‘My dear Sir,—In looking at Dr. Farmer’s prepared copy for publication of the little “Hudibras,” the other morning, we glanced at the note respecting Ralph, the squire of Butler’s hero. Sir Roger l’Estrange says that in reality he was Isaac Robinson, a zealous butcher. Gray adds that in a key to a burlesque poem by Butler the squire is said to have been one Pemble a tailor, and one of the Committee of Sequestrators.
‘In a letter of Sir Samuel Luke, however, preserved in his copy-book of letters in the Museum, I find an allusion to a Ralph quite as likely to have been in Butler’s view as the butcher or the tailor, or the grocer’s apprentice in Beaumont and Fletcher’s “Knight of the Burning Pestle.”
‘The following is the letter—
‘“Honest Sam,—I have received several Lettres from you, but cannot be content till I heare you are setled according to your heart’s desire, that you may as well have a place as a face that pleases you. I pray think of my fur’d coate, and doe the utmost you can for procureing it; and get Ralph Norton to see if he cannot regaine my Armes and other things which were lost after Newbury fight at Aldermaston. If I may bee usefull to you heare in any office of Love, none shall bee more ready to doe it than
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‘No superscription of this letter is put down, nor is there any clue for ascertaining who this honest Sam was to whom the letter was addressed, but I cannot help suspecting that it might be Butler himself. At all events this letter supplies us with a real Ralph apparently attached to Sir Samuel Luke’s service.
‘Believe me, my dear Sir, most truly yours,
‘Butler, you no doubt remember, had been in early life in Sir Samuel Luke’s household.’
