6

but here is another. One of the party put the following question: As mathematics chiefly are cultivated at Cambridge, and the classics chiefly at Oxford, how comes it that the three greatest classical scholars of our day, Porson, Burney, and himself, were Cambridge men? His answer was this: Sir, Cambridge had nothing to do with their learning; they would have been great scholars anywhere.' I have heard that he used to say, that there were three great scholars; of these Porson was the first, Burney the third, who the second was it was unnecessary to say.' A friend of mine told me, that either he or a friend of his, I forget which, meeting him one afternoon in a large party, endeavoured to remind him that they had met before. At first, Dr. Parr did not remember him; but at length recollecting himself, he said, I remember. You were engaged in argument with another gentleman; he was too much for you, but I let him alone till he had completely mastered you, and then I came pounce upon him."

His last illness

To the latest period of his life the vigour of Dr. Parr's mind remained unimpaired. In his 77th year he wrote to Mr. Brougham-"Animo quam nulla senectus, say I, triumphantly, in the words of Statius." was long protracted. In the course of it appearances were, more than once, so favourable as to excite the strongest hopes of his recovery; but about a fortnight before his decease all these flattering ideas took their flight. From that time he gradually declined, the vital powers slowly and almost imperceptibly wasting, until exhausted nature sunk, and in the evening of the 6th of March 1825, he gently expired, having completed his 78th year on the 26th of January. He was to the last serene and placid, — calmly, even cheerfully resigned. It was most gratifying to his weeping relatives and friends to hear, mingled with the devoutest breathings of pious acquiescence in the will of Providence, the warm and glowing expressions which often broke from his lips of intense feeling and generous concern

for the welfare of his friends, his numerous acquaintance, his country, and his fellow-men. Even in his last hours, it seemed to be still his delight, as it ever was in his previous life, to range through the whole compass of rational creation; embracing within his kindest thoughts and wishes all human beings; and interesting himself in every event, in every. part of the world, which wore a favourable aspect towards human improvement and human happiness. With that greatness of mind which can anticipate with perfect composure the last awful change of mortal man, he gave minute directions respecting his funeral.

His remains were deposited near those of his late wife and her daughters, in a vault in Hatton Church. They were attended on foot by nearly forty gentlemen in mourning, consisting of the clergy of the surrounding parishes, &c. The pall-bearers were seven clergymen, and one dissenting minister; and the coffin was borne by parishioners of Hatton appointed by himself.

Agreeably to his express instructions, the burial service was read by the Rev. Rann Kennedy, Minister of St. Paul's Chapel, Birmingham. After the reading of the lessons, a sermon was preached, " in obedience to his own request," by the Rev. Dr. Butler, Archdeacon of Derby, and Head Master of Shrewsbury School, from the text which Dr. Parr directed to be inscribed on his monument, viz. "What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" On the following Sunday, the Rev. Dr. Wade, Vicar of St. Nicholas, Warwick, there preached a funeral sermon for him, which was attended by an immense concourse of all ranks. Another was delivered the same day at the High Street Dissenting Chapel.

To do justice to such a man as Dr. Parr; to mark the extent of his erudition, to describe the force of his eloquence, to show the vast magnitude of his genius, but, above all, to praise his virtues as they deserve, is a task which we

are happy to learn is in the hands of an individual in every respect qualified for the undertaking.'

*

We are indebted for the materials of which the foregoing Memoir is composed, to the Public Characters, the Gentleman's, Blackwood's, the London, Monthly, New Monthly, and Imperial Magazines, the Literary Gazette, the Morning Chronicle, the Oxford University Journal, &c., and to a learned and intimate friend of Dr. Parr's, who has favoured us with various corrections, and several additional facts.Of the characters of Dr. Parr which have hitherto appeared, no one is more admirably written, and at the same time more impartial and just, than that contained in the sermon by Dr. Butler, to which we have already alluded; and with the following interesting extracts from which we conclude.—

"It is not without feelings of the most powerful and conflicting nature, that I feel myself called upon, in obedience to the wishes of our revered and lamented friend, to address you upon this sad and affecting solemnity. But for those wishes, earnestly expressed to his executors and to myself, in all the confidence and warmth of friendship, I should feel it most presumptuous to intrude myself into that spot, which he has occupied for so many years to your incalculable advantage. Woe to any who may come after him to this place, unimpressed with a due sense of their vast inferiority to so great a man, and without due reverence for his talents and his virtues. I deeply feel and acknowledge my own deficiencies, but I have a satisfaction in having been requested by himself to undertake this office, and in thinking that by his own express desire I am now addressing you, at the

Dr. John Johnstone, of Birmingham, is preparing a memoir of Dr. Parr, founded on materials left by Dr. Parr himself for that purpose, and illustrated by letters and papers of various kinds, exclusively in the possession of the executors, (of whom Dr. Johnstone is one,) and by communications from Dr. Parr's most intimate friends, Dr. Davy, master of Caius, Dr. Routh, president of Magdalen, Dr. Maltby, Archdeacon Butler, and other learned men. This memoir of Dr. Johnstone's is intended to be prefixed to a collection of the works published by Dr. Parr himself, and a collection of the sermons, criticisms, inscriptions, and miscellaneous matter, which he has left to a very considerable extent.

moment when the grave is about to close upon his mortal remains, and the final separation is at hand between the pastor and his beloved flock, till they shall meet again in the mansions of eternity.

"I shall not weary you with common-place observations, nor with the ordinary topics of consolation on this occasion. The shortness and uncertainty of life, the necessity of preparation for death, and the unseen and awful state into which it ushers us, are considerations which every funeral may and ought to bring to our bosoms, and the humblest of our brethren, by his death, may teach us this important lesson as effectually as the greatest and the wisest of mankind. Neither can any man of sense and reflection, while he laments the loss of so great and eminent a member of society, or of so dear and revered a friend, feel immoderate grief at an event which, even long before the present period, the laws of nature might have taught him to expect. In the midst of life we are in death, but old age never can be far from it, and is hourly more rapidly approaching to it. The life of our venerable friend had extended much beyond the limits which the sacred writer has assigned for its natural term, and he had been long prepared to resign it, when God should call him, as, in fact, he did resign it, with the piety of a Christian, and the calmness of a philosopher. He had not only passed his threescore years and ten,' but he was fast approaching evento fourscore years,' without feeling that labour and sorrow' which the Psalmist so truly and pathetically describes as the general concomitants of protracted age. Till within a short period, his old age was green and vigorous, his eye had not waxed dim, neither had his natural force abated;' and, above all, that noble and generous spirit, which was alive to all the finer sympathies, and all the holier charities of our social nature, had lost none of its ardour; and that profound and capacious intellect, which seemed the boundless treasure-house of erudition and knowledge, long after the time when the faculties of most men become blunted, and their memory impaired, was still able

to pour forth its exhaustless stores with the prodigality of his brightest years. That when these became impaired, that when the body began to be enfeebled by disease, and the faculties dimmed by age, the period of suffering and obfusca tion should have been shortened, is a consummation which none who knew and loved him, as most of those who are here assembled, can reasonably regret. The event brings with it its own consolations, and it is unnecessary to dwell longer on a subject which requires neither enforcement nor expla nation. I will rather turn to consider a few points in his character, which, though known and understood by you all, may be allowed to revert to, at a time when we are assembled to pay him our last duty, and the grave is about to hide his remains from us for ever.

I

"I am not about to consider him as a faultless character: were I to do so, I should betray the trust he has reposed in me, in a manner that would, I am sure, be as offensive to the feelings of those who hear me, as to my own. He had not only his share of the faults and failings which are inseparable from our nature, but he had some that were almost peculiarly his own. But then they were such as were nobly compensated by his great and rare excellencies; such as arose from his grand and towering genius, from his ardent and expansive mind, from his fearless and unconquerable spirit, from his love of truth and liberty, from his detestation of falsehood and oppression; and not unfrequently also, for we may scorn to conceal it, from the knowledge of his own strength, from the consciousness of transcendant talents, of learning commensurate to those talents, and of eloquence proportionate to that learning. This led him to be impatient in argument, sometimes with a dull and unoffending, often with a legitimate, and always with an arrogant or assuming adversary. From the impetuous ardour of his feelings and the sincerity of his soul, he was apt to judge of others from himself, and this counteracted his natural sagacity, and exposed him too easily to the artifices of pretenders and impostors. Of his intellectual powers it was impossible that he