Memoirs of the Rev. Samuel Parr
Ch. XXVII. 1801-1803
Samuel Parr to Francis Burdett, 26 September 1802
“Vicarage House, Buckden, Sept. 26, 1802.
“Dear Sir,—After rambling in various parts of Norfolk, I
went to Cambridge, and from Cambridge I yesterday came to the parsonage of my
most respectable friend, Mr. Maltby, at
Buckden, where I this morning had the honour of receiving your letter.
Mrs. Parr opened it last Friday at
Hatton; and I trust you will pardon the liberty she took in desiring your
servant to convey it to me in Huntingdonshire, where she knew that I should be,
as upon ![]()
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this day.”—“Permit me, dear Sir, to
request that you would accept the warmest and most sincere thanks of my heart
for this unsolicited, but most honourable expression of your good-will towards
me. Nothing can be more important to my worldly interest than the service you
have done me, in presenting me to the living of Graffham. Nothing can be more
exquisitely gratifying to my very best feelings than the language in which you
have conveyed to me this mark of your friendship. Indeed, dear Sir, you have
enabled me to pass the years of declining life in comfortable and honourable
independence. You have given me additional and unalterable conviction, that the
firmness with which I have adhered to my principles has obtained for me the
approbation of wise and good men. And when that approbation assumes, as it now
does, the form of protection, I fairly confess to you, that the patronage of
Sir Francis Burdett has a right to
be ranked among the proudest, as well as the happiest events of my life. I
trust that my future conduct will justify you in the disinterested and generous
gift which you have bestowed upon me; and sure I am that my friends, Mr. Fox, Mr.
Sheridan, and Mr. Knight,
will not only share with me in my joy, but sympathise with me in those
sentiments of respect and gratitude, which I shall ever feel towards
Sir Francis Burdett.”—“Most assuredly I
shall myself set a higher value upon your kindness, when I consider it as
intended to gratify the friendly feelings of those excellent men; as well as to
promote my own personal happiness.”—“I shall wait your pleasure
about the ![]()
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presentation; and I beg leave to add, that I
shall stay at Buckden for one week only, and shall have reached Hatton about
this day fortnight, where I shall obey your commands. One circumstance, I am
sure, will give you great satisfaction, and, therefore, I shall beg leave to
state it. The living of Graffham will be of infinite value to me, because it is
tenable with a rectory I now have in Northamptonshire; and happy I am, that my
future residence will be fixed, and my existence closed upon that spot where
Sir Francis Burdett has given me the power of spending
my old age with comforts and conveniences quite equal to the extent of my
fondest wishes, and far surpassing any expectations I have hitherto ventured to
indulge.—I have the honour to be, with the greatest respect, &c.
Sir Francis Burdett, fifth baronet (1770-1844)
Whig MP for Westminster (1807-1837) who was imprisoned on political charges in 1810 and
again in 1820; in the 1830s he voted with the Conservatives.
Charles James Fox (1749-1806)
Whig statesman and the leader of the Whig opposition in Parliament after his falling-out
with Edmund Burke.
Richard Payne Knight (1751-1824)
MP and writer on taste; in 1786 he published
An Account of the Remains
of the Worship of Priapus for the Society of Dilettanti; he was author of
The Landscape: a Didactic Poem (1794),
An
Analytical Inquiry into the Principles of Taste (1805) and other works.
Edward Maltby, bishop of Durham (1770-1859)
Educated under Parr at Norwich and at Pembroke College, Cambridge, he was preacher at
Lincoln's Inn (1824-33), bishop of Chichester (1831) and of Durham (1836-56). Sydney Smith
described him as “a thoroughly amiable, foolish, learned man.”
Jane Parr [née Marsingale] (1747-1810)
The daughter of Zechariah Marsingale of Carleton, Yorkshire, in 1771 unhappily married to
Samuel Parr.
Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816)
Anglo-Irish playwright, author of
The School for Scandal (1777),
Whig MP and ally of Charles James Fox (1780-1812).
