With the convivial pleasures, in which he so much delighted, Dr. Parr never failed to intermingle those of the intellectual kind, by the exertion of the extraordinary colloquial powers, with which he was gifted. Sincere, frank, kind, cheerful, and social, to him no joys of life were greater than those of free, interesting, animated conversation; in which learning disdains not to relax its brow, and to associate with gaiety and mirth; and in which grave discussion refuses not to admit the enlivening influence of the amusing tale or the merry jest. “The vigour of my animal spirits,” he said of himself, “and the love I have for social intercourse, rarely permit me, when in company, to sit in sullen silence, or to keep a gloomy and watchful reserve, or to affect that pompous solemnity which some men assume, who wish the copiousness and solidity of their ideas to be estimated in a direct proportion to the paucity and feebleness of their words.”1
1 Reply to Combe, p. 71. |
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When the company consisted of those only whom he knew and respected, and especially of those whose sentiments on the great subjects of religion and politics were congenial with his own; his conversation, released from all restraint, was truly delightful, and often highly instructive; abounding in acute and powerful observations, happily or forcibly expressed, in pleasing or striking illustration, in bold and brilliant repartee, and in well-drawn characters and curious anecdotes of distinguished men of his own or of former times. The topics were not always started by himself; he willingly followed at any time the lead of others; and taking up almost any subject suggested by them, he made it his own, and seldom failed to excite the admiration of all present, by the extent and accuracy of his information, and by the justness, the reasonableness, the strong sense, and often the deep reflection, which distinguished almost all his opinions. One,1 who was aided by his instructions in youth, and guided by his advice in maturer age, and who always listened to him with the profoundest attention, in a letter to the writer, thus describes the effect produced on his mind:—“There were times,
1 Joseph Parkes, Esq., author of “History of the Court of Chancery.” |
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“Though I have met many, if not most of my countrymen distinguished for literature or science,” says Dr. Gooch, “I have seldom heard any thing equal to, and never any thing more striking than his conversation. It was spirited—often vehement—it surpassed the rest of the company, more in quality than in quantity; for while it was sufficiently distinguished by the value of the thought, or the felicity of the expression, there was never that everlasting flow, which sometimes overlays and smothers conversation. When he said any thing striking, it was accompanied by a dictatorial manner, an uplifted arm, and a loud voice; but you could perceive an under expression of humour, as if he was conscious, and meant it to be understood, that it was a piece of acting. In his opinions, there was a simplicity, a common sense, a dislike of refinement and paradox, which I was not prepared for: they were the sentiments of a man of good sense, sometimes very simply, sometimes very strikingly expressed.”1
Before strangers he was often reserved; and though seldom silent, was cautious, on such occasions, in the choice both of his topics, and of the language which he employed in discussing them. “I do not allow myself,” said he, “to converse upon every subject to which I have attended, before every man whom I meet.”2—“I quite
Blackwood’s Mag. Oct. 1825. 2 Reply to Combe, p. 72. |
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His learning, which was poured forth, so promptly and so copiously when
required, Dr. Parr never suffered, on ordinary
occasions, to appear at all; and the littleness of pedantry is, in no degree, to be imputed
to him, in conversation at least, whatever may be said of his writings. He has been accused
of speaking with too much complacency of himself; but such instances of vanity, never very
frequent nor very obtrusive, may easily be pardoned in one, who could not be
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He has been charged with the fault of talking too much, and leaving no room
for others to speak.
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If his manner, acquired in the long exercise of scholastic authority, was too dictatorial, yet it was not often over-bearing; and there was not an atom in his temper either of harshness, or of moroseness, or of contemptuousness. He rarely employed the keenness of his wit, or the caustic powers of his language for the purposes of annoyance; and he was seldom provoked to angry severity, and yet more rarely to scornful derision, except by presuming ignorance, by prating dulness, or, above all, by censorious bigotry. “I am far more addicted,” he said of himself,1 “to anger than to contempt. But if my censures are severe, I hope that my commendations are more frequent, and no less forcible. I am sure, too, that I have much oftener had reason to repent of my precipitation in praise, than of my injustice in reproach. Against the babble of conceited sciolists—against the clamours of saucy pretenders—against the decisions of pompous and officious dogmatists, I do indulge contempt.” When such he met, then, indeed, he did not spare; nor rested till he had laid his adversary prostrate, or compelled him to submissive silence.
But in all other cases, he was kind and condescending even to men of the humblest intellect. He delighted to discover, and to bring into notice,
1 Reply to Combe, p. 20. |
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In the same spirit of kind consideration for others, when he saw a man, perhaps, of strong sense and of real worth, but of few words, hard pressed by another in conversation, he would fly, in the moment of difficulty, to his relief. As an instance, it is related that when Mr. C——, a man sparingly endued with diction, was pushed in argument beyond his strength, by the celebrated Sir James Mackintosh, Dr. Parr interposed, and rescued the weaker from the grasp of the stronger adversary. “Ah!” said Sir James, “it was a rescue, like that of Virgil’s Æneas by a cloud; but it was a cloud of words.” On another occasion, when the same powerful disputant was engaged in a colloquial contest, to which he was more than equal. Dr. Parr again interposed; observing, “Friend I—cannot talk you down, Jemmy; but he can think you down, Jemmy.”
His stores of biographical and literary anecdotes
1 New Monthly Mag. May, 1826. |
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Having suffered him to run the whole length of his line, with no other
interruption but a smile, now and then, of pity, or a frown, sometimes, of displeasure,
Dr. Parr rose at length from his seat; and, after
puffing in clouds for a moment or two, laid down his pipe—then resting one arm on the
table, and enforcing all he said, by the ponderous movements of the other, he broke out
into a vehement declamation on the state of the church—painting in glaring colours the
grievances under which “it was sick, though, he hoped, not
dying”—especially in the unequal distribution of its revenues—in the mysticism of
some parts of its creed—in the absurdity of some of its articles—in the servile spirit, too
prevalent both among its higher and lower clergy—and in their obstinate resistance to the
most reasonable and desirable improvements. He insisted that the church was
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That Dr. Parr was highly and sometimes fiercely indignant, when encountered by ignorance, talking with the confidence of knowledge, or folly aping the air of wisdom, must be known to all who have heard of him. The following instances are within the recollection of many of his friends.
He was insisting upon the importance of discipline, established on a wise
system, and enforced
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It happened in a large company that the question was proposed to him, and urgently pressed upon him, why he had not published more?—or something more worthy of his fame? The expressions of surprise and regret, which went round the company, he bore with perfect good humour; till at length a young scholar, jestingly, perhaps, but somewhat pertly, called to him—“Suppose, Dr. Parr, you and I were to write a book together?”—“Young man,” he replied, “if all were to be written in that book which I do know, and which you do not know, it would be a very large book indeed!”
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Even ladies were not spared, who incurred his displeasure, either by pertinacious adherence to the wrong in opinion, or by deficiency of attention to the right and the amiable in conduct. To one, who had violated, as he thought, some of the little rules of propriety, he said—“Madam, your father was a gentleman, and I thought that his daughter might have been a lady.” To another, who had held out in argument against him, not very powerfully, and rather too perseveringly, and who had closed the debate by saying—“Well! Dr. Parr, I still maintain my opinion;” he replied—“Madam, you may, if you please, retain your opinion, but you cannot maintain it.” To another, who had also ventured to oppose him, with more warmth of temper than cogency of reasoning, and who afterwards apologised for herself, by saying, “that it is the privilege of women to talk nonsense.”—“No, madam,” replied Dr. Parr, “it is not their privilege, but their infirmity. Ducks would walk if they could; but nature suffers them only to waddle.”
Though a decided and ardent politician, Dr. Parr was seldom betrayed into the injustice of denying the real merits of those, to whom he was opposed; or of rejecting the fair palliations, of which their political delinquencies may, in many cases, admit: yet he was sometimes severe in his remarks upon public men, and especially upon those, who, in deserting their party, incur the suspicion of base dereliction of principle, even in despite of their own claim of acting from honest change of opinion.
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Of a living senator of high powers and attainments, who had been guilty of some great errors, both in his public and private conduct, he said, “He is one of the most intellectual of God’s creatures; but one half of his mind is employed in giving effect to his villany, and the other half in finding a shelter for it.”—Describing the eloquence of a great orator and statesman, now no more, he said, “It was at best but a plausible and popular eloquence, which glitters with puerile points, which swells with tumid insignificance, which carries its bombast almost to frenzy, and mistakes the rash for the sublime.”—Of another orator, still more recently deceased, undoubtedly the greatest of his time, Dr. Parr thought—that his style of speaking marked, too much, on some occasions, the declaimer from the schools, and, on others, the wrangler from the bar: and lamenting over his eloquence, when too often employed, as it once was, in giving speciousness to error, and the semblance of justice to wrong, he said to a friend—“Sir, his speeches are froth—sometimes sugared froth—sometimes peppered froth; but froth always!”
If there was one offence, more than another, which excited in Dr. Parr’s mind feelings of disgust and disdain, it
was petulant remark, or indecent wit, or vulgar abuse, directed towards religious subjects.
He would listen, with candid attention, to calm and sober reasoning, even though pointed
against the most sacred principles of natural or revealed religion; but with no patience
could he bear “the effrontery of the libertine, the
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“I have met with several persons, who were ready enough to confess, and even eager to avow and defend, their infidelity. I must acknowledge that their language, in my presence, at least, was decorous; and that their aim, as it appeared to me, was rather to vanquish by disputation, than to insult by profaneness. The yell of blasphemy never assailed my ears from more than one human voice, and that voice has long been silenced by death. Firmly, but not in the gall of bitterness, I bestowed upon the defender the discipline he deserved, for a most unprovoked outrage; and I have often thought it was well that a table stood between us; for he had the grim visage of a ruffian; and his hands, I know, had been imbued in the blood of a fellow-creature. Ειδως αύτν το ονομα, says an old writer, ουχ επιμνησθήσομαι. But I am glad he was not an Englishman.”1
Once being in company with a young man of noble family, of much kindness of temper, and excellence of general character, but who had suffered himself, in an unguarded moment, to indulge his pleasantry at the expense of his better feelings, and had proposed to him, with an air of laughing levity, that question—“whether he thought, the cross on the back of the ass was really occasioned by our Saviour’s riding on that animal into Jerusalem?”—Dr. Parr instantly replied, with knit brow and raised voice—“Mr. S. D., it would be
1 Spital Sermon, p. 91. |
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Some years ago, Dr. Parr was passing
a few days with an old pupil, an eminent barrister, at his house in Staffordshire, when it
happened that another visiting inmate was the celebrated H. C., Esq.,
a brother barrister. One day, a large company were invited to dinner, consisting, amongst
others, of several neighbouring clergymen; of whom one was fresh from college, just
initiated into holy orders, and strangely ignorant, or strangely forgetful of the little
proprieties which regulate social intercourse, at least in the higher circles. This young
ecclesiastic, whether conceitedly, for the purpose of display, or unseasonably, if with a
view of gaining information, proposed to Dr. Parr question after
question, on subjects of theology, much to the offence of the great divine, who exceedingly
disliked the introduction of such topics in mixed companies, at festival entertainments.
Not, however, deterred by the evident displeasure, with which his questions were received,
or rather repulsed, he still persisted; and, among other inquiries, pressed, with peculiar
earnestness, for an answer to the following:—“Whether Mahomet had ever seen the Christian Scriptures?”
“Sir,” answered Dr. Parr, coldly and
tauntingly, “I have not the pleasure of Mahomet’s
acquaintance.”—“But,” resumed the querist,
“Dr. Parr, do you think that
Mahomet had seen only a false gospel, and the epistle falsely
ascribed to Barnabas?”—“Sir, I have not the
honour of knowing Mr. Barnabas either,” re-
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Unprepared for this new and sudden attack, Dr.
Parr seemed for a moment confounded; and the attention of the whole company
was anxiously directed towards him. But soon recovering himself, and rising from his seat,
with an imposing air of dignity, and with a commanding voice of authority, he spoke
thus:—“H. C., if you had ever
seen a true gospel, you could not have understood the learned
language in which it is written; and if you had seen that true gospel, and could have
understood that learned language, you could not have comprehended the sublime character
it delineates, or the pure morals it inculcates; and if you could have read that true
gospel, and comprehended that sublime character, and those pure morals; yet, to shelter
your own bad propensities and habits, you would have struggled
hard to prove the character a fiction, and the morals a falsehood!”
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The following anecdote is told by one of Dr.
Parr’s pupils:—Of flippancy of remark on religious subjects he was
highly impatient. He once, in my hearing, rebuked Mr. F——, a
barrister, in good set terms. This gentleman had somewhat inconsiderately observed, that it
was human authority which had put the seal of authenticity on the books of Scriptures; and
that the councils of Trent and Nice had decided which were apocryphal, and which were not
so. Dr. Parr with some difficulty heard him to the end of his
sentence; when, after a most ominous puff from his pipe, he addressed him nearly in these
words: “Mr. Frith, or Mr. Forth, or
Mr. Froth—excuse me if I forget your name—I have not the honour of
your acquaintance; and the specimen you have just given of your theological knowledge does
not make me highly ambitious of it. Sir, give me leave to tell you, that you are as far
from correct chronology in your remark, as you are from right reasoning. These two
councils, which sat at widely remote periods of time, had nothing to do with the
distinction of books, as at present received into our church. It arose from the consent of
the early Christians, and is built upon the authority of the ancient fathers. You have
given an opinion upon a subject which you ought not to have approached;
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Ne mea dona, tibi studio disposta fideli, Intellecta priusquam sint, contempta relinquas.”1 |
Of all the species of wit, punning was one which Dr. Parr disliked, and in which he seldom indulged; and yet some instances of it have been related. Reaching a book from a high shelf in his library, two other books came tumbling down; of which one, a critical work of Lambert Bos, fell upon the other, which was a volume of Hume, “See!” said he, “what has happened—procumbit humi bos.”—On another occasion, sitting in his room, suffering under the effects of a slight cold, when too strong a current was let in upon him, he cried out, “Stop! stop! that is too much. I am at present only par levibus ventis.” At another time, a gentleman having asked him to subscribe to Dr. Busby’s translation of Lucretius, he declined to do so, saying it would cost too much money; it would indeed be “Lucretius carus.”
Speaking of this play upon words, he said that it betrays an intrinsic poverty in the language which easily admits it; and that the richest language, the Greek, was the least susceptible of it. That language was, he remarked, so copious, as to supply words for almost every shade or variety of thought, so as not often to require the use of the same word in different senses. Not, he added,
1 Luc. lib. i. 1. 47. |
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If he was not displeased with this instance of an ancient, the following instance of a modern Greek pun extorted from him applause. He had been engaged in a warm debate with “his acute and learned friend,” as he describes him, Mr. Payne Knight, who gained a considerable advantage over him, and said something by which he was so irritated, that he exclaimed, “Sir, this is not fair argument: it is downright impudence.”—“True, Doctor,” said Mr. Knight, “the Greek word for it is Παρρησία.” In an instant, all his ill-humour disappeared. He was not only appeased, but delighted; and shaking his antagonist by the hand, cried out, “A fair retort! Sir, I forgive you! I forgive you!” and then laughed heartily.3
From the dignity of literary or other important discussions, he was never unwilling, especially on
1 In the Greek σιγη, which signifies silence. 2 New Monthly Mag. Dec. 1826. 3 Ibid. Aug. 1826. |
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The following note in reply to a much-esteemed friend, who often invited him to enjoy the pleasures of a social pipe, in a room of his house, of which he was fond, shows how much he was pleased with easy unrestrained interchange of thoughts on any or all the little occurrences of common and daily life:—
“My friend,—What you said to me about the smoking-cell vibrated to my very heart, as worthy of the kindness which, for many years, and upon many subjects, you had professed, and you had felt, and you had practically manifested towards myself. Yes, into the little room, of which you spoke so courteously, I will come: talk unreservedly, cheerfully, and abundantly upon any thing or nothing; and fumigate the ceiling, from the hot, and copious, and fragrant exhalations of my pipe.”
The gay delight with which he always met company, and his desire that all should truly enjoy themselves, on such occasions, appear in the following note of invitation to a friend:—
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“Dear Mrs. Edwards,—Do your duty on Monday. Bring your husband to dinner. Listen to Dr. B— about good, sound orthodoxy; to Mr. M— about the virtues of jalap and Leamington waters; to Mr. K— about the mysteries of oriental mythology, theology, and theogony; and to Dr. Parr, thin B—, and Jack B—, about any thing or nothing. You may also talk scandal or love, or both, with seven-petticoated bipeds. Farewell.—S. P.”
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