"Sir; "I am sorry that it is not in my power to place you in a situation which would become you I mean in the Episcopal Palace at Buckden: but I can bring you very near to it; for I have the presentation to a rectory now vacant, within a mile and a half of it, which is very much at Dr. Parr's service. It is the rectory of Graffham, at present worth 2007. a year, and, as I am informed, may soon be worth 2707.; and I this moment learn that the incumbent died last Tuesday. "Dr. Parr's talents and character might well entitle him to a better patronage than this from those who know how to estimate his merits; but I acknowledge that a great additional motive with me to the offer I now make him, is, that I believe I cannot do any thing more pleasing to his friends, Mr. Fox, Mr. Sheridan, and Mr. Knight; and I desire you, Sir, to consider yourself obliged to them only. "I have the honour to be, Sir, "With the greatest respect, your obedient Servant, "Dear Sir, Vicarage-House, Buckden, Sept. 26, 1802. "After rambling in various parts of Norfolk, I went to Cambridge, and from Cambridge I yesterday came to the parsonage of my most respectable friend, Mr. Maltby, at Buckden, where I this morning had the honour of receiving your letter. Mrs. Parr opened it last Friday at Hatton, and I trust that you will pardon the liberty she took in desiring your servant to conve it to me in Huntingdonshire, where she knew that I should be, as upon this day. "Permit me, dear Sir, to request that you would accept the warmest and most sincere thanks of my heart for this unsolicited, but most honourable, expression of your good will towards me. Nothing can be more important to my worldly interest than the service you have done me, in presenting me to the living of Graffham. Nothing can be more exquisitely gratifying to my very best feeling, than the language in which you have conveyed to me this mark of your friendship. Indeed, dear Sir, you have enabled me to pass the years of declining life in comfortable and honourable independence. You have given me additional and unalterable conviction, that the firmness with which I have adhered to my principles has obtained for me the approbation of wise and good men. And when that approbation assumes, as it now does, the form of protection, I fairly confess to you, that the patronage of Sir Francis Burdett has a right to be ranked among the proudest, as well as the happiest, events of my life. I trust that my future conduct will justify you in the disinterested and generous gift which you have bestowed upon me: and sure I am that my friends, Mr. Fox, Mr. Sheridan, and Mr. Knight, will not only share with me in my joy, but sympathize with me in those sentiments of respect and gratitude which I shall ever feel towards Sir Francis Burdett. "Most assuredly I shall myself set a higher value upon your kindness, when I consider it as intended to gratify the friendly feelings of those excellent men, as well as to promote my own personal happiness. "I shall wait your pleasure about the presentation: and I beg leave to add, that I shall stay at Buckden for one week only, and shall have reached Hatton about this day fortnight, where I shall obey your commands. One circumstance, I am sure, will give you great satisfaction, and therefore I shall beg leave to state it. The living of Graffham will be of infinite value to me, because it is tenable with a Rectory I now have in Northamptonshire; and happy I am, that my future residence will be fixed, and my existence closed upon that spot where Sir Francis Burdett has given me the power of spending my old age with comforts and conveniences quite equal to the extent of my fondest wishes, and far surpassing any expectations I have hitherto ventured to indulge. "I have the honour to be, with the greatest respect and most unfeigned thankfulness, dear Sir, "Your very obedient, faithful servant, For this preferment, which relieved him as to pecuniary matters, Dr. Parr always expressed a due sense of the kindness of the worthy baronet. Still, however, he continued attached to his residence at Hatton, where he had secured, and ever continued to maintain, the esteem of all his parishioners, had greatly embellished the church by painted windows, &c. and had given it a peal of bells. Nor would he have quitted Hatton for any preferment short of a mitre, which, in 1807, had nearly adorned his manly brows. “Had my friends," he once said to a gentleman to whom he was warmly attached, and for whose character he always expressed the greatest admiration and respect,* "had my friends continued in power one fortnight longer, it would have been all settled: Dr. Huntingford was to have been translated to Hereford, and I should have had Gloucester. My family arrangements were made; and I had determined that no clergyman in my diocese, who had occasion to call upon me, should depart without partaking of my dinner." After a momentary pause he observed, "in the House of Peers I should seldom have opened my mouth, unless-unless (he added with some warmth) any one had presumed to attack the character of my friend Charles Fox- and then I would have knocked him down with the full torrent of my impetuosity. Charles Fox was a great man; and so is your friend William Pitt; and I can tell you, that if I had them both in this room, and only we three had been together, I would have locked the door- but first would have had plenty of wine on the table- and depend upon it we should not have disagreed!" In 1803, Dr. Parr published another 4to. sermon," preached on the late Fast, Oct. 19, at the Parish-church of Hatton." A letter of the doctor's to the late Lord Warwick, on some electioneering disputes, was also printed, but was suppressed; though, as a specimen of the vituperative style, it is worthy, or, as some may think, unworthy of preservation. • Mr. John Nichols. Twenty years since, Dr. Parr reprinted some metaphysical tracts: -"Arthur Collier's Clavis Universalis;" "Conjecturæ quædam de Sensu, Motu, et Idearum Generatione;""An Inquiry into the Origin of the Human Appetites and Affections, showing how each arises from Association ;" and "Man in Quest of Himself, or a Defence of the Individuality of the Human Mind, or Self." These he intended to republish, probably with original remarks, but the whole impression is stored up in the printer's warehouse. In 1808, Mr. Coke, of Holkham, made Dr. Parr an offer of the rectory of Buckingham. This, however, did not tempt the doctor to leave the spot to which he was so attached. On the death of Mr. Fox, Dr. Parr announced his intention of publishing a Life of his celebrated friend and political favourite. The expectations of the public were excited, but were certainly disappointed in a publication of two octavo volumes, entitled "Characters of the late Charles James Fox; selected, and in part written, by Philopatris Varvicencis," 1809. A collection of characters from the various public journals occupies one hundred and seventy-five pages; an original character, in the form of an epistle to Mr. Coke, one hundred and thirty-five; and the second volume is filled with notes on the amelioration of the penal code and religious liberty, plentifully inlaid with citations from the classics. Considering the grotesque arrangement of matter and subjects, it is not surprising that this work should have experienced unmerited neglect. The philosophic reader will, however, discern the recondite and metaphysical style of the author; and it is but justice to add, that the character of our great democratical orator is felicitously delineated. On December 27, 1816, after about six years widowhood, Dr. Parr married secondly, Mary, sister of Mr. Eyre, of Coventry, who survives him. Two small publications, one of which was printed by his especial request (containing a critical essay by Dr. Parr on the character of Dr. Taylor, the learned editor of Demos thenes and Lysias); and of the other of which he was the immediate editor, must not pass unnoticed. They were, — 1st. "Two Music Speeches at Cambridge, in 1714 and 1730, by Roger Long, M.A., and John Taylor, M.A., to which are added, a Latin Speech of Dr. Taylor; several of his juvenile Poems; some Minor Essays in prose; and Specimens of his Epistolary Correspondence; with Memoirs of Dr. Taylor, and Dr. Long." 8vo. 1819. 2dly. " Four Sermons: 1 & 2, by Dr. Taylor; 3, by Bishop Lowth; and 4, by Bishop Hayter; with a preface suggested by remarks of Dr. Parr." A variety of Dr. Parr's minor literary productions appeared in "The Gentleman's Magazine;" to which he was a frequent and valuable correspondent. Among these are two Letters on the subject of Howard's statue, a learned Letter to the Rev. Mr. Glasse, on the word Cauponari, and several Letters to Lord Chedworth (inserted in a report of the trial on the will of that nobleman).* Many biographical notices from his masterly pen have also graced the pages of Sylvanus Urban, viz. Memoirs of Mr. John Smitheman, Bishop Bennett, the Rev. John Dealtry, Miss Euphemia Brown, Bishop Horne, Mr. Bartlett, Mr. W. H. Lunn, the bookseller, his daughter, Catharine Jane Parr, his last surviving daughter, Sarah Anne Wynne, his companion and occasional amanuensis, the Rev. J. Bartlam, &c. In "The Gentleman's Magazine" may likewise be found most of his Latin epitaphs (amounting to upwards of thirty), for the production of which he was well prepared, having spent much of his time in studying the Latin inscriptions in Sponius, Fabretti, Gruter, Muratorius, and Reinesius. One of the most celebrated of Dr. Parr's epitaphs is that which is inscribed on the monument of Dr. Johnson, at St. Paul's. He undertook the office of writing it with great On that occasion, it was thought the doctor had been too anxious in procuring for himself a piece of plate from the late Lord, particularly as he had consented to write the Latin inscription himself; but from this accusation he was satisfactorily defended by Mr. Eyre, of Solihull, who, it was proved, really composed it. |