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"He reverted again to Cambridge, and expressed his approbation of the new buildings at Corpus Christi, and the projected improvements at King's. He said the Duchess of Marlborough offered to build a new court at King's, if the provost and fellows would allow the college to be called by her name in future. "This," said Parr, "they showed a very proper spirit in refusing to do: but they lost their new court by it. Now I would have satisfied both parties: I would have had the court and the name of the college too; for I would have called the New Court' after her name."-The Provost told me, since there was nothing of this in the college records, and that they knew not where Parr got it."

"He said, an objection without foundation had been raised against what are denominated the damnatory clauses of the creed called the Creed of St. Athanasius; for it should be observed, that these clauses are recited by the people in their responses, and not by the clergyman.” "He said, the Bishop of Bristol ought hereafter to be Bishop of London. His mild temper, as well as his great talents, peculiarly fitted him for that situation. But the Bishop of Worcester was too much attached to the clergy of his own diocese, and they to him, for even Durham, if it were offered him, to tempt him to leave them, (a true prophecy)."

"He complained of being very cold all over, but still talked of Cambridge, and of Milton, "that illustrious member," he said, "of the Cambridge University, in whom every Cambridge man must triumph, in whom the lofty strains of poetry were united with the most ardent spirit of piety." He said the three most eloquent hymns in the English language were to be found in "Paradise Lost." He recited some portions, but, exhausted by the exertion of conversation, with the hymns of Milton on his aged lips, and the devotion they excited in his heart, he fell asleep."

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Facing Parr's library, which was on the garden side of his house, there was a summer-house at the end of a long walk. There was also an arbour in the walk, where in warm summer evenings he used to enjoy taking his tea, and he seldom passed it with a friend in his way from his library to the summer-house, that he did not mention some of the recollections it recalled: "There," said he, was the place of the Bishop of Cloyne, here that of such a person." But the "Lion's Den," as it was called by the neighbourhood, (the beforementioned summer-house) was a small room having a large hand-bell outside the door, which he or his friends used to ring if they wanted anything from the house. The window looked into a paddock, where his horses grazed. A small rail was put up to prevent their poking their heads through the glass when they came to the window to their master. (Parr was fond of animals, and he always used his horses carefully and mercifully.) The view from the window was bounded by a grove of trees. This little house should stand for ever. Parr said it " was sacred to friendship and literature." In the "Lion's Den," the most important of his communications with his friends had formerly taken place. He had been there consulted in secret affairs. There Sheridan, Fox, many great men of their time now no more, had met him; and on some occasions, when they feared intrusion, they would lock themselves in. It was the resort of his pupils for instruction in summer, the June-VOL. XVI. NO. LXVI.

2 Q

place of happy meetings, and the asylum of the aggrieved of the parish to tell their stories. In that summer-house he dictated most of his letters to his friends, instructive as they were in politics, morals, and religion. His grandaughters used to adorn the walls with plates and sketches. After "Jack Bartlam's" death (who, he said, wrote the best English of any man he knew) he broke off from his summerhouse, the haunt of years of social pleasure. But his directions for his funeral proved he had not forgotten it, for he desired that the bearers of his body to the church might assemble in this haunt of so many of his social and studious hours, and that it might be made a place of refreshment for them.

He never suffered a beggar to go from his door without giving him something, neither if he saw one pass the public road that crossed the front of his house. When there was no small money or broken victuals at hand, he would go into the kitchen and bring away part of the food preparing for the family dinner, to the annoyance of the cook and his household. To prevent it, they agreed that a small box should be kept in the kitchen supplied with coin, to which he might be directed when he invaded the cook's domain.

One of the most distinguished characteristics of Parr was his freedom from envious feeling: he never displayed a tincture of it. He felt so confident in the powers of his own mind, that this failing in him would have been superfluous. He was always forward to aid others, and promote the interest of learning and the spread of knowledge, even if sought by the humblest. No one asked information from him in vain. He never inflicted a wound upon simple ignorance, or suffered himself to lose his temper with the dullest. He was considerate under all circumstances, and fond of communicating instruction from his inexhaustible stores. The inflation of overbearing ignorant men, the egotism of dulness which pretends to lead others while in the dark itself, the pride of shallow knowledge, the obstinate domineering of the self-sufficient fool, were objects of Parr's antipathy. Whoever displayed them, he lashed without mercy, regardless of rank or pretension of any sort; he gave no quarter, but inflicted upon them punishment never to be forgotten or forgiven. He thought these follies admitted of no excuse. His acquaintance with the mind of man was wonderful. He read a character at a glance. He saw the cast, the colouring of the mind of an individual, after a few moments' intimacy-it seemed as if he possessed a map of human character, of which he had acquired a perfect knowledge, and knew where to find in it every man's place.

Parr's fondness of liberty was for itself. He imbibed his early love of it from his Greek studies. His father was a Jacobite, and he was brought up a Tory; but his great mind understood the blessing of liberty in its real value-he loved it ardently. His friendship with Mr. Fox made many believe he was strictly a party-man, but he was only so in a limited sense. He would not intrigue to serve his friends, or oppose a wise measure which contributed to promote public liberty, because it did not originate in the quarter he might wish; his ideas were universal, and embraced the good, not only of his country, but of all mankind. In following up his principles, he was utterly regardless of what party-men or the world said of him--he dared be singular and alone. He often preached extempore, for his command of subject and language was so great, that the business of composing a sermon of an hour

long, was but just the time he took in preaching it; or he would dietate it as fast as it could be written down for him.

Of Doctor Butler, the learned master of the grammar-school at Shrewsbury, he used to speak with great warmth of friendship. He said Dr. Butler ought to have been appointed master of Rugby school: a native of the county, and educated at the school which he so distinguished, would have been an incitement to others; but narrow views prevailed. It is to be lamented that Parr's funeral sermon, preached by Doctor Butler, contains so little of what might have been expected on such an occasion. Classical correctness, well-turned periods, and cold commendation, were all that sad event called forth, where "thoughts that breathe, and words that burn," were never more appropriate, if we consider the character of the deceased, the friendship professed, or the expectations awakened.

The best of Parr's writings, his epitaphs, &c. are before the public already in different forms. A life of him, by the Rev. W. Field, of Warwick, will shortly appear. Other lives are to follow, which will supply all that can be wanted respecting his private history in the latter part of his life. Of his early years it is probable no records remain.

His learning prevented his writing works worthy of him. The moment he took up his pea upon any subject, he stifled his own ideas by the load of illustration that occurred to him, and ceasing to be the writer, he inevitably glided into the scholar and commentator. If he wrote a sermon, it had five times its bulk in notes. Another reason of his writing so little, was his want of ambition to flourish as an author. In despite of all his learning, no man ever saw clearer into, or sooner admitted its vanity. I one day said to him, "I wish, Dr. Parr, you had written more to leave us when you are gone." He replied "What good would it effect? I have begun many thingsI have burned many it would do little good, and the world has no right to ask it of me." He thought that time would inevitably bring about changes, which must operate beneficially for the human race; but he despaired of accelerating them by any literary efforts of his own. He rejoiced that he had lived to see the correctness of his early opinions and principles confirmed; and he quitted this world, impressing on all around him the value and importance of judging wisely on commencing, and acting upon consistent principle throughout life.

I have spoken of this great man as possessing failings, contradictions, and weaknesses of character, not but that his virtues and acquirements far overbalanced them. This paper shall be no record of these. They were mostly harmless foils, setting off the bright parts of his character more strongly. Whether it is becoming at all to enumerate and analyse little whimsicalities and oddities of disposition in such men, effective of no good, and seeming as if reckoned up to lighten virtues too rarely exhibited among us, is a question which, however others may imagine, I own in the present instance I think myself at liberty to decline. One charge has been made against him, which, strange as it may appear, is a desideratum for all literary men to possess. I conjecture that it has been made by some acquaintance of Parr's, whose presence his goodnature and considerate feeling tolerated occasionally in his society. It is that Parr, who was the scholar in dress, manners, and conversation, when with men of mind on a morning in his library, should in mixed society, at dinner, or in the evening drawing-room, accommo

date himself to his company, be jocose, and enter familiarly into smalltalk. This I have already mentioned as an excellency in his character. Another charge has been, that Parr often dined in society not of that exquisite fashion which his accuser allotted to one of his standing. Parr scorned fashion, though not rank. He looked upon man as one great family, and despised the petty distinctions which country importance and self-inflation perpetually chalk out for all whom they tolerate. An aristocracy merely of money he despised. Once when the members for Warwick gave a dinner, one of whom had scraped his money together in a counting-house, and the other was a brother of Lord Warwick, he said, "I shall dine with Sir Charles Greville to-day; he is of a fine old family. The independence of the borough is delivered from the dictatorship of Lord Warwick-I am satisfied. Sir Charles Greville is a gentleman-our aristocracy and democracy must be kept in due balance; and in dining with Sir Charles, I shall support my principles."

These trifling recollections of this honoured man, I must now close, fearing to fatigue the reader with more. His history is become a thing of the past: his support of the poor and needy, of genius, of freedom, his eccentricities, his learning, his social habits, have departed with him. It is impossible to convey to those who knew him not, a perfect idea of one whom they can never now behold; but they will, on reading the different recollections of him published by individuals, sketch some picture of him in imagination. Whatever that picture may be, I entreat them, in laying on the light and shade, in endeavouring to attain a correct semblance, to remember that they must finish with clothing him in one quality, which is the sum and substance of all virtue "charity" for whatever differences may exist in making the estimate of his other qualities, "charity" in every sense, religious, moral, and political, was, even beyond learning, the great characteristic of Parr.

LONDON LYRICS.

The Cave of Trophonius.

ORCHOMENOS once had a king,

This king had a son call'd Trophonius,
Who built a stone fane round the Spring
Of Phoebus, surnamed the Harmonious.
The God, when the youth ask'd for pelf,
Despatch'd him with Pluto to sup;
For Earth in her maw caught the elf,
And ate the poor architect up.
Boeotia was plagued with a drought,
The natives, a goblet too low,
Went poking for well-springs about,
With pick-axe and shovel and hoe.
'Dry Greeks," cried a voice in the breeze,

They found young Trophonius alive,
Like a toad in a segment of stone.
The youth gave his finders a rod,
Whose point with a tremulous swing
Would vibrate awhile on the sod,

Then point where to probe for a spring.
In grateful requital, the Greeks,
Securing in cisterns the tide,

Extoll'd him with water-logg'd cheeks, And made him a god when he died. .Anointed with unguents and oils,

To his fane, in the bramble-girt hollow,
They bore in their hands votive spoils,
And dubb'd him the Son of Apollo;
They proffer'd him bees-wax and honey,
In milk-white habiliments clad,
Some enter'd the cave, looking funny,
But all came away looking sad.

When Greece to the Crescent bent low,
And Art found in Athens a grave,
Lord Elgin, with pick-axe and hoe,
Dug deep for the bramble-girt cave.
He bore it o'er mountain and heath,
And, aided by ocean and air,
Immovably placed it beneath

The mansion of London's Lord Mayor. There, entering on hands and on knees, Boeotian saints still we find,

Led by females, as busy as bees,

Who leave their drone helpmates behind. In quest of the well-spring of Grace, Aloft through the cavern they crawl, And meet, face to sanctified face, In his Lordship's Egyptian Hall.

There Zealanders, tarr'd and tattoo'd,

And red-ochred chiefs meet the sight; And water and tubs round are strew'd For washing the Blackamoor white: And Mummery revels and feasts,

And Reason deep slumbering nods; And Folly and Farce are the priests, And Monkeys and Leeks are the gods. There, Scotia, thy big Boanerges His thunderbolt hurls on the ear, Asserts lack of lucre, and urges His watch on a pawnbroker Peer. No homily there comes amiss, Provided the text is " Qui dat ;" And the honey-tongued Reverend This Responds to the Reverend That. Then deem not, Trophonius, too tragic The fate that attends thy retreat: Though borne from Boeotia, its magic Still tends it in Mansion House Street. As long as thy priests call for money From widow and maid, man and lad; Though some may walk in looking funny, Yet all will walk out looking sad.