JOSEPH BUTLER, author of “Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature,” is deservedly ranked among the masters of English prose. This great work, which profoundly influenced the thought of the eighteenth century, is too voluminous to come within the definition of the essay usually accepted, but it is essentially an illustration of the same methods of thought and habits of composition which give form to the great essays of Locke, Mill, and Spencer. Butler was born in Berkshire, England, May 18th, 1692. According to Hutchinson, “he was of most reverend aspect, his face thin and pale, but with a divine placidness which inspired veneration and expressed the most benevolent mind.” He owed his advancement in the church, which he entered after graduating from Oxford, largely to the friendship of Queen Caroline, as a result of whose request made on her deathbed he was appointed Bishop of Bristol in 1738. In 1750 he became Bishop of Durham and remained in that see until his death, June 16th, 1752.