*

So careful a guardian did the doctor prove of the different bequests belonging to the poor of his parish at Hatton, that one of them has been tripled, after having been recovered from thirty-six years' loss. Another is made to produce clothes for the poor in two townships, nearly in a threefold proportion. Another, left for the decoration of the church, has been rescued from an inferior class of trustees, who formerly misapplied the revenue; and the revenue itself is increased in value, as well as employed to the purpose for which it was originally designed.

The doctor was as strongly attached to a pipe as the learned Dr. Isaac Barrow is said to have been. Wherever he went to dine he was indulged with his favourite whiff. He was once invited to dinner by a gentleman whose wife, a fine lady, had an intense aversion to smoking, and the following story is told of the occasion: The husband, on his return

66

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My dear, whom do you think I met in the street just now, and invited to dine with us to-morrow?" "I cannot say,

my love, unless you tell me." "Dr. Parr." 66 Very well, love; you know I am always happy to see your friends at our table." "You are very kind, my dear wife, but I must mention one thing; the doctor, wherever he goes, is indulged with a pipe." "Indeed, my dear! then I have only this to say, he shall not have that indulgence here; no gentleman shall smoke a pipe in my drawing-room." The husband perceived the case was lost, and, like a wise man, dropped the subject. On the morrow the doctor came, and a select party met him. After a sumptuous dinner, they retired to the drawing-room. The doctor began to feel certain cravings for the stimulating fumes of his beloved pipe; he tried to catch the eye of his host, but that was constantly averted. The lady of the house was on the qui vive; she watched both her husband and the doctor. At length the reverend gentleman grew impatient; he addressed himself in a half whisper to his friend: the word "pipe" caught

Hatton is divided into three distinct townships; each of which provides for its own poor.

the ear of madam, who immediately took upon herself to answer for her husband. Lady: "Dr. Parr, I hope you will excuse what I am going to say, but I cannot permit smoking in my drawing-room." Doctor: "And why not, madam? I have smoked a pipe with my king, and it surely can be no offence or disgrace to a subject to permit me the like indulgence!" Lady: "Notwithstanding that, Sir, I never will allow my drawing-room to be defiled with the nauseous smoke of tobacco. I have ordered a room below to be prepared for any gentlemen who wish to indulge in that disagreeable habit." Doctor: "Madam. Lady, quickly: "Sir." Doctor: "Madam, you are Sir, you will not express any rudeness!"

Lady: "I beg,
The doctor,

raising his voice: "Madam, you are the greatest tobacco stopper in England." This sally caused a loud laugh at the expense of the lady, and though the doctor had not the pleasure of his pipe, he enjoyed the effect of his wit.

Soon after the execution at Maidstone, in 1798, of O'Coigley, the Irish priest, for high-treason, Dr. Parr happened to be in company with a gentleman, a native of Scotland, who has since acquired considerable celebrity, both on the bench and in the house of commons, but who was then only a young barrister, and was suspected of more than a disposition to desert whiggism, of which he had been the warm advocate, for the politics of the administration of that day. In the course of conversation, this gentleman observed, that O'Coigley richly deserved his fate, for that it was impossible to conceive a greater scoundrel. "By no means, Sir," said Dr. Parr; "it is possible to conceive a much greater scoundreł. He was an Irishman, he might have been a Scotchman;- he was a priest, he might have been a lawyer; - he was a traitor, he might have been an apostate!”

In Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine for Nov. 1825, there is a very characteristic and amusing sketch of the highlygifted subject of this memoir, under the title of "Two Days with Dr. Parr," the greater part of which we take the liberty of subjoining:

"When I read the epitaph which the late Dr. Parr selected for his tombstone- What doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God,' I smiled, and thought how many a man who in company had felt the weight of his rebuke, or, as a friend of mine once expressed it, had been gored by him, would say, that however he might have walked with God, he did not walk very humbly with men; and yet what I saw of him, led me to believe that when he was not displeased by the conceit, or folly, or something which really deserved castigation in those with whom he conversed, he was singularly condescending and kind--noticing and taking interest in persons of the humblest capacity, who had no other claim to his attention than a humble and virtuous mind. He had been so long a schoolmaster, that when he ceased to be so, he carried his manners and habits from the school-room to the dinner-table, criticizing, rebuking, or applauding mankind, as he had formerly done his scholars; and his great learning, his various knowledge, his conversational eloquence, and latterly, his venerable age and appearance, gave him a claim to this power which was seldom resisted. No man of his age, excepting Dr. Johnson, has said so many things in conversation which have been thought worth remembering and repeating, and which have borne the repetition so well. Of course they lose in the relation none can enjoy them so much as those who knew him, and who, when they are told what he said, can fancy the manner which accompanied it; but this applies to all oral discourse. What he said, was so much set off by his vivacity, his fire, and a kind of pompous dignity, which would have been absurd in anybody else, but which harmonized with his age, his wrinkles, and his wig, that, when it is repeated, and all these personal embellishments have evaporated, what remains gives an inadequate notion of the effect which it produced: the dead thought has only a faint resemblance to the living discourse; as Lord Erskine has well expressed it in his introduction to Mr. Fox's speeches, there is as much difference between the report of a speech and the speech itself, as

there is between a bust and the living original; the fire of the eye is lost in the marble, and those lips are cold and silent which were the fountain of his fame.' As we cannot have the original, let us have the bust.

"When Dr. Parr was in London a few years ago, (it was the last time in his life,) he dined at the house of a friend of mine, and I was invited to meet him. As I had never seen him before, I was glad of this opportunity, and went with unfashionable punctuality at the hour appointed for dinner. The party had already assembled, excepting the doctor; presently a carriage drove up to the door, and there was a bustle and talking in the hall whilst he was changing his coat and wig, the latter of which, whenever he went into company, he brought or sent in a band-box, that it might not be discomposed by his hat: at length the servant announced Dr. Parr. Those who never have, and now never are to see him, (I write not merely for the present generation, but for those who will live a century hence, for Blackwood will be read then,) must fancy an old man visibly above seventy, of middling height and bulk-in a handsome full-bottomed wig, freshly powdered, a clerical coat, of the cut of half a century ago, apparently of velvet, a silk apron, and large silver buckles in his shoes, you would have said that he was oldlooking for seventy, as far at least as wrinkles were concerned, but a restless, somewhat bustling manner, and a quick speech, showed that age had not quenched the activity and energy of his mind he had a grey lack-lustre eye, and yet it had an expression of vivacity, of good humour, and often of fun, which showed how much more these appearances depend on the posture of this organ, than on the brilliance of its surface. He talked fluently, nay glibly, but, from a lisp in his speech, which I believe he always had, and now, from the loss of his teeth, it was often difficult, or impossible, to catch what he said.

"When we descended to the dining-room, I was fortunate enough to find myself seated next him. The party was not small. During the dinner he paid too much attention to the

"When I read the epitaph which the late Dr. Parr selected for his tombstone- What doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God,' I smiled, and thought how many a man who in company had felt the weight of his rebuke, or, as a friend of mine once expressed it, had been gored by him, would say, that however he might have walked with God, he did not walk very humbly with men; and yet what I saw of him, led me to believe that when he was not displeased by the conceit, or folly, or something which really deserved castigation in those with whom he conversed, he was singularly condescending and kind--noticing and taking interest in persons of the humblest capacity, who had no other claim to his attention than a humble and virtuous mind. He had been so long a schoolmaster, that when he ceased to be so, he carried his manners and habits from the school-room to the dinner-table, criticizing, rebuking, or applauding mankind, as he had formerly done his scholars; and his great learning, his various knowledge, his conversational eloquence, and latterly, his venerable age and appearance, gave him a claim to this power which was seldom resisted. No man of his age, excepting Dr. Johnson, has said so many things in conversation which have been thought worth remembering and repeating, and which have borne the repetition so well. Of course they lose in the relation none can enjoy them so much as those who knew him, and who, when they are told what he said, can fancy the manner which accompanied it; but this applies to all oral discourse. What he said, was so much set off by his vivacity, his fire, and a kind of pompous dignity, which would have been absurd in anybody else, but which harmonized with his age, his wrinkles, and his wig, that, when it is repeated, and all these personal embellishments have evaporated, what remains gives an inadequate notion of the effect which it produced: the dead thought has only a faint resemblance to the living discourse; as Lord Erskine has well expressed it in his introduction to Mr. Fox's speeches, there is as much difference between the report of a speech and the speech itself, as