Samuel Butler: A Sketch | Page 5

being now eighteen, he looked on the works of the old masters with
intelligence.
In October, 1854, he went into residence at St. John's College,
Cambridge. He showed no aptitude for any particular branch of
academic study, nevertheless he impressed his friends as being likely to
make his mark. Just as he used reminiscences of his own schooldays at
Shrewsbury for Ernest's life at Roughborough, so he used
reminiscences of his own Cambridge days for those of Ernest. When
the Simeonites, in 'The Way of All Flesh', "distributed tracts, dropping
them at night in good men's letter boxes while they slept, their tracts
got burnt or met with even worse contumely." Ernest Pontifex went so

far as to parody one of these tracts and to get a copy of the parody
"dropped into each of the Simeonites' boxes." Ernest did this in the
novel because Butler had done it in real life. Mr. A. T. Bartholomew, of
the University Library, has found, among the Cambridge papers of the
late J. Willis Clark's collection, three printed pieces belonging to the
year 1855 bearing on the subject. He speaks of them in an article
headed "Samuel Butler and the Simeonites," and signed A. T. B. in the
'Cambridge Magazine', 1st March, 1913; the first is "a genuine
Simeonite tract; the other two are parodies. All three are anonymous.
At the top of the second parody is written 'By S. Butler, March 31.'"
The article gives extracts from the genuine tract and the whole of
Butler's parody.
Besides parodying Simeonite tracts, Butler wrote various other papers
during his undergraduate days, some of which, preserved by one of his
contemporaries, who remained a lifelong friend, the Rev. Canon Joseph
M'Cormick, now Rector of St. James's, Piccadilly, are reproduced in
'The Note-Books of Samuel Butler' (1912).
He also steered the Lady Margaret first boat, and Canon M'Cormick
told me of a mishap that occurred on the last night of the races in 1857.
Lady Margaret had been head of the river since 1854, Canon
M'Cormick was rowing 5, Philip Pennant Pearson (afterwards P.
Pennant) was 7, Canon Kynaston, of Durham (whose name formerly
was Snow), was stroke, and Butler was cox. When the cox let go of the
bung at starting, the rope caught in his rudder lines, and Lady Margaret
was nearly bumped by Second Trinity. They escaped, however, and
their pursuers were so much exhausted by their efforts to catch them
that they were themselves bumped by First Trinity at the next corner.
Butler wrote home about it:
11 March, 1857. Dear Mamma: My foreboding about steering was on
the last day nearly verified by an accident which was more deplorable
than culpable the effects of which would have been ruinous had not the
presence of mind of No. 7 in the boat rescued us from the very jaws of
defeat. The scene is one which never can fade from my remembrance
and will be connected always with the gentlemanly conduct of the crew
in neither using opprobrious language nor gesture towards your
unfortunate son but treating him with the most graceful forbearance; for
in most cases when an accident happens which in itself is but slight, but

is visited with serious consequences, most people get carried away with
the impression created by the last so as to entirely forget the accidental
nature of the cause and if we had been quite bumped I should have
been ruined, as it is I get praise for coolness and good steering as much
as and more than blame for my accident and the crew are so delighted
at having rowed a race such as never was seen before that they are
satisfied completely. All the spectators saw the race and were delighted;
another inch and I should never have held up my head again. One thing
is safe, it will never happen again.
The 'Eagle', "a magazine supported by members of St. John's College,"
issued its first number in the Lent term of 1858; it contains an article by
Butler "On English Composition and Other Matters," signed
"Cellarius":
Most readers will have anticipated me in admitting that a man should
be clear of his meaning before he endeavours to give it any kind of
utterance, and that, having made up his mind what to say, the less
thought he takes how to say it, more than briefly, pointedly and plainly,
the better.
From this it appears that, when only just over twenty-two, Butler had
already discovered and adopted those principles of writing from which
he never departed.
In the fifth number of the 'Eagle' is an article, "Our Tour," also signed
"Cellarius"; it is an account of a tour made in June, 1857, with a friend
whose name he Italianized into Giuseppe Verdi, through France into
North