The Lives of the Saints Volume 1 - St. Patrick's Basilica

BY CHARLES BUTLER, ESQ.
BARRISTER AT LAW.
Quare quis tandem me reprehendat, si quantum ad cæteris festos dies
ludorum celebrandos, quantum ad alias voluptates, et ad ipsam requiem
animi et corporis conceditur temporis: Quantum alii tempestivis
conviviis, quantum aleæ, quantum pilæ, tantum mihi egomet ad hæc studia
recolenda, sumpsero.
CIC. PRO ARCHIA
1.
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THE Reverend Alban Butler was the second son of Simon Butler, Esq., of
Appletree, in the county of Northampton, by Miss Ann Birch, daughter of
Thomas Birch, Esq., of Gorscot, in the county of Stafford. His family,
for amplitude of possessions, and splendor of descent and alliances, had
vied with the noblest and wealthiest of this kingdom, but was reduced to
slender circumstances at the time of his birth. A tradition in his
family mentions, that Mr. Simon Butler (our author's grandfather) was
the person confidently employed by the duke of Devonshire and the earl
of Warrington, in inviting the prince of Orange over to England; that he
professed the protestant religion, and that his great zeal for it was
his motive for embarking so warmly in that measure; but that he never
thought it would be attended with the political consequences which
followed from it; that, when they happened, they preyed greatly on his
mind; that to fly from his remorse, he gave himself up to pleasure: and
that in a few years he dissipated a considerable proportion of the
remaining part of the family estate, and left what he did not sell of it
heavily encumbered.
At a very early age our author was sent to a school in Lancashire, and
there applied himself to his studies with that unremitted application
which, in every part of his life, he gave to literature. Sacred
biography was even then his favorite pursuit. A gentleman, lately
deceased, mentioned to the editor that he remembered him at this school,
and frequently heard him repeat, with a surprising minuteness of fact,
and precision of chronology, to a numerous and wondering audience of
little boys, the history of the chiefs and saints of the Saxon æra of
our history. He then also was distinguished for his piety, and a
punctual discharge of his religious duties. About the age of eight years
he was sent to the English college at Douay. It appears, from the diary
of that college, that Mr. Holman, of Warkworth, (whose memory, for his
extensive charities, is still in benediction in Oxfordshire and
Northamptonshire,) became security for the expenses of his education.
About this time he lost his father and mother. The latter, just before