BUTLER, CHARLES, a distinguished Roman Catholic lawyer and author, was born in London in 1750, and died in 1832. He was educated at the English College at Douay, and was the first Roman Catholic called to the bar subsequent to the period of the Revolution. *Immediately on the passing of the Relief Act in 1832, and not long before his death, he was made King's counsel during Lord Brougham's chancellorship. He is the author of several important works on law and general jurisprudence, also a Life of Erasmus, chiefly valuable for the historical information which it contains on the state of literature between the tenth and the sixteenth centuries. His contribu tion to Biblical literature is a work entitled Hora biblicce. Part L. containing an historical and literary account of the anginal text, early and printed editions of the Old and New Testament. Part II. containing an historical and literary ac count of the Koran, Zend-Avesta, Vedas, Kings and Edda, and with two dissertations—I. On the great council said to be held by the `dews on the plain of Ageda, in Hungary, in 1650. II. An historical and literary outline of the disputes on the authenti city of 1 yarn v. 7. Part first of this work was
the fruit of the author's leisure hours, and was originally printed for private circulation in 1799. It was afterwards published, and the fact that in a very short period it passed through several edi tions is evidence of the great acceptance in which it was held by Biblical scholars. The learning, research, candour, and good sense of the author are everywhere apparent ; and the amount of use ful information afforded on all the topics of which it treats, together with the indicated sources whence it is chiefly drawn, constitute it a work of per manent value. It only needs to be added respect ing the second of the two dissertations in the appendix, that the evidence for and against the authenticity of the passage which has been so much disputed is stated with great candour and accuracy. The fifth and last edition of the Horm Biblicss will be found included in vol. s. of the author's collected Philological and Biographical Works, 5 vols. 8vo, Lond. 1817. —W. J. C.