diversity enough to amuse, eminences enough to ascend, and ample shade to repose under; and though the path be occasionally intricate and overgrown, yet far more often does it wind clear and smooth, among the loftiest and choicest productions of the intellect. Dr. Parr was born at Harrow on the Hill January 15th, O. S. 1747.* He was the son of Samuel Parr, by Anne, the daughter of Elizabeth Bates, of Stamford, Lincolnshire, and Leonard Mignard, who was descended from a French refugee family, and related to Mignard the painter, of whom some account is given by Lord Orford. The Doctor's father was the third and youngest son of the Reverend R. * Extract from a Letter from the Rev. Robert Parr to Samuel Parr, then settled at Harrow on the Hill as a Surgeon, dated January 24th, 1740. "I hear you meet with good encouragement in your way of business. Skill and good success, civil behaviour, and honest dealing, and above all the blessing of God, are sufficient to make a man rich and happy too. I hope all these are your portion, and heartily pray that Almighty God will be pleased to bless you here, and especially hereafter." Another Letter from the same, dated January 7th, 1746, congratulates him on his marriage. The entry of Parr's baptism in the register at Harrow is as follows: "Feb. 17th, 1746. Samuel, son of Samuel and Ann Parr, was baptized. Extracted from the Register Book of Harrow on the Hill, Middlesex, 23d March, 1799. (Signed) WALTER L. WILLIAMS, Vicar." "It seems," Mr. Williams says, in his letter inclosing this certificate, "Mr. Saunders' Register begins the year, according to the ecclesiastical reckoning at that period, 25th of March, which would render that of your age 1746-7." Parr, Vicar of Hinckley and Stoke Golding, Leicestershire, and Dorothy Brokesby, daughter of a nonjuring Clergyman in Yorkshire, who in 1715 published the Life of the celebrated Henry Dodwell, and who communicated to Mr. Ray, when he drew up his collection of English Proverbs, a very large catalogue, and a very ingenious interpretation, of old words used in the North of England. Mr. Brokesby his grandfather, was certainly a man of profound erudition. Robert Parr, the Doctor's great uncle, who lived at Hinckley, but had preferment in Warwickshire, was an excellent Greek scholar, and a most orthodox divine. The same praise is due to the Doctor's uncle, Mr. Robert Parr. This last stood high in the esteem of that distinguished scholar, Dr. Snape, once Master of Eton, and afterwards Provost of King's College, Cambridge, was himself a Fellow of that Society, and was presented by it to the Rectories of Horstead and Coltishall in Norfolk, where his literary attainments, his unblemished integrity, and his unfeigned piety, will be long remembered. The Doctor's father succeeded Leonard Mignard as a Surgeon and Apothecary at Harrow on the Hill, and died there January 23d, 1766, having lost his first and justly beloved wife, Anne, who died November 5th, 1762. Mr. Parr was distinguished by great professional knowledge, by strong common sense, by a correct taste in the English and Latin languages, by fidelity and activity in his business, by the rectitude of his principles, by a manly and dignified independence of spirit, and by a noble disregard to the accumulation of wealth. As the Doctor himself was well known in the world by a steady and disinterested adherence to Whigism, it may be proper to remark that his family, in its various branches, and for several successive generations, were firmly attached to Toryism, both in Church and State. Parr from his infancy gave manifest indications of his thirst for knowledge, and of his ability to acquire it. At Easter 1752, he was admitted on the foundation of the Free-school raised and endowed by John Lyon at Harrow.* He passed through the * The following Letter of Dr. Parr's father to a friend, dated Harrow, May 23d, 1760, shews that there was an intention to send him to Eton, which did not succeed. His cousin Francis was soon after admitted at Eton, probably by the same interest. “SIR, "Presuming much on your friendship, I give you this trouble to let you know that I am in some perplexity about my son. I remember you some time ago hinted to me, that you thought I should make him a scholar, and Dr. Thackeray has since more strongly suggested the same, and encouraged me to do it, by saying, he thinks that if the boy is placed in Eton School, at the next election, as the Doctor thinks the boy deserves, he cannot well fail of getting King's. I hope, therefore, you will please to prevail upon Mr. Barnard of Laton, to write to Dr. Barnard at Eton, to desire the Doctor to appoint a day some time in the middle of next month for me to wait upon him with the boy, for his examination and advice, if it is not contrary to the rules of the school (if it is I shall by no means desire it). I beg you will make my compliments acceptable to the ladies, and to afford me your best assistance on my boy's account, and you will greatly oblige, Sir, your most obedient humble servant, SAMUEL PARR." different classes with great approbation from his teachers, and became the head boy January 1761,* when he had not completed his 14th year. He always spoke with a filial regard and thankfulness of the kind treatment he received from the Rev. Dr. Thackeray, who resigned the Mastership in 1760, died in the succeeding autumn, and to whose memory, or for whose monument, Parr in 1817 wrote an inscription. While Parr was a boy, he formed a close and lasting friendship with his schoolfellows, the celebrated Sir William Jones and the learned Dr. Bennet, late Bishop of Cloyne. The literary curiosity of the three boys extended far beyond the regular business of the school, and influenced their harmless, and even useful amusements. They assumed the office of sovereigns; they took antient names, with little regard to chronology or geography, and they selected their dominions from the neighbouring fields. Thus Jones was called Euryalus, King of Arcadia; Bennet, Nisus, King of Argos; Parr, Leander, Prince of Abydos and Sestos; and it is probable that these places and these names were suggested to the minds of the young men by forcible impressions made upon them while their imaginations were active, and before their judgments * There is a most curious document in Parr's summing book of the death of Thomas Wright, who was drowned February 1760. It appears from this, written in Parr's own hand, that John Cotterell was head, Skeffington second, Wright third, Parr fourth in the school at that time; of course Bennet and Jones were below him. were mature.* In these fields, which they visited while other boys were intent upon other amusements, they were often engaged in intellectual competition. They acquired the art of logic, and disputed in syllogism; sometimes on subjects of natural history, and sometimes upon metaphysical questions, which were suggested to them by Dacier's translation of Plato's Dialogues. They displayed * It is well known that these three great scholars called each other by the familiar names, Will (Sir W. J.); Bill (Dr. B.); Sam (Dr. P.); and they had also other classical names besides those here enumerated. The following letter from Bennet, calling himself Flaminius, to Parr, is the only one of the sort I have found, and it is the earliest letter in the collection. It is directed to "Mr. Samuel Parr, jun. (Free, I. Cholmondeley.) at Harrow on the Hill, Middlesex. "Having occasion to put the Monitor in my study, a dispute arose about the volumes, I beg therefore you will ask Theodosius if there are more than three volumes, an appendix, and a book with notes. Now I mention Theodosius you wonder why Vespasian in the inclosed allegory has arraigned him, but it was not unjustly. He attacks our sovereign covertly in the very first paper, those who aspire to praise by ridicule,' &c. &c.' the whole character is but too well preserved. Yes, my Lord, inquiry has detected his most trifling faults, and exaggeration sports with his every weakness. How much Theodosius gave up the friend to the scholar, in this paper, you will easily discover, though I think it was his duty to have said with the British writer : Curst be the thoughts, how well so e'er they flow, "I am, &c. + About fifteen years ago, when Dr. Parr was then on a visit to Archdeacon Butler, he accompanied him to spend a couple of days at a gentleman's house (Mr. Pemberton of Millichap). He |