The above extract may be a little tinged with satire, but it seems agreed on all hands, that the lady in question was so consummate in the art of teazing, that she might have been substituted for all the trials of patient Job.

As Dr. Parr's eminence in classical literature was undoubted, and most of his life was passed in teaching, we are sorry that the Memoirs have not given us more minutely his method of instruction, and particularly some extracts of a letter mentioned in vol. i. p. 271. In teaching Greek, he assigned the highest place to the orators and poets, especially the dramatic poets. For three or four weeks before the holidays, he was accustomed to make the boys of the upper form read the Greek plays seven or eight hours at a time, and he sometimes kept them till near eleven o'clock at night. The orators received an almost equal attention. He was in the habit of illustrating the text by Greek, Latin and English quotations. While perusing the his torians of Greece, the necessary chronological, geographical and mythological knowledge was adduced; and while studying Gre cian philosophy, an elaborate comparison of the dogmas of the different schools was superadded. Great attention was also paid to versification, and to Latin and Greek composition. "He thought that sufficient portions of Latin prose, especially from Cæsar and Cicero, were not read, and that sufficient time was not devoted to the composition of prose in that language;"* in which two observations we concur most fully. If a greater portion of the time, now comparatively lost in the English schools in setting Latin words on their feet, were employed in reading and writing prose, perfect facility in reading Latin would be a far more common attainment. The habit, too, of committing to memory, so much approved by the Doctor, deserves all commendation. "He was a strenuous advocate for the practice of committing to memory large portions of Latin and Greek verses; and applauded in this, as well as in other respects, the plan of Winchester school, where that practice has been long established and carried to a great extent. It was his opinion, that by repeating passages, though not previously understood, a boy is incited by his own curiosity to explore, and is generally en abled by his efforts to discover their meaning: that what is thus learnt by voluntary exertion, is learnt with more effect, and fixed with deeper impression on the memory; and that by these means, the youthful mind gradually accumulates, in rich variety and abundance, stores of pleasing imagery and sublime or beautiful expression." Every morning he exacted from his scholars

Memoirs, vol. i, p. 82, Parriana, 16.

Ibid. p. 83.-Parriana, 15.

a repetition, from memory, of the whole lesson recited the evening before; and he once required of his pupils to get by heart the third Olynthiac of Demosthenes, as a holiday lesson. Nay more; he had the Edipus Tyrannus of Sophocles performed in the original by his scholars, for which Foote lent the scenery, and Garrick the dresses. The Trachinians was also played by them the next year. Equal care was taken of the English studies, and, above all, of composition in verse and prese. The school at Stanmore, on more accounts than one, might have merited the classic name of Gymnasium. The master delighted to see the young fry engaged in cricket and other games of "manly contention." He was also the admirer and advocate of pugilistic encounters among the boys. It was amusing to hear him speak of the tacit agreement which subsisted, he said, between himself and his pupils, that all their battles should be fought on a certain spot, of which he commanded a full view from his private room; as thus he could see without being seen, and enjoy the sport without endangering the loss of his dignity.* Never did he appear in the school-room without the sceptre of pedagogical rule—

"Called by the vulgar Birch; Tartarean root,

Whose rankling points, in blackest poison dipp'd,
Inflict a mortal pain; and where they 'light,

A ghastly furrow leave"

of the sincerity of his faith in which, he gave ample proof, by the regularity and vigour of his practice. "There is a distinguished divine of the day, who, for sometime after he entered the seminary, was classed as a mediocre, and engaged, in consequence, the comparative amnesty extended to that grade. It happened, however, that one evening (after school hours) the head assistant called to acquaint Parr with the momentous discovery, that "from some recent observations he was led to conclude was a lad of genius." "Say you so? (roared out Parr with one of his delighted chuckles) then begin to flog tomorrow." The distinctive birch was not forgotten, and the eclipse of genius speedily wore off.+" "When a question was not answered in the first instance, it was put to every boy, with 'you,' 'you,' 'you,' &c. and the result too often was, 'I'll flog you all,' which was immediately done."‡

"It was a favourite theory of Parr that the progress of learning towards the understanding was in an upward direction ;" but the rod was uniformly applied secundum artem, where it

Memoirs, vol. i. 102.

↑ Parriana, 73.

+ Ibid. 228.

could do the brain no harm. It was so slight, except for grave offences, that it never was a subject of much apprehension. "Come and bring the bats for a game at cricket," was the exclamation of one boy to another, as they all rushed out at twelve o'clock. "I can't come immmediately," was the reply. "I'll be with you in six or seven minutes. I am only going to be flogged." A boy would have but slight yearning for cricket after the "awful strokes of magisterial vengeance," from the arm of that renowned and expert flogger, Busby, who sometimes administered "to poor little boys thirty or forty, nay, sometimes sixty lashes at a time, for small and inconsiderable offences."+ Sometimes Dr. Parr heard the recitations with a mince-pie or other savoury morsel in his hand; yet even while the delight lingered on his palate, with "farewell sweet," the epicurean, when the birchings were needed, was immediately forgotten in the stoic.

At the end of five years at Stanmore, finding his worldly matters succeeded badly, he accepted the mastership of the Colchester Grammar school, which he resigned next year for a similar situation at Norwich. We judge that his labours were still ill rewarded, from his being obliged to part with his copy of Stephens' Greek Thesaurus. Poor Brunck, under similar circumstances, had to sell Hesychius.

During a portion of his residence at Norwich, he had a curacy and preached regularly. Two sermons, published in 1781, are his first printed works. These were soon followed by his edu cation sermon, as it was generally called, which attracted considerable attention. It consists of seventy quarto pages, the whole of which was preached to a corporation waiting impa tiently, with barking appetites, for a public dinner which was to succeed. Many were the uneasy movements, appeals to watches, and other significant hints; but the Doctor, no way dismayed, held forth a full hour and a half.

We select from it the following sensible remark on the bene ficial effect of early education :

"The good seed, though oppressed, is not totally destroyed. The blossoms are partially nipped, but the soundness of the soil yet remains. Even the first approaches, which persons virtuously educated make to guilt, are attended with a shame and a compunction to which men of gross ignorance are utterly callous; and when the heat of youth has in some measure spent itself, reason gradually resumes her seat; and religion, in a voice which cannot but be heard, reasserts her violated rights."

Mirror, vol. viii. p. 313

↑ A true and perfect narrative of the differences between Mr. Busby and Mr. Bagshawe, the first and second masters of Westminter School. London, 1659.

The amplification of a celebrated passage in Cicero's Oration for Archias has beauties:

"To our boyhood, wise and virtuous education gives that sweet simplicity and innocence, which melts every serious beholder into affection, and relieves even the savage heart with a momentary feeling of honest approbation. In our youth, it inspires us with such a fine sense of decorum as makes us shrink from folly with scorn, and from vice with loathing; and it animates us, at the same time, with that unwearied activity of mind which struggles with every difficulty, and triumphs over every danger. Our manhood it distinguishes by that firmness and dignity of thinking, which exalts us from one degree of excellence to another; which causes us to start at the smallest deviation from moral rectitude, and impels us to recover from the shock, by the instantaneous and determined exertion of our whole strength. To old age, which is itself the fruit of a well-spent life, it gives a security of mind which the world can neither bestow nor take away-a deep and sincere love of virtue which finds a pure and perpetual source of pleasure in the effects it has wrought on the tempers and manners of our friends and our children-a comfortable remembrance of habitual well-doing, which alone can endear to us the days that are passed, and will return no more, or enable us to look on to the approach of an unknown world without solicitude or dismay."

Another sermon, published in 1781, entitled, "A Discourse on the late Fast by Phileleutheros Norfolciensis," was considered by the author himself as his chef d'oeuvre.

He had obtained the degree of Master of Arts per literas regias, when he became a candidate for the mastership of Harrow. Desiring a doctorate, he diverted, for the sake of expedition, his studies from divinity to law, and in 1781, he took the degree of L. L. D. Two theses, delivered by him in the law schools, on this occasion, were much admired, but were not committed to the press.

Dr. Parr obtained his situation at Norwich mainly through the exertions of Dr. Johnson, with whom he was on a friendly footing. "Once sir," said he to a friend, "Sam and I had a ve hement dispute on that most difficult of all subjects, the origin of evil. It called forth all the powers of our minds. No two tigers ever grappled with more fury. There was no Boswell present to detail our conversation; sir, he would not have understood it."* One of their interviews at Bennet Langton's has been recorded by Boswell in his Life of Johnson, "I remember that interview well," said Parr, "I gave Johnson no quarter-the subject of our dispute was the liberty of the press. Dr. Johnson was very great-whilst he was arguing, I observed

Parriana, 321.

that he stamped. Upon this I stamped-Dr. Johnson said, 'why did you stamp, Dr. Parr ?—I replied, because you stamped; and I was resolved not to give you the advantage even of a stamp in the argument."*

After the death of Johnson, Dr. Parr made great preparations for writing his life; but, like many of his other literary resolves, it ended in talk. "If I had continued it,' said he, it would have been the best work I ever wrote. I should have related not only every thing important about Dr. Johnson, but many things about the men who flourished at the same time,' adding, with an expression of sly humor, 'taking care to display my own learning! I had read through three shelves of books to prepare myself for it. It would have contained a view of the literature of Europe: and if I had written it, it would have been the third most learned work that has ever appeared." "+ The two "learned works, meant by him, were Bentley's Dissertation on Phalaris and Salmasius' Commentary on the Hellenistic language." Alluding to Boswell's Life of Johnson, he said, “mine should have been, not the droppings of his lips, but the history of his mind." Some of the books which he had read as a preparation for "the History of the Mind of Johnson," were the writings of Bembo, Sadoleti, Politian, the Polyhistor of Mohorfius, parts of D. Heinsius, Scroppius, Salmasius, H. Stephens, Aristarchus of John Gerard Vossius, Opuscula of Ernesti, Academica Opera of Heyne, &c. Notwithstanding this learned catalogue, we think Boswell would have maintained his ground. We take it for granted, that we can form a better opinion of a man, from hearing his own feelings and own manner of thinking, in his very phraseology, than from any description. Hence the interest of all auto-biography, even down to Lackington and Percival Stockdale.

The mother of one of his pupils, in gratitude for his attention to her son, presented Dr. Parr with the perpetual curacy of Hatton, worth one hundred pounds per annum, whither he repaired in 1786, and spent there the remainder of his days. For a short time he continued to instruct a limited number of boys; but he afterwards renounced teaching entirely, although he always counted the portion of time, devoted to that occupation, among the happiest periods of his life. It is worthy of remark, notwithstanding the straitened circumstances in which he had passed his early life, that when he first arrived at Hatton, his library amounted to four thousand volumes, which he increased to ten thousand before his death.

* Memoirs, vol. i.

P. 161.

+ Ibid, p. 164.

Ibid, p. 165.