The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-07-07

| erybOdy. But on certain points he could be immoVable. He used to boast , that his grandfather, the Bishop. had attacked Darwih's grandfather, that his 1 father had been in controversy with Darwin's father. and he seemed to re- gard his own hostility to Darwin's sys-
 tenn and his yindication of Lamarck as incident of an hereditary feud. Ii is
 certain that he set the greatest value on his -Darwinian writings. judg- I ment in which few impartial critics will i agree. There was much that was stimu- lating in his books connected with this | subject, Life and Habit Luck or Cunning" " Unconscious Memory" and
 Evolution Old and New; but they were lacking in clearness, c0herence and consistency, and their effect was in evitably imperfect and evanescent. It
 was in a different field that MT. Butler secured his great triumph, though the problems of the evolutionary controver- sy were evidently stirring in his mind when, in 1872. he published "Erewhon, or Over the Range" a work which comes nearest to "Gulliver's Travels" | in mordant irony and startling paradox of all that has been written in that vein since the death of Swift Up to the time MT. Butler had done nothing to win reputation, though. fourteen years carl fer, he had passed with some distinct on
 through St. Johns College, Cambr dge, like his grandfather and father, Ere whon"-of course, the inverted form of | "Nowhere"-is an imaginary country, the scene of a fantastic Utopian TO- nance. which is the vehicle for satire aimed at many of the institutions and
 the ideas of modern society. The ironic humor is rarely as savage as Swift's, and it is somewhat cratic in it's strokes. But the striking and pictur- esque narration, not too closely bound by systematic theory enables the reader to realize topsyturvy world, in
 which most things are unlike our own, though human nature subsists under a strange civilization and surroundings. The Erewhonians punish disease as a crime. and subject moral offences to quasi-medical treatment, and the main principle of their polity is to exclude by penalties the introduction of ma chinery. In the end the traveller who tells the tale escapes by stratagem fin balloon, and leaves behind him a rec ord of miracle which becomes the basis of an elaborately superstitious creed, In continuation published only last year. "Erewhon Revisited" MT. Butler records how in second visit the van- ished adventurer shatters the mythical system, of which he had become the central figure. The story is more CO., herent, the irony more trenchaIit, and the satire of a graver severity. It is substantially a vehement attack on su- pernatural religion. MT. Butler was 8 very Broad Church man indeed. In an- other work. "The Fair Haven" he drew a painfully satirical picture of re- ligious narrowness, which was accepted, we believe, by many of the objects of his sarcasm as grave and earnest de- fence.
 The love of paradox which inspired these ironic studies was carried with him by MT. Butler in his incursion into the region of classical scholarship. His prose translations of the "Tliad" and the odyssey" were somewhat harsh and grabbed in style, but they testified to his close acquaintance with the text of Homer. In his book ''The Authoress of the Odyssey he evolved some amazing theories about the authorship of the Homeric poems. He thought he could prove by internal evidence that the Odyssey" were written by woman. He held that the name Homer" meant hostage" and that the 'Iliad' was composed by an actual hostage in the t,a., e 4L1 aonIye, Tf,i-1 1o1 I,t ,tsN reasons for hating both sides. and who deliberately told "the tale of Troy in such fashion as to hold up Achilles and the other victorious heroes to odium and ridicule. It is probable that MT. Butler started this theory as 8 hoax, but there can be little doubt that he wrote himself into the accordance of it in the end, with complete and genuine conviction.
 It is not very widely known that Mr. Butler was not only keen musician, but a composer in the style of Handel. of whom he was an ardent admirer He published. in collaboration with H. F. Jones, an opera, "Narcissus," in which some musical critics held that the Han delian methods were initiated with as- tonishing skill. His interest in painting and architecture was also keen, and rested upon thorough knowledge. in especial, of the art history of parts of North Italy. His books "Alps and Sanctuaries' and "Ex Voto," in the lat ter of which he rescued from oblivion the artistic fame Of Tabachetti, the sculptor of the images in the chapels at Varallo, were a revelation to many. But here, again, he showed his inde- pendence by unsparing severity in his criticism of Raphael's school.
 In conversation, when he chose MT. Butler could be brilliant, vigorous, and inspiring, and many epigrams were at- tributed to him. In late years he lived a retired life in his chambers at Cliff ford's Inn. He was never married. He was taken i'll at Palermo some time ago, and grew worse at Naples. On being brought back to London he was placed in nursing home, and appeared to be recovering: but his strength had ehbed too far. In any case, his life's work was done. though it was only on the last day of December, 1901, that he pub- lished in our columns short letter putting some pertinent queries to the advocate of the Bacon -Shakespere the ory. Looking back on MT Buffers ca- reer we cannot help feeling sense of disappointment at the inadequacy of what is left of permanent work to rep resent the man. The biography of his