You, dear Sir, love sincerity too well to be displeased with the above honest declaration of my sentiments. But heartily shall I take pleasure in your promotion, and if such a thing should be, that merit like yours should, for once, be exalted to its deserved honours, I hope you will not think it too great presumption in me to solicit the office of one of your chaplains. I should esteem it my pride and pleasure to receive a scarf from your hands; and my present patron (an Irish Peer) would, I know, very readily relinquish me, facilis jactura patroni. But to return from these pleasing visions to matters which demand more immediate consideration. I have had a little correspondence with the doers of the Analytical Review. I wrote to the Editor, to say that I wished for an hour's confidential conversation with him, and subscribed my name and place of abode. In a few days I received an answer from Johnson, the bookseller, No. 72, St. Paul's Church-yard, stating, that to preserve the Review as independent as possible, the editor wished to be concealed; but that any communications made to him (Johnson) would be faithfully transmitted, &c. &c. I wrote in reply, that my late Greek Translation of Samson Agonistes had been reviewed by one of the first scholars in the kingdom. That the critique was not published, and that the writer, "who was not accustomed to seek, but to be sought by, the dispensers of literary fame," might possibly, by proper application through me, be induced to favour them with his remarks. I enclose you Johnson's second answer. * * * * * You, dear Sir, are not in the least committed, otherwise than by the pointedness of the above description. And, therefore, if it is not your pleasure, that your observations should find a place in the Analytical Review, here let the business rest. If otherwise, be pleased to favour me with your sentiments. Should you be inclined to comply with my ardent wish on the occasion, it may perhaps be best to wait till after the Monthly Review has appeared, for which I wait with a trembling impatience that savours little of my honoured patron's intrepidity. Your ever obliged and most faithful servant, G. H. GLASSE. CHAPTER VIII. Wadenhoe-H. Homer-Var. Horace-Dr.Combe. About this time, Parr exchanged the curacy of Hatton for the rectory of Wadenhoe, with Dr. Bridges, bargaining to retain the house at Hatton, and to do the duty there. The real motives of this exchange were kindness to Dr. Bridges, who could not hold the preferment he then possessed, with Wadenhoe: certainly there was no real gain to Parr in it, of a pecuniary kind. At Hatton he still received pupils into his house, and still laboured incessantly in his calling, as a parish priest. Hatton indeed was no less the seat of the Muses, than of hospitality, during the whole of Parr's abode there. His table was well replenished with simple fare, his cellar was amply stored; and he was no churl, or economist in his bounteous giving. Not only his own friends, but the friends of his friends, were welcome, especially if they were Foxites, or Whigs; nor was the well-behaved Pittite or Tory, unwelcome, if they could bear with composure, certain tirades on their leader and their politics. There could be no higher treat than to witness his manner of conversing with those he loved or reverenced, whatsoever were their differences in opinion-with Bishop Bennet's soft and graceful tone of thinking and speaking, and with that mild, calm, evening lustre, which sheds such a charm over Dr. Routh's society. I have seen him with these illustrious men, separately, playful and grave, lively and solemn; but in every state of mind happy, and elevated to a higher flight of intellectual expression, if I may so say, by the genial atmosphere that breathed around. Whether the three ever conversed freely and unreservedly together, unembarrassed by any restraining troublesome companion, I know not. Such a communion of high and holy spirits this earth does not often witness. When both had lived more than threescore years and ten, I was admitted by Parr to enjoy his and Bennet's society alone; they addressed each other in the affectionate language of Bill and Sam, and they were as cheerful as when they used the names sixty years before at Harrow. The last evening I spent with Bishop Bennet, he sat up with me more than half the night, relating anecdotes of his friend; and to him I am indebted for the authentication of some facts belonging to Parr's early life, Henry Homer died early in the summer of 1791. What Parr has written in the Statement is Homer's best character; and what I have inserted, as illustrating the publication of Bellendenus and the Warburtonian Tracts, the best evidence of the near and cordial intimacy that subsisted between them. Bishop Bennet had been Homer's friend from his first becoming a member of Emanuel College, and when from scruples of conscience he was about to resign his Fellowship, the Bishop not only felt warmly for his situation, but showed an anxious desire to serve him. He had been suspected, indeed, of lukewarmness on this occasion; but the Bishop's letter of explanation, which is preserved in this collection, places the fact in the clearest colours, and displays the warmth of his friendly zeal and Parr was finally convinced of his sincerity, and has coupled their names together in a masterly panegyric. The death of Homer is recorded in the following interesting letter from Bishop Bennet to Dr. Parr. Dublin Castle, May, 16, 1791. MY DEAR FRIEND, The seasons, as they fly, Steal from us in their course, year after year, So says Emily; and the death of poor Homer has brought the reflection strong upon my mind. I knew nothing of his illness; I looked forward with eagerness to the time when I should again see and embrace him; and I have now only to lament (as so many have done before me) esse nescio quam quæ spes nostras decerpat invidiam. I am led, by a connection natural enough to the subject, to inform you that our friend the Bishop of Waterford preached the other day at his cathedral, on the probability of our knowing each other after death. The Bishop has too much sense and too many virtues to be perfectly decisive in maintaining a system on which the Scriptures say so little, and the imagination is apt to say so much. His Dean, a pert and bigoted ecclesiastic, took offence, and preached the next Sunday against the Bishop with great aspe rity. Newcome sees the impropriety of a contest, which he never meant to provoke, and hardly knows how to avoid; I should advise him to publish his sermon, and leave it before the world, without taking any notice of his adversary. Did I ever tell you the handsome and eloquent manner in which Grattan introduced the characters of Bishop Newcome and the Primate, in the midst of a violent invective against the clergy. He paused, in a description of episcopal pride and extortion :-"I speak of many, not all; for there are among them some whom I love, and some whom I revere. Such is one whom I do not name, because he is present; mild, learned, pious, and benevolent; a follower of the gospel, and a friend to man. Such is another, whom I may name because he is not present. He has the first dignity in the land, and holds it by the strongest claim, by the claim of his virtue. I see every where hospitals that he has founded, villages that he has built, a country that he has civilized; as to the man, I know him not, or know him as we know superior beings, only by his works." Your conjecture concerning my sight is too well founded. I am an heteropthalmist, and I am not an heteropthalmist; this Athanasian statement of my eyes is perfectly correct; for though to outward appearance I have lost the sight of my left eye, it is still so far useful as to enable me, if I shut the other, to walk about my room with convenience, and even the streets with safety; and this recovery has been gradual, so as not to leave me without hope that it may yet substantially improve. You complain I write little Greek, but you should recollect I have no books, scarce any leisure hours, much to say and much to do on very important subjects, often on the life and death of unfortunate individuals, sometimes on the welfare of a nation held to England by most complicated and delicate ties. Remember, that of the four millions of inhabitants this country is said to contain, three millions at least are interested to overthrow the present constitution. Pitt and Fox are out of the question. They want Barnave and Mirabeau. Yours, most affectionately, WM. CORK. But it is necessary that I dwell longer on the name of Homer, from the virulent attack made on Parr (in consequence of his strictures on the Variorum Horace) by Dr. Combe after Homer's death. This edition was designed as early as 1787. I will write more about Horace (Homer says to Parr, June |