Samuel Butler: A Sketch | Page 5

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 Italy, and was written, so he says, to show how they got so much into three weeks and spent only 25 pounds; they did not, however, spend quite so much, for the article goes on, after bringing them back to England, "Next day came safely home to dear old St. John's, cash in hand 7d." {1}
Butler worked hard with Shilleto, an old pupil of his grandfather, and was bracketed 12th in the Classical Tripos of 1858. Canon M'Cormick told me that he would no doubt have been higher but for the fact that he at first intended to go