“ Butler was in the Education Department, and from 1887 to 1894 he was engaged in the publishing business. He was Assistant Commissioner to the Commission on Secondary Education, 1894.
Mr. Butler had long been known in England as an Italian scholar, and his edition of the three part of the "Divina Commedia," consisting of text, translation, and commentary, has been used with much profit by many English readers. Without showing any great originality, these volumes were the work of a devoted and careful student of Dante and of a man with a sense for literature and of real faculty for translation. ”

“ Mr. Butler was at one time a frequent attendant at the meetings of the Oxford Dante Society, and his works on Dante include a readable volume for beginners, "Dante: His Times and His Work," and a most useful translation of Scartazinni's "Companion to Dante." ”

“ He was educated at Bradfield and at Eton, whence he went to Trinity, Cambridge, his father's old college, and was elected to a Fellowship after winning the Bell Scholarship in 1864 and coming out 8th Classic and among the Junior Optimes in 1867. ”