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THE

Emperial Magazine;

OR, COMPENDIUM OF

RELIGIOUS, MORAL, & PHILOSOPHICAL KNOWLEdge.

APRIL.

"READING IS THE CIRCULATING MEDIUM OF INTELLECTUAL COMMERCE."

MEMOIR OF SAMUEL PARR, LL. D.

(With a Portrait.)

THE family of this distinguished scholar was originally of Devonshire, where some branches of the stock yet remain at Exeter, and in its neighbourhood. The grandfather of the Doctor, however, became possessed of the vicarage of Hinckley, in Leicestershire, where he reared and provided for a large family, on a very moderate income. One of his sons was bred to the medical profession, in which capacity he settled at Harrow-on-the-Hill, in Middlesex ; and there Samuel Parr was born, January 26th, 1746. At a very early age he was sent to the celebrated school founded in his native village, by John Lyon, at the beginning of the sixteenth century. When young Parr entered this seminary, Dr. Thackeray was the master, but he died soon after, and was succeeded by Dr. Robert Sumner, a man of great learning and most amiable manners, who soon discerned the extraordinary talents of his pupil, and fostered them with paternal atten

tion.

Few schools in the kingdom could boast of such a triumvirate as, at the same time, adorned the head class of Harrow. These were, William Jones, the famous Orientalist, William Bennet, afterwards bishop of Cloyne, and Samuel Parr. The bond of friendship by which these youths were cemented in early life, continued unshaken when they were separated, and cast into situations widely apart from each other. While at Harrow, Jones invented a dramatic piece, taken from the Iliad, and, the play-ground being allotted for its representation, the principal characters were performed by the author and his two associates, Bennet and Parr. As the latter was anative of Harrow, and his family were far from being in affluent circumstances, Dr. Sumner chose him for one of his assistants, 76.-VOL. VII.

1825.

before the completion of his sixteenth year. By this means he was enabled to follow his friend Bennet to Emmanuel College, Cambridge; but, though he regularly kept his terms there, he still continued his employment as usher at Harrow, till Dr. Sumner's death. On that event, though an under-graduate, and not of age to be ordained, he offered himself as a candidate for the mastership; but without success. This disappointment, which, in fact, ought neither to have created surprise nor resentment, was felt so sorely by Parr, that he threw up his subordinate station, and resolved to embark in the academic line upon his own bottom. This bold undertaking he soon afterwards carried into effect, by opening a boarding-school at Great-Stanmore, within sight of Harrow; and so highly was he esteemed, that many of the junior boys actually followed, to have the benefit of his tuition. In 1769 he was admitted to holy orders, upon a curacy in the neighbourhood of Stanmore; and in 1771 he married a young lady of the ancient family of Mauleverer, in Yorkshire. Though this alliance did not enrich him with the goods of fortune, it proved beneficial in other respects; as the lady was not only an excellent manager, but well qualified by her classical attainments to assist her husband in the labour of teaching. The income of a private academy being precarious and fluctuating, Mr. Parr was persuaded, in 1777, to accept the mastership of the endowed grammar-school at Colchester; from whence, in little more than a year, he removed to take charge of a similar, but more important, foundation in the city of Norwich. Here his fame, as an instructor, rose high, and he brought up many scholars who attained considerable eminence in the literary world. Among these was the late Rev. William Beloe, who became his assistant in the school at Norwich; though in the memoir of his own life, that gentleman has drawn a very austere picture of his old pro

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About the year 1782, the late Earl of Dartmouth, a man of whom it may be truly said, that to praise him, is to praise virtue itself, introduced Dr. Parr in such terms to bishop Lowth, that the prelate shortly afterwards presented him to a vacant prebend in his cathedral of St. Paul's. This preferment was not, at that time, of much value, but the possession of it was a mark of distinction; and, as it was bestowed by one of the greatest scholars in Europe, it acquired in that respect a double interest. Many years subsequent to the death of bishop Lowth, this prebend, by the falling in of the leases, placed Dr. Parr in a state of independence. In 1783 he gave up the school at Norwich, and, two years afterwards, exchanged the rectory of Asterby for the perpetual curacy of Hatton, near Warwick; where, by way of addition to the income, which was but small, he took a limited number of pupils, and continued to do so for the greatest part of his life. On some account or other, he was induced to quit Hatton for Wadinhoe, in Northamptonshire; by an exchange with Dr. Brooke Bridges; but being dissatisfied with the situation, he returned to the former place, as assistant to the new incumbent. Such was the limited routine of the Doctor's ecclesiastical progress, with the exception of the rectory of Graffham, in Huntingdon

ceptor and superior, who, according | Welsh sermon, on St. David's day, to to that account, was another Orbilius convince the ancient Britons that an in discipline. In 1780 the small crown- Englishman could rival them in their living of Asterby, in Lincolnshire, was own language. bestowed upon Mr. Parr; who, in the year following, took the degree of doctor in civil law, at Cambridge, but without any particular mark of distinction. It is not a little singular, that throughout the whole period of his connexion with the University, from the time of his being matriculated up to the completion of his graduation, he never once came forward as a candidate for the peculiar honours of his alma mater. At a subsequent period, indeed, he astounded the sophs, tutors, professors, and heads of houses, by preaching to them a sermon in Greek; to which sort of exercise few men, perhaps, besides himself, in that famous seat of learning, were then equal. What it was that stimulated the Doctor to make this extraordinary display of his erudition, we know not; but a like instance never before occurred, we apprehend, in a British university. Something of the sort took place at Paris in the year 1687, when the learned M. Lancelot delivered a Greek discourse to the fraternity of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, on the day when that society celebrated the anniversary of their foundation, in the monastery of the Cordeliers. The oration of Lancelot was very short; but that of our countryman extended to more than half an hour; and, as we have been told, for we heard him not ourselves, it might have stood a fair comparison with the purest discourses of Nazian-shire, to which he was presented, in a zen or Chrysostom. Of the utility of very handsome manner, some years such exhibitions, however, we, have since, by Sir Francis Burdett. It has our doubts; since sermons, to be usebeen a matter of wonder with many, ful, should be understood by the whole how a man of such talents and conaudience, which could not well be the nexions never attained any higher case in the present instance. For the elevation in the church. Upon a little purposes of edification it could have consideration, perhaps, this astonishno effect; and in the way of example ment will cease. What was said in it could not operate, since it must the like case of Dr. Samuel Ogden, of have been obvious, that, in the whole Cambridge, was strictly appropriate body of hearers, scarcely one would in regard to Dr. Samuel Parr, for he, ever have occasion to write, much less no more than the other, was a to speak Greek. But the circumstance sentable man." The manners of Parr shewed that the orator was capable were far from being attractive, and of doing what no one else had the though his powers of mind in conversatalent to perform; and, in this re- tion were commanding, those who lisspect, the exertion was not a whit bet-tened to the richness of his language ter than that made by the learned with admiration, felt little disposed to Dr. William Wotton, who, in one cultivate his acquaintance. of the city churches, preached a indeed, sought his intimacy on account

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A few,

of his varied knowledge, and others attached themselves to him because they professed the same political creed. Here, again, was another remora, to impede his ecclesiastical advancement.

Parr set out at an early period, as an avowed partisan, which character be maintained throughout the whole of his life, without paying any regard to common prudence; and, it may be truly affirmed also, without properly consulting what was due to his profession, either as a teacher of youth, or the pastor of a parish. It is not meant by this remark, to insinuate, that a divine or preceptor should look with apathy upon the passing events of his time; neither would we deny to the clergy the common right of all citizens, to take an active part upon great and momentous occasions, when the public weal is at stake. Patriotism is as much the duty of a minister as of any other man; but then it must be sanctified by purity of motive, tempered by charity, and regulated in such a manner as to avoid giving offence.

papers, and his theatrical connexions, was covered with honours and loaded with preferment, while his great compeer was totally forgotten!

It is well observed, by a great writer, speaking of these political theologians, as he calls them," that the cause of civil liberty, and civil government, gains as little as that of religion, by this confusion of duties. Those who quit their proper character, to assume what does not belong to them, are, for the greater part, ignorant both of the character they leave, and of the character they assume. Wholly unacquainted with the world in which they are so fond of meddling, and inexperienced in all its affairs, on which they pronounce with so much confidence, they have nothing of politics, but the passions they excite."

We have been impelled to say thus much on a subject which could not be altogether avoided, in a biographical sketch of such a man as Dr. Parr; but there were other circumstances which concurred, with what has been already mentioned, in keeping him in the To be a lover of one's country, it is vestibule, when he might, by a differnot necessary that a man should be- ent application of his extraordinary long to a cabal; and it is quite indeco- powers, have occupied one of the rous in a preacher of the gospel, to principal stations in the hierarchy. enrol himself as a member of tavern What these causes were, will partly clubs. At the commencement of the appear from a review of the literary last century, such conduct might, and history of Dr. Parr. And here it afno doubt did, tend to ecclesiastical fords matter of concern and surprise, preferment; and bishop Hoadley, that, a mind stored with intellectual among the rest, was a remarkable in- treasures, almost to a degree of luxustance of it; but, from the accession riance, should have produced so little, of his late majesty to the present time, comparatively, either in the line of there have been few cases wherein theology, general knowledge, or clasclergymen have been indebted to their sical criticism. The first publication, political zeal for their promotion to which we can trace to the Doctor with the higher dignities of the church. On any certainty, for most of his performthe contrary, those divines who have ances have been issued into the world distinguished themselves above their anonymously, or with fictitious appelbrethren by a warm attachment to lations, was a sermon, preached at parties in the state, and by engaging St. Edmund's Bury, in 1779, for the actively in political disputes, have benefit of the charity children of that generally, in the end, experienced lit- town. The second was a sermon, tle gratitude from the men whose cause preached on the fast day, in 1781, and they have zealously espoused. Many printed in the same year, under the instances might be adduced of this name of Phileleutherus Norfolciensis. neglect in our own day; but that of This was followed, in 1786, by a tract Dr. Parr is exactly in point: for when "on Education, and the Plans pursued the Whigs, to whose club he belong- in Charity Schools." The next publied, and in whose behalf he had so cation of Dr. Parr was one that exoften wielded his magic pen, came cited much notice at the time, and into power, a clergyman, who had merited it on various accounts; been famous only for his pugilistic though, in the main, it was but a reexercises, his establishment of news-print of an extremely scarce volume

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