Butler, Samuel
Samuel (1612-1680), an English poet. He was educated in the classic learning of the day and held various petty official positions, none of which extricated him from genteel poverty. He is known chiefly as the author of Hudibras, a mock heroic poem ridiculing the Puritans. Hudibras is a sort of Don Quixote in verse. The poem was intended to please the gay and dissolute court of Charles II. Quoting Chambers, "It received all the favor Charles could spare from his spaniels and his mistresses, and he deigned even to garnish his royal conversation with its wit. The courtiers took up the fashion; the coffeehouses and taverns followed suit, and finally the mob went into raptures in imitation of its betters. The best things have become proverbs. His mass of wit has been grated down into common speech, and particles of it may be found any day glittering in the talk of English plowmen and artisans." A few of these proverbial expressions are:
For every why he had a wherefore.
I smell a rat.
To look a gift horse in the mouth.
Devil take the hindmost.
Make the fur fly.
Made his mouth to water.
Spick and span new.
Spare the rod and spoil the child.
Work before you rest.
Count their chickens ere they're hatched.
As ye sow, ye are like to reap.
True as the dial to the sun.
The devil take the hindmost.
Look before you leap.
Shear swine, all cry and no wool.