Bag for pennies (7).

Miss Savage's kettle-holder (8).

In Oct. 1884 (see the Memoir), about four months before her death, Miss Savage sent Butler a present of a pair of socks which she had knitted herself, and she promised to make him some more. Butler gratefully accepted her gift, but

"As for doing me any more, I flatly forbid it. I believe you don't like my books, and want to make me say I won't give you any more if you make me any more socks; and then you will make me some more in order not to get the books. No, I will let you read my stupid books in manuscript and help me that way. If you like to make me a kettle- holder, you may, for I only have one just now, and I like to have two because I always mislay one; but I won't have people working their fingers out to knit me stockings."

Miss Savage to Butler, 27th Oct. 1884: "Here is a kettle-holder. And I can only say that a man who is equal to the control of two kettle- holders fills me with awe, and I shall begin to be afraid of you. . . . The kettle-holder is very clumsy and ugly, but please to remember that I am not a many-sided genius, and to expect me to excel in kettle-holders and stockings is unreasonable. I take credit to myself, however, for affixing a fetter to it, so that you may chain it up if it is too much disposed to wander. My expectation is that it is too thick for you to grasp the kettle with, and the kettle will slip out of your hand and scald you frightfully. I shall be sorry for you but you would have it, so upon your own head be it."

Butler to Miss Savage, 28th Oct. 1884: "The kettle-holder is beautiful; it is like a filleted sole, and I am very fond of filleted sole. It is not at all too thick, and fits my kettle to perfection."

The subject is developed antiphonally between Miss Savage and Butler throughout several letters, and near the close comes this note made by Butler when "editing his remains" at the end of his life:

"I need hardly say that the kettle-holder hangs by its fetter on the wall beside my fire, and is not allowed to be used by anyone but myself. S.B. January 21st, 1902."

Two small Dutch dolls (9)

Mr. Charles Archer Cook was at Trinity Hall with me. He is mentioned in the Memoir as having edited The Athenaeum in October, 1885, during the absence of MacColl, the editor. Butler and I sometimes dined with him and met his brother, Mr. (afterwards Sir) Edward T. Cook and his wife. Mr. and Mrs. E. T. Cook came to tea with Butler, and Alfred was showing them round the sitting room, while Butler was in his painting room, where he had gone to look for something.

"These are the pictures which the governor does when he is away," said Alfred, "and these are the photographs which he brings back with him and the plates and images."

"And please, Alfred, what are these two little dolls among the pictures?"

"Oh, those, ma'am! Those are —-."

"Alfred!" exclaimed the reproving voice of Butler, who although in the next room, had overheard.

"Well, Sir," replied Alfred, "that's what we always call them."

Alfred was referring to a recent divorce case in which the names of two ladies had been brought prominently before the public, but Butler did not approve of the names being blurted out in the presence of visitors.

A brass bowl which my brother Edward brought from India.

It always stood on my table in Staple Inn, and Butler used it as an ash- tray and played with it and liked the sound it made when he struck it. He also liked its shape, and was pleased with it for not being "spoilt by any silly ornament." It is mentioned in the Memoir (II. xliii.) when Miss Butler comes to my rooms after Butler's death.

A leather (or sham leather) cigarette case from Palermo (but, I am afraid, made in Germany).

It contains a fragment of a Greek vase picked up on Mount Eryx and given to Butler by Bruno Flury. He was one of the young men who came about him in 1892 when he broke his foot on the mountain; he afterwards settled in Pisa, where I saw him in 1901.

Two of the blue and white wine cups mentioned in Alps and Sanctuaries (ch. xxii.; new ed., ch. xxiii.), "A Day at the Cantine."

"These little cups are common crockery, but at the bottom there is written Viva Bacco, Viva l'Italia, Viva la Gioia, Viva Venere or other such matter; they are to be had in every crockery shop throughout the Mendrisiotto, and they are very pretty."

The Viva is not written in full; it is represented by a double V, which overlaps, so that it looks like W, but the letter W is not used by the Italians, so there is no chance of its being mistaken by them for anything but the symbol meaning Viva.

A small horn and tortoiseshell snuff-box from Palermo.

It contains three coins wrapped in paper and a piece of the pilgrim's cross at Varello-Sesia. The cross is mentioned somewhere in Butler's books as being of very hard wood, so hard that the pilgrims have great difficulty in cutting pieces off it. So had I in cutting off this bit.

The day after Butler's death Alfred came to me with the coins and said:

"I took these out of his pockets, Sir; I thought you ought to have them."

Butler's watch and chain.

Butler used to possess his grandfather's gold watch and chain. He was robbed of the watch in Hyde Park one night just before starting on one of his journeys to Canada; he then bought this silver watch at Benson's, and, if I remember right, wore it with the gold chain. He was robbed of the chain in Fetter Lane, Oct. 1893 (Memoir, II. 167). He then bought a silver chain, which, with the silver watch, passed under his will to Alfred. Alfred wore them until 1919, when the watch was declared by an expert to be beyond repair. I took it from him, giving him in exchange the watch of my brother Charlie, who had recently died.

The matchbox which Alfred gave to Butler.

When Alfred knew that I was handing Butler's watch and chain on to St. John's College, he said:

"And then, Sir, they had better have this matchbox which I gave him."

I looked at it and said, "Well, but Alfred, how can that be? It is dated 1894, and he gave your matchbox to the Turk in 1895."

"I know he did, Sir; and when he told me I was very angry and went out into Holborn and bought this one and had it engraved same as the other."

"With the old date?"

"Yes, Sir, just the same as the one he gave to the Turk." See the Note- Books, p. 286.



WORKS BY SAMUEL BUTLER.

London: A. C. Fifield, 13, Clifford's Inn, E.C. 4.

A FIRST YEAR IN CANTERBURY SETTLEMENT. New Edition, with other early essays. 7s. net.

EREWHON. 14th Impression of Tenth Edition. 6s. net.

THE FAIR HAVEN. New Edition. 7s. net.

LIFE AND HABIT. Third Edition, with Addenda. 7s. net.

EVOLUTION OLD AND NEW. Third Edition, with Addenda. 7s. net.

UNCONSCIOUS MEMORY. Third Edition, with Introduction by Marcus Hartog. 8s. 6d. net.

ALPS AND SANCTUARIES. New and enlarged Edition. Illustrated. 7s. 6d. net.

LUCK OR CUNNING? Second Edition, corrected. 8s. 6d. net.

THE AUTHORESS OF THE ODYSSEY. Illustrated. Reprinting.

THE ILIAD RENDERED INTO ENGLISH PROSE. 7s. net.

SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS RECONSIDERED. 8s. 6d. net.

THE ODYSSEY RENDERED INTO ENGLISH PROSE. Illustrated. 8s. 6d. net.

EREWHON REVISITED. 8th Impression. 5s. net.

THE WAY OF ALL FLESH. 12th Impression of Second Edition. 7s. net.

THE HUMOUR OF HOMER AND OTHER ESSAYS. With Portrait and Biographical Sketch of the Author by H. F. Jones. 7s. net.

GOD THE KNOWN AND GOD THE UNKNOWN. 2s. 6d. net.

THE NOTEBOOKS OF SAMUEL BUTLER. With Portrait. Ed. by H. F. Jones. 5th Impression. 7s. net.

EX VOTO. Illustrated. To be reprinted.

SELECTIONS. Arranged by S. Butler. Out of print.

THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF DR. SAMUEL BUTLER. 2 vols. Illustrated. Out of print.



WORKS BY HENRY FESTING JONES.

London: A. C. Fifield.

DIVERSIONS IN SICILY. 6s. net.

CASTELLINARIA AND OTHER SICILIAN DIVERSIONS. 6s. net.

CHARLES DARWIN AND SAMUEL BUTLER. A Step towards Reconciliation. 1s. net.

London: Macmillan & Co.

SAMUEL BUTLER, Author of "Erewhon." A Memoir. 2 vols. Illustrated. 42s. net.

Printed by W. Heffer & Sons Ltd., Cambridge. England.



Footnotes:

{8} Joanna Mills in The Life and Letters of Dr. Samuel Butler, I. 90.

THE END