amended. Whatever doubts he may have formerly entertained on the justice and policy of repealing the Test and Corporation laws, he was latterly decided on the right of all men who obeyed the laws to the benefits of the laws, and of their equal eligibility to civil office. With Warburton, he thought the sacramental test the very worst that could have been chosen for its purpose, because it was both evaded and profaned. So unlimited indeed was the freedom of his opinion on these subjects, and on the unrestricted liberty of the press, that latterly he deeply lamented the prosecution of sceptical publications on religion. He said it was the worst species of infidelity towards truth: that if the early propagators of Christianity had had that power, and had exercised it, they would never have made converts: that it was an outward force contrary to the example of its founder, and in the very teeth of his doctrines: that, admitted in Christian practice, it justified every martyrdom and murder by the heathen magistrate: that not only did the prosecutions do all the harm they imputed as the effect of the publications, but they cut off the most pregnant source of illustrating and extending the evidences of revelation; he said this abominable persecuting principle which procured the imprisonment of the printer, instead of answering the arguments of the author, was the dregs of the old chalice; and that the great blasphemy lay in the gross opinion that the fields of Christianity could only be tilled under the enclosure acts of British statutes! Dr. Parr was extensively read in history, in morals and legislation; he was well acquainted with what are called the constitutional writers. His character as a politician was most manly and consistent; he could not but feel the indignity of his inferior contemporaries scaling the heights of power and profit while he was struggling with poverty, but he endured it in silence, and not like Watson, in apparent regret that he had been honest. He has never been impeached in the bold avowal of his political opinions, nor suffered himself to be seduced when apostacy was the order of the day, and an honest clergyman especially was esteemed a mere spiritual Quixote of romantic notions: but the strength and dignity of Dr. Parr's character would not allow him to apostatize; the natural boldness and integrity of his mind would not permit him, like watermen, to sit one way and row another, nor, like his alarmist contemporaries, to turn crab and walk backwards. The political economy of apostacy would not have answered to Parr: his intellect would have fallen in under the pressure of self-degradation. His own words, in the contrast of the characters of Warburton and Hurd, may be applied to himself; "he never thought it expedient to expiate the artless and animated effusions of his youth by the example of a temporizing and obsequious old age. He began not his course, as others have done, with speculative republicanism; nor did he end it, as the same persons are now doing, with practical toryism." He thought with Mr. Fox, that the ardent political integrity of youth was the best guide for age. And he was not one of those who "ipsi sibi somnia fingunt," With voluntary dreams can cheat their mind. His political opinions, indeed, the last few years had been more decided and strengthened than ever. He saw that principles must be substituted for faction, and measures for men; and he adopted unqualified the grand maxim of legislation, that the sole end of government was the happiness of the people: he said a great revolution was rapidly though silently going on; that all attempts to suffocate the human mind would henceforth be abortive; that no artificial break-water of the "Holy Alliance" could ultimately resist the heaving ocean of public opinion, that wave upon wave, with accumulating and irresistible force, would at last demolish the foundations of ignorance. He feared not the temporary evils of partial and imperfect education, but knowing that evils always accompanied the introduction of good, he relied on the immutable laws of Providence: he knew that the ark of truth would ever ride safely on the deluge of error. The inconsistencies and imperfections of Dr. Parr's character were correspondingly great, sometimes unaccountable. The richest mines abound with the greatest faults and derangement of strata; and analogically it would appear that the highest class of intellectual and moral character is subject to peculiar and humiliating weaknesses which reduce them to the common standard of human nature. A limit is decreed, past which mortal superiority shall not trespass but under the penalty of Babel punishment 'Tis height makes Grantham steeple stand awry! Dr. Parr, though he never feared to look truth in the face, was however frequently afraid of treading on her heels. His physical courage was far below his intellectual intrepidity. He would often recommend, but not so often support. Although his penetration into character was at first sight almost miraculous, yet intercept his microscopic vision by the most minute matter, and this power vanished. His prejudices once excited, his judgment took its leave. Dr. Parr was always the easy prey of minions; not that he had a taste for degraded intellect, but he was its unconscious dupe. It is said of the whale, that he is steered in his course by a fish of very contemptible dimensions, and that a yet more insignificant one will alter the course of a ship. He delighted in cabals and scenes, or else he was their most unlucky victim: he believed in any tales, however ridiculous, against his oldest friends, when inoculated upon him by cunning; and in any neighbouring family quarrels or local feuds, he instantly took the field (on the side he happened to enter it) with the appetite of an Irishman, who arriv ing at a row, is said to rush into the thick of it with the pious exclamation "God grant I may take the right side!" This may be attributed to the natural simplicity of his mind, and the warmth of his temper. The constancy of his friendships was far, very far, from equalling their ardour. His best friends could not always evade his determination to quarrel. The subject of his advice was a fearful cause of rupture: he did not know his own ignorance of the world, and yet was despotic that the whole advice should be swallowed; "Parr's entire," or your license of friendship was withdrawn for three hundred and sixty-five days. His friends did not quarrel with him, but Dr. Parr with them. His placability, however, was equal to his irascibility; and when the tornado was over, the serenity of the natural atmosphere returned. He not only forgave his supposed injuries, but he forgot them. He greatly resembled Goldsmith-"he was no man's enemy but his own." Godwin said of him, that his friendships were far too easily gained and too easily lost to be of much consideration to any man. Nor was this infirmity of mind confined to his friendships. The most violent bursts of grief were often instantly succeeded by absurd and ludicrous ideas, and loud bursts of laughter; so rapid and instantaneous were his associations. There was a scene-shifting and pantomime in his mind most inexplicable. In his religious sentiments and simplicity he was Apostolic; while in his rural parish church, he was the Pope in miniature, and the stranger would estimate Dr. Parr's piety by the length and diameter of his wax candles, and the weight of his communion silver! The wisdom of his morning library conversation was strangely contrasted with the nonsense of his drawing-room and table talk. He whom archbishoprics could not tempt, would almost bow the knee for a piece of plate; and coronets and mitres were the baubles he played with as a child with its nursery toys. The morning sloven, with the rapidity of pantaloon, was transformed into the drawing room courtier; and his ravenous appetite for intellectual nutriment was only equalled by his epicurean gluttony. It was said that Dr. Parr possessed two mills, one to grind knowledge, the other to grind food. All these contrarieties would have been unaccountable if the history of man did not tell us, that it is one quality to form judgment, and another to act up to it; that it is far easier to invent the most perfect system of virtue and worldly wisdom than to practise the least part; and that men may possess a profound knowledge of human nature, and yet know nothing of themselves. It was one of the sagacious remarks of Bacon that "books do not teach the use of books." It has been said that a too long continuance at the university is not the best way to enlarge the mind; but if Dr. Parr could have afforded to have remained there longer, he would have reaped great profit. He would early have associated with characters, who in the attrition of society would have polished and refined his own: he would have been taught self-control, and the more correct estimate of his own power. As it was, the early professional situation of the assistant pedagogue was unlikely to break in the eccentricities of such a mind: his clerical profession also deprived him of that early discipline derived from commerce with the world almost essential to smelt the rich ore of his intellect: the confined sphere of a country parish priest might contract, but could not control, his intellect; and its inferior society would necessarily tempt him to overrate himself. Whoever critically examines the published writings of Dr. Parr will soon perceive why he did not, and why he could not, produce more creditable works. He was, as it were, overlaid with acquired knowledge: the flood of his memory burst in on his own original powers and drowned them. He always forgot that there is little original contribution to be made to the knowledge in the world, but that the tact of authorship consists in supplying the modern wants in a modern mode. He never could clear his mind of its recollection of the modes of the ancients: he could not elect from the number and value of the precious stones: it was a diffidence and inability which, however, ruined his publications: he should have trusted more to himself and less to others. He never divested himself of the swaddling clothes of his education. In his mental powers and erudition he resembled Milton (he himself said so); in the use of them he was like Prynne; of the latter of whom it was said by Clieveland, that a marginal note would serve for a winding sheet, and that his works were like thick skinned fruits, all rind. Dr. Parr disappointed his reader by substituting other men's opinions for his own: his works resemble those of the man of learning described by Osborn, as so overawed by antiquity, that he dared present nothing to the public but what old authors had left them already published; and whose sentiments were put into "old forms, patched up with sentences which doth unavoidably make a rent in the author's own style." In short, Dr. Parr had powers which he dared not use-armour which he would not put on. Dr. Parr, however, was no pedant, it was not an awkward ostentation of needless learning. Bentley's observation on Warburton equally applies to Dr. Parr, "he appears to have a great appetite for learning, but no digestion." These regrets, however, for the comparatively little product of Dr. Parr's mind must not be allowed to extinguish our acknowledgments of his various contributions to the works of others. Publications is a term of relative meaning, and, as vulgarly used, of very confined signification. Dr. Parr was no antiquarian miser in knowledge: his generosity in communicating his own inexhaustible stores was even prodigal; and many have reaped the reputation of his labours. He was the patron and benefactor of needy men of letters and genius, and his correspondence was extensive and often laborious. He particularly delighted in the society and improvement of young men, and many an ardent and superior mind has been ignited at his intellectual flame. To the county of Warwick, and his local connexions, his loss will never be supplied. His character as a parish Priest was perfect. His house was the focus of intellect and liberality. The vigour of his mind was unimpaired; and he wrote to Mr. Brougham in his 77th year-" Animo quam nulla senectus, say I, triumphantly, in the words of Statius.' The same. Catholic spirit of philanthropy which ever pervaded his heart continued to the last: "We shall not be judged by the manner in which we die, but by that in which we have lived." It is, however, grateful to know, that as a man lived so he died; and this was the happy lot of Dr. Parr, on the evening of the 6th of March. Every blossom sheds its seed: intelligence and education are gone forth over the earth: and "it was perhaps ordained by Providence, to hinder us from tyrannizing over one another, that no individual should be of such importance as to cause by his retirement or death any chasm in the world."* [London Mag. SELECTED FOR THE MUSEUM. Scenes and Impressions in Egypt and in Italy. By the Author of "Sketches of India," and "Recollections of the Peninsula." WE have spoken with pleasure, says the Monthly Review, of this observing and lively author's former works. The same poetic and picturesque character of style (though it be somewhat too colloquial) illuminates with motley prismatic radiance this new narration, and exhibits as with a magic lantern to the mind's eye all that crossed the traveller's view on his route to England from India, which he quitted in December, 1822. His whole soul appears to reside in his organ of vision, and to be exclusively intent on painting in words the appearances of surrounding nature. He truly possesses the colours of oratory, and deserves the study of any poet who has to describe the same region. He uses also many oriental and foreign terms, and will supply future lexicographers with elegant exemplifications. Though we have praised the impressiveness and vivid character of this writer's style, we must add that the attempt at fine writing, whether designed or involuntary, is too perpetual in this volume; which affords no intervals of plain diction or of temporary repose. [Monthly Review. PRISON DISCIPLINE. THE increasing number of works relating to prison discipline is a satisfactory proof that the subject is beginning to interest the public attention, in a manner commensurate to its importance: but the variety of opinions entertained by persons eminent at once for their talents and their integrity, after mature consideration on * Johnson, VOL. VI. No. 36.-Museum. 3 Y |