BUTLER 87 



an appendix to Topsell's History of Four-footed Beasts 

 and Serpents (folio. Lond. 1658). Topsell's History 

 is an adaptation of Gesner for English readers 



CHAKLES BUTLER 

 ?-1647 



The Feminine Monarchie ; or a treatise concerning Bees and the due 

 ordering of them. 8vo. Oxford. 1609. 



The Feminine Monarchy, or the History of Bees, written out of experience, 

 &c. Third edition. Sni. 4to. Oxford. 1634. 



The first account of the economy of the bee-hive which 

 we shall have to notice is Butler's Feminine Monarchy, 

 a learned, practical and amusing treatise. Thomas Hill's 

 Profitable Art of Gardening {Ath. Qdi. Lond. 8vo. 1568) 

 contains a chapter on the ordering of bees, but Hill 

 explains in his preface that he had no practical know- 

 ledge of bees ; he merely collected statements and 

 opinions from ancient authors.^ 



Butler was parson of Laurence Wotton, near Basing- 

 stoke, and master of Basingstoke grammar-school. He 

 wrote other books besides the Feminine Monarchy, a 

 treatise on rhetoric, a treatise on consanguinity in 

 marriage, an English grammar with a new phonetic 

 spelling, and a book on the principles of spelling. The 

 Feminine Monarchy seems to have achieved success ; 

 it reached a third edition, and a Latin translation was 

 published in 1673. I have quoted from the third 

 edition, which adopts the phonetic spelling advocated 



1 Butler explains in his preface that Georgiua Piotorius had collected 

 passages about bees from ancient authors, and that one T.H. (Thomas Hill) 

 of London had translated these into English, concealing the author's name. 

 "These and the like, when a scholar hath thoroughly read, he thinketh 

 himself thoroughly instructed in these mysteries, but when he conieth abroad 

 to put his learning in practice, every silly woman is ready to deride his 

 learned ignorance." 



