the subjects given in the section "t.i.tles and Subjects" (ante) is "The diseases and ordinary causes of mortality among friendships." I suppose that he found among his letters something which awakened memories of a friendship of his earlier life--a friendship that had suffered from a disease, whether it recovered or died would not affect the sincerity of the emotions experienced by Butler at the time he believed the friendship to be virtually dead. I suppose the Sonnet to be an In Memoriam upon the apprehended death of a friendship as the preceding poem is an In Memoriam upon the apprehended death of a friend.

This may be wrong, but something of the kind seems necessary to explain why Butler should have called the Sonnet an Academic Exercise. No one who has read Shakespeare's Sonnets Reconsidered will require to be told that he disagreed contemptuously with those critics who believe that Shakespeare composed his Sonnets as academic exercises. It is certain that he wrote this, as he wrote his other Sonnets, in imitation of Shakespeare, not merely imitating the form but approaching the subject in the spirit in which he believed Shakespeare to have approached his subject. It follows therefore that he did not write this sonnet as an academic exercise, had he done so he would not have been imitating Shakespeare. If we a.s.sume that he was presenting his story as he presented the dialogue in "A Psalm of Montreal" in a form "perhaps true, perhaps imaginary, perhaps a little of the one and a little of the other," it would be quite in the manner of the author of The Fair Haven to burlesque the methods of the critics by ignoring the sincerity of the emotions and fixing on the little bit of inaccuracy in the facts. We may suppose him to be saying out loud to the critics: "You think Shakespeare's Sonnets were composed as academic exercises, do you? Very well then, now what do you make of this?" And adding aside to himself: "That will be good enough for them; they'll swallow anything."

xii. A Prayer

Extract from Butler's Note-Books under the date of February or March 1883:

"'Cleanse thou me from my secret sins.' I heard a man moralising on this and shocked him by saying demurely that I did not mind these so much, if I could get rid of those that were obvious to other people."

He wrote the sonnet in 1900 or 1901. In the first quatrain "spoken"

does not rhyme with "open"; Butler knew this and would not alter it because there are similar a.s.sonances in Shakespeare, e.g. "open" and "broken" in Sonnet LXI.

xiii. Karma

I am responsible for grouping these three sonnets under this heading.

The second one beginning "What is't to live" appears in Butler's Note-Book with the remark, "This wants much tinkering, but I cannot tinker it"--meaning that he was too much occupied with other things.

He left the second line of the third of these sonnets thus:

"Them palpable to touch and view."

I have "tinkered" it by adding the two syllables "and clear" to make the line complete.

In writing this sonnet Butler was no doubt thinking of a note he made in 1891:

"It is often said that there is no bore like a clever bore. Clever people are always bores and always must be. That is, perhaps, why Shakespeare had to leave London--people could not stand him any longer."

xiv. The Life after Death

Butler began to write sonnets in 1898 when he was studying those of Shakespeare on which he published a book in the following year.

(Shakespeare's Sonnets Reconsidered, &c.) He had gone to Flushing by himself and on his return wrote to me:

24 Aug. 1898. "Also at Flushing I wrote one myself, a poor innocent thing, but I was surprised to find how easily it came; if you like it I may write a few more."

The "poor innocent thing" was the sonnet beginning "Not on sad Stygian sh.o.r.e," the first of those I have grouped under the heading "The Life after Death." It appears in his notebooks with this introductory sentence:

"Having now learned Shakespeare's Sonnets by heart--and there are very few which I do not find I understand the better for having done this--on Sat.u.r.day night last at the Hotel Zeeland at Flushing, finding myself in a meditative mood, I wrote the following with a good deal less trouble than I antic.i.p.ated when I took pen and paper in hand. I hope I may improve it."

Of course I liked the sonnet very much and he did write "a few more"- -among them the two on Handel which I have put after "Not on sad Stygian sh.o.r.e" because he intended that they should follow it. I am sure he would have wished this volume to close with these three sonnets, especially because the last two of them were inspired by Handel, who was never absent from his thoughts for long. Let me conclude these introductory remarks by reproducing a note made in 1883:

"Of all dead men Handel has had the largest place in my thoughts. In fact I should say that he and his music have been the central fact in my life ever since I was old enough to know of the existence of either life or music. All day long--whether I am writing or painting or walking, but always--I have his music in my head; and if I lose sight of it and of him for an hour or two, as of course I sometimes do, this is as much as I do. I believe I am not exaggerating when I say that I have never been a day since I was 13 without having Handel in my mind many times over."

i--Translation from an Unpublished Work of Herodotus