Mr. Boswell, in his Life of Dr. Johnson, having expressed his doubts respecting the correctness of Dr. Parr's assertion, that the great lexicographer "not only endured, but almost solicited an interview with Dr. Priestley," Dr. Parr sent to "The Gentleman's Magazine," in March, 1795, his reasons for that assertion, which were accompanied by some curious correspondence. To this "a general answer" was prepared by Mr. Boswell, a short time before his death, but not published. In the same year, Mr. Beloe published a translation of "Aulus Gellius," the very learned and judicious preface to which was written by Dr. Parr.

On Easter Tuesday, in the year 1800, Dr. Parr preached his justly-celebrated Spital Sermon, at Christ-church, Newgate-street, before Harvey Christian Combe, Esq. the Lord Mayor. The church, though large, was crowded to excess, and the doctor gratified the more intelligent portion of his hearers by a discourse, in which he happily combated the delusive dogmas of those philosophers who ascribe all benevolence and justice to a selfish principle. This sermon was soon afterwards printed, with a number of curious notes; which induced the author of "Political Justice" to publish, in the same year, an octavo pamphlet, entitled "Thoughts occasioned by the perusal of Dr. Parr's Spital Sermon, being a Reply to the Attacks of Dr. P., Mr. Mackintosh, and others." A suspension of intercourse between Dr. Parr and Mr. Godwin was the consequence; but a few months previous to his death, Dr. Parr sent Mr. Godwin a message of peace, and invitation to Hatton.

In 1801, Dr. Parr was offered (by Alexander Baring, Esq.) but declined it, the vicarage of Winterbourne Stoke, in Wiltshire. In 1802 he was presented by Sir Francis Burdett to the rectory of Graffham, in Huntingdonshire. The following is the interesting correspondence which passed on the

occasion:

* See Nichols's "Literary Anecdotes," ii. 403.

"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,
"FRANCIS Burdett."

"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 convey it to me in Huntingdonshire, where she knew that I should be, as upon this day.

you

would accept

"Permit me, dear Sir, to request that 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,
"S. PARR."

*

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.

died unmarried; the elder, Sarah, was united in 1797, to John, the eldest son of Colonel Wynne, of Plasnwydd, near Denbigh, and died at Hatton, in 1810, having given birth to three daughters, two of whom, Caroline and Augusta, are now living, the former being the wife of the Rev. John Lynes, rector of Elmley Lovett, Worcestershire; one of the Doctor's

executors.

The period of Dr. Parr's continuance at Stanmore, was five years. "The boys who accompanied him," to use the words of one of his pupils, "were, in general, the flower of Harrow school, in the zenith of its glory, when a Sumner presided in its academic bowers. Many were young men of considerable talents and matured intellect, and detested alike a Persian, a Grecian, or an English tyrant; knew the language, and glowed with all the fervour, of Demosthenes. The fine Alcaic fragment in praise of Harmodius and Aristogiton, the deliverers of Greece, echoed from every tongue, and had been translated by almost every hand among the elder of them. That master, however, let it be remembered, was no advocate for insubordination, since nobody ever carried school discipline to a higher pitch; the result of which, on some occasions, brought on him unmerited obloquy. That the democratic spirit prevailed, though to no culpable extent, among the gentlemen about that period educated at Harrow, may in some degree be accounted for by their being so well read, under the tuition of their learned deceased master, in Greek history, by which they were naturally interested in the fate of liberty, that liberty whose cause was so well supported by its orators against the armies of the Persian satrap, and the insidious designs of Philip. The power of gold had also been recently, and to an alarming extent, tried in their own country by the daring minister, who is said to have affirmed that every man had his price."

Besides Thomas Maurice, whose pen indited the preceding paragraphs," pre-eminent among these worthies of Stanmore, were William Julius, the captain, and Walter Pollard, two most excellent scholars, natives of the tropic, souls made