All the
spectators saw the race and were delighted; another inch and I
should never have held up my head again. One thing is safe, it
will never happen again.
The Eagle, "a magazine supported by members of St. John's College,"
issued its first number in the Lent term of 1858; it contains an
article by Butler "On English Composition and Other Matters," signed
"Cellarius":
Most readers will have anticipated me in admitting that a man
should be clear of his meaning before he endeavours to give it
any kind of utterance, and that, having made up his mind what to
say, the less thought he takes how to say it, more than briefly,
pointedly and plainly, the better.
From this it appears that, when only just over twenty-two, Butler
had already discovered and adopted those principles of writing from
which he never departed.
In the fifth number of the Eagle is an article, "Our Tour," also
signed "Cellarius"; it is an account of a tour made in June, 1857,
with a friend whose name he Italianized into Giuseppe Verdi, through
France into North Italy, and was written, so he says, to show how
they got so much into three weeks and spent only 25 pounds; they did
not, however, spend quite so much, for the article goes on, after
bringing them back to England, "Next day came safely home to dear
old St.
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