Dr. Parr had now entered
into his seventy-fourth year; and it could be no surprise to him to see the circle of his
earlier friendships fast contracting, and drawing almost to a point. In the summer of 1820,
his feelings were severely wounded by the death of one of the oldest and most beloved of
all his friends, Dr. Bennet, the senior bishop of
Ireland. He was an accomplished scholar, an enlightened divine, and an amiable and virtuous
man. He was much devoted to the study of British antiquities; and was particularly
distinguished for his knowledge of Roman roads. Though he published nothing himself, he
communicated much valuable information to Mr.
Nichols, the historian of Leicestershire; and to Mr. Polwhele, the historian of Cornwall. By the interest of Lord Westmoreland, who had been his pupil at Cambridge, he
was promoted, in 1790, to the bishopric of Cork; and was thence translated to the rich see
of
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Dr. Bennet, as the reader knows, was Dr. Parr’s schoolfellow at Harrow, and his fellow-collegian at Cambridge; and the following testimony of mutual regard, written many years afterwards, will interest and amuse. It is inscribed on the first leaf of “Kenna’s Political Essays on the Affairs of Ireland,” in the hand-writing of Dr. Bennet. “This book is presented, with every good wish, to Samuel Parr, curate of Hatton, by Wm. Bennet, bishop of Cloyne, January 1, 1795, as a token of long and uninterrupted friendship;” and to this is added what follows—“A witty author has observed, that bishops and curates are now seldom seen together, except in the prayer for the clergy.—S. P.”1
But the reader must not longer be detained from the pleasure, with which he will contemplate the splendid portrait, drawn and coloured by the hand of fond and affectionate friendship, as presented to his view in the following passage:—
“There is one man, whom I cannot remember, without feeling that all my inclination to commend, and all my talents for commendation, are disproportioned to his merits. From habits, not only of close intimacy, but of early and uninterrupted friendship, I can say there is scarcely one Greek and Roman author of eminence, in verse or prose, whose writings are not familiar to him. He is equally successful in combating the difficulties of
1 Bibl. Parr. p. 407. |
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1 Reply to Combe, p. 25. |
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What, it might well be asked, in the sacred name of moral honour and moral rectitude, must be thought of the law, requiring subscription to numerous, unintelligible, inexplicable articles of faith, which could betray a mind like that of Bishop Bennet, into such poor and wretched sophistry as that contained in the following extracts of a letter, addressed to the late Gilbert Wakefield?
“You have doubts on the subject of our articles; and where is the
man who has not? At least, I should have a very bad opinion of the sense and the heart
of the man, who has not. And do you really think that every man, who subscribes is
guilty of perjury, but the very few who understand them literally? Perjury, perhaps, is
too harsh a term: subscribing that a thing is true, being very different to swearing to
the truth of it. But you, at least, think us guilty of gross prevarication; and here
remains the difficulty, whether you think the possession of the comforts, and what some
think the honours of life, worth such a prevarication or not? This, my dear Wakefield, you only Can determine. Fecerunt
alii et multi et boni. But, I own, authority is a very bad argument
against conscience. If it were not, I would mention, in particular, your
fellow-collegian, Jortin. He professed himself a
doubter about the trinity, yet he subscribed repeatedly. I do not see why we need
scrupulously inquire in what sense the articles were originally, or are now imposed? If
I can make the declaration, that I believe them to be
| LIFE OF DR. PARR. | 293 |
The loss of his early and excellent friend, Bishop Bennet, was, in no long time, followed by another, most deeply deplored by Dr. Parr, in the death of his beloved pupil and friend, and for many years his almost constant companion, the Rev. John Bartlam. He expired suddenly, in the shop of Mr. Lloyd, bookseller, Harley-street, London, March 6, 1823; and so great was the shock to Dr. Parr, that he never entirely recovered from it. A party of his friends had assembled to dine with him, and the dinner was just going on table, when the distressing intelligence arrived at Hatton. He instantly withdrew into a private apartment; where he remained so long that his friends were preparing to depart, when he returned: and having previously desired that no allusion might be made to the event, he sat down; conversed with them much as usual; and maintained, in an extraordinary manner, the command over his feelings during the whole evening. He was for some time afterwards accustomed to place a vacant chair on the very spot, which Mr. Bartlam had usually occupied at his table, and often looked at it in mournful silence; but never uttered his name.2 A biographical memoir of his much lamented friend and companion, written by Dr. Parr, will be found in a subsequent part of this volume.
A high instance of a noble and generous spirit,
1 Wakefield’s Life, vol. i. p. 376. 2 New Monthly Mag. June, 1826. |
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These soaring acts of disinterestedness, as if rising in beautiful climax, were succeeded and crowned by still another, and perhaps a greater. For, when, by the judicious interference of one of the best and most faithful friends of the family, the long-desired reconciliation was not only attempted, but accomplished: the first to approve and promote the attempt, and to hail its success, was the very person, who, by that result, found himself not only removed from the heirship of a great property, which many would have thought he might, without discredit, have retained; but deprived also of the proud delight which he had anticipated, of relinquishing his own legal claims, in favour of what appeared to him the stronger and juster equities of others. In times when the “amor sceleratus habendi”1 is suffered to bear down too much all the nobler principles of the human mind, may not this whole transaction be placed among the deeds of true magnanimity,
1 Ovid. |
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Early in 1824 Dr. Parr received intelligence of the death of another much honoured friend, in the Cursitor-Baron Maseres; who, through the course of a long life, reaching to its ninety-third year, sustained a distinguished reputation, among men of letters, by his own literary acquirements, which were great; and by the ardour and liberality, with which he patronised and promoted the general cause of literature. Over all the subjects of highest interest to human beings, moral, religious, and political, he allowed his thoughts to range, with the most unfettered freedom; and the views he adopted were worthy of an upright, enlightened, and reflecting mind. Though in his professional career he was not eminent, yet his knowledge of law was accurate and profound; and the most difficult and important questions were often proposed for his opinion. In private life, all who knew or approached him, were pleasingly impressed by the charms which his social and cheerful temper, his bland and obliging manners, and his animated and instructive conversation threw around him; and were equally struck with the dignity, which pure moral rectitude, high religious principle, and the glowing sympathies of benevolence, conferred upon him. Some of the strong lines of his fine character are thus traced by Dr. Parr—“Baron Maseres, I regard, as most venerable from his attainments in various branches of
1 “Deeds that are truly great exceed all speech.”—Shakspeare’s Henry V. |
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In the same year, 1824, the number of Dr. Parr’s friends was still further diminished, by the sudden decease of Richard Payne Knight, Esq. “whom he always greatly admired,” he said, “for his acuteness, his taste, and his most curious and profound erudition.”1 Mr. Knight was long and honourably distinguished in the literary circles of the metropolis; and he is entitled, by universal consent, to be placed high among the most eminent Greek scholars of his age. He is said to have been an occasional writer in the Edinburgh Review. Amongst his acknowledged works are, “An Account of the Worship of Priapus in Ionia,” and an “Enquiry into the Principles of Taste,”2 &c.—He bequeathed his matchless col-
1 Last Will. 2 “Homeri Carmina studio R. P. Knight.—Viro venerabili, eruditissimo, amicissimo, Samueli Parr, in his diligentissimis studiis, duci, doctori, et magistro suo, quæ maxima et pulcherrima potuit grati animi monumenta, dignissimaque summa ejus elegantia, amicitiæ diuturaæ pignora, dono dat editor.”—Bibl. Parr. p. 692. |
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Nearly about the same time, closed his mortal course, the Rev. Thomas Rennel, B.D., F.R.S., son of the dean of Winchester, and one of the most zealous and intrepid among all the champions of the English church, exactly as it is by law established. Of him, in the language of high, but, no doubt, just panegyric, Dr. Parr thus speaks:—“My authority is good, not only from common fame, but from the general consent of scholars, and my own personal observations, when I say, with confidence, that, by profound erudition, by various and extensive knowledge, by a well-formed taste, by keen discernment, by glowing and majestic eloquence, by moral character, pure without austerity, and piety, fervent without superstition, the son of the dean of Winchester stands among the brightest luminaries of the national literature and the national church.”
A sincere and devoted friendship subsisted for many years between Dr. Parr and the late Rev. Charles Symmons, L.L.D., celebrated as the author of the “Life of Milton;”1 in whom, it is just as well as high praise to say, that the poet of freedom has at last found a biographer worthy of himself. Dr. Symmons was more the pupil of nature than of art; and was guided, even on important occasions, by the impulses of a high and enthusiastic spirit, more than by the sober maxims,
1 Among his other works is “Virgil’s Æneid, translated,” of which Dr. Parr says, “I think this one of the best translations in the English language.”—Bibl. Parr. p. 696. |
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Of Symmons’ “Life of Milton,” Dr. Parr never spoke but in terms of rapturous commendation. He considered it as the most able and faithful, the most complete and finished picture of the greatest of poets and the noblest of patriots, which has yet been given to the public. He would not admit, what some have thought, that it is too highly wrought, and too strongly coloured. He admired, as he often said, the keenness of penetration, the strength of observation, the force of reasoning, and the fire of eloquence, which the advocate displays, in repelling the calumnious aspersions thrown on an illustrious character; and in demanding the praises due to the talents which exalted, and to the virtues which adorned it. Even the vehemence of indignation, with which the bold reprover exposes and censures the Tory detractors of Milton, and of which some have complained, he would defend, by saying “opprobriis dignos laceravit.”
The first publication of the “Life of Milton,” in 1807, led to a long and
interesting correspondence, of which Dr. Symmons
speaks in the follow-
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It has been truly observed, that partly, perhaps, by the happy conformation of natural constitution, and still more by the moral influence of instruction and example, the talents and the virtues of the parent are not unfrequently transmitted, in a greater or less degree, to the offspring; and the observation in the case of Dr. Symmons is strikingly verified. A volume of “Poems” was published by him in 1813, of which some were his own productions; but the greater part were those
1 Symmons’ Life of Milton, 2nd ed. Pref. |
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In his “Last Will,” Dr. Parr thus bears his testimony to the good and great qualities of his two friends; of whom the son only now lives, to sustain the honours of the name, by the cultivation of his admirable talents; and by their exertion, it is to be hoped, in literary labours, for the benefit of others:—“I bequeath mourning rings to my friend, the Rev. Dr. Symmons, a scholar, a poet, a gentleman, and a real Christian; and to his son, John Symmons, Esq., whose capacious and retentive memory, various and extensive learning, unassuming manners, and ingenuous temper, have procured for him a high rank in the catalogue of my friends.”
In the winter of 1824 died, at High Wycombe, in the eighty-fourth year of
his age, John Hollis, Esq., a near relative of the
celebrated republican, Thomas Hollis, Esq. He was a
man of strong understanding, of deep reflection, and of great moral worth. Dr. Parr respected his character, and cultivated his
acquaintance; nor did he think the worse of him, because he belonged to the number of
those—a small number, it is believed— who, after fair and impartial inquiry, remain un-
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1 The pious, the candid, the amiable Bishop Porteus contemplated the possibility, at least, of honest unbelief, in the following passage—addressing those, in whose minds, after careful examination of the evidences of Christianity, doubts of its truth remain:—“Think whether you can boldly plead, before the tribunal of Christ, the sincerity of your unbelief, as a bar to your condemnation. That plea may possibly be in some cases a good one. God grant that it may in yours! But remember this one thing: you stake your own souls upon the truth of it.”—Porteus’ Sermons, vol. i. Serm. 2. See other passages to the same effect in the same discourse. 2 Bibl. Parr. p. 572. |
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The fairness and the candour of his sentiments in reference to the temper and the conduct of modern unbelievers, Dr. Parr has displayed in the following passage:—“Many, who may not be wholly with us, are not therefore fiercely and corruptly against us. They investigate: they may sometimes doubt after investigation, as we ourselves may sometimes believe, without it. But they do not, in this country, at least, insult our understandings and our feelings with the effrontery of the libertine, the arrogance of the scoffer, or the fell impiety of the blasphemer. Diffident they are and humble, where the knight-errant of atheism rejects indiscriminately and undauntedly. They are silent, where he clamours rudely. They blush, where he dogmatises; and they shudder, when he reviles. By such inquirers, then, no snares will be laid for credulity; no encouragement holden out to rashness; no palliatives spread over the deformity and the foulness of vice; no objections pushed forward that can affront the authority, or wound the delicacy, of real virtue.”1
But while prompt to render all manner of justice to the motives and the merits of those, who, after sober inquiry, are dissatisfied with the evidence, on which the truth of revealed religion rests; yet his anxiety, on the other hand, that they should gain no unfair advantage from the authority of great names, which do not belong to them, is evinced in the following note:—
“Dr. Parr is bound to make the following statement. Mr. Hume, in his History of England,
1 Spital Serm. p. 13. |
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In the records of his “Last Will,” among the persons of whom Dr. Parr has made honourable mention, added to those before enumerated, are General Cockburn of Shamgannah Bay, Uvedale Price, Esq., and Sir John Aubrey, Bart. M. P. Of the first he speaks as a friend, “whose vivacity in conversation, whose various knowledge, whose ardour in the cause of civil and religious liberty, and whose urbanity, probity and benevolence in private life, entitled him to a very large share of his esteem
1 See also Butler’s Reminiscences, vol. ii. p. 232. 2 Bibl. Parr. p. 451. |
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In the same solemn record of last thoughts and last friendships, occur the names of two illustrious foreign scholars, by whose good opinion Dr. Parr was honoured, and with whole learned epistles he was sometimes favoured: the one, Mr. Professor Bekker, of Berlin; the other, Mr. Hermann of Leipsic. The latter he describes as a writer, who blends the most profound philosophy, with the most exact and extensive erudition: and whom he pronounces to be, in his judgment, the greatest among the very great critics of the present age.”1 In the “Bibliotheca Parriana,” the “Orphica, Gr. et Lat., recensuit G. Hermannus,” is thus noted: “The value of this book is beyond calculation heightened by the acute and exquisitely learned dissertation of Hermann. S. P.”—And to the “Hermanni Dissertationes variae” with this inscription: “Intelligentissimo harum literarum ar-
1 “My hero is Hermann. He is not only a scholar, but a philosopher of the highest order; and he smiles, probably, as I do, at the petty criticisms of puny sciolists, who in fact do not understand what is written by this great critic.”—Dr. Parr in a letter to Mr. Bohn. See Bibl. Parr. p. 305. |
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To the long and splendid list of Dr. Parr’s friends, remain to be added the names of two veterans in periodical literature; of whom, one is Dr. Griffith, the editor of the Monthly Review; a journal which, commencing in 1749, comprises the history of English, including notices of foreign literature, for the greater part of a century. The other is Mr. Nichols, of whom Dr. Parr speaks “as his long-known and beloved friend, the very intelligent editor of the Gentleman’s Magazine;” and who, in his turn, thus expresses his sentiments of high esteem, in the advertisement to the third volume of his “Literary History of the Eighteenth Century:”—“Should my truly benevolent and incomparable friend, Dr. Parr, which I have every reason to hope and expect, find leisure and inclination, by the assistance of an amanuensis, to revise the many sterling pages which I know he has already written to adorn these ‘Illustrations,’ I shall not for a moment hesitate in setting the press again at work: and proud, very proud, shall I be to conclude my labours, by the productions of so very elegant and enlightened a coadjutor.”—The hope here expressed was never realised.
The following communication in a letter from Dr. Parr is given by Mr. Nichols, in his “Literary Anecdotes,” vol. ix. p. 107:—
“As to Bosworth-field, six or seven years ago, I explored it, and found Dick’s Well; out of which, the tradition is, that Richard drank during
1 Bibl. Parr. p. 305. |
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1 App. No. II. |
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