INTRODUCTION 



IT is hardly necessary to apologise for the 

 miscellaneous character of the following col- 

 lection of essays. Samuel Butler was a man 

 of such unusual versatility, and his interests 

 were so many and so various that his literary 

 remains were bound to cover a wide field. 

 Nevertheless it will be found that several of the 

 subjects to which he devoted much time and 

 labour are not represented in these pages. I 

 have not thought it necessary to reprint any of 

 the numerous pamphlets and articles which he 

 wrote upon the Iliad and Odyssey, since these 

 were all merged in " The Authoress of the 

 Odyssey/' which gives his matured views upon 

 everything relating to the Homeric poems. 

 For a similar reason I have not included an 

 essay on the evidence for the Resurrection of 

 Jesus Christ, which he printed in 1865 for 

 private circulation, since he subsequently made 

 extensive use of it in " The Fair Haven." 



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