Hooker.—The names which learned men bear for any length of time, are usually well founded. If Duns Scotus was justly called “the most subtle doctor,” Roger Bacon “the wonderful,” Bonaventure “the seraphic,” Aquinas “the universal and evangelical,” surely Hooker has, with equal, if not superior justice, obtained the name of “the judicious.” Bishop Lowth, in the preface to his English Grammar, has bestowed the highest praise upon the purity of Hooker’s style. Bishop Warburton, in his book on the Alliance between the Church and State, often quotes him, and calls him “the excellent, the admirable, the best good man of our order.”1
Meric Casaubon entered at Christ Church: he soon became a student there; he took both his degrees in arts; he published several useful works in literature and theology; he was preferred by Archbishop Laud; he was created doctor in divinity by the order of Charles I. Though deprived of his livings, he refused to accept any
1 Spital Sermon, p. 63. |
| LIFE OF DR. PARR. | 439 |
Bentley.—The memory of Bentley has ultimately triumphed over the attacks of his enemies, and his mistakes are found to be light in the balance, when weighed against his numerous, his splendid, and matchless discoveries. He has not much to fear, even from such rivals in literary fame as Cunningham, Baxter, and Dawes. He deserved to obtain, and he has obtained, the honourable suffrages of kindred spirits—a Lennep, a Ruhnken, a Hemsterhuis, and a Porson. In fine, he was one of those rare and exalted personages, who, whether right or wrong in detached instances, always excite attention, and reward it—always inform, where they do not convince—always send away their readers with enlarged knowledge, with animated curiosity, and with
1 Spital Sermon, Notes, p. 119. |
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Edwards.—About eighteen years ago I read Mr. Edwards’ “Enquiry into the modern prevailing Notions of the Freedom of Will,” &c.; and I afterwards lent it to a learned friend, whom it completely detached from the common opinions, or, perhaps, I should rather say, from the popular language of men, upon a subject over which the ferrum λογομαχίας has been, and hereafter will be drawn, again and again. Charmed as I was with the metaphysical acuteness and the fervent piety of the writer, I became very desirous to read his Dissertations “Concerning the end for which God created the World, and the Nature of true Virtue.” I met with them about the year 1790; and I found in them the same romantic imagination, the same keen discernment, the same logical subtilty, and the same unextinguishable ardour. Mr. Edwards is a writer who exercises our minds, even where he does not satisfy them; who interests us, where he does not persuade; who instructs and improves us, where he does not ultimately convince.2
Helvetius.—Doubtless, his perspicuity, his vivacity, his facility in gliding through the mazes of metaphysics, and his unrelenting hostility against
1 Critique on the Variorum Horace, in the British Critic, 1794, p. 423. 2 Spital Sermon, Notes, p. 76. |
| LIFE OF DR. PARR. | 441 |
Mandeville and Rousseau. In Mandeville there is but little room for praise: he has a shrewdness and he has vivacity; but his shrewdness degenerates into sophistry, and his vivacity into petulance. His eye is fixedly bent on the darker parts of human character. He seems to take a malignant pleasure in dragging to light what prudence and candour would induce us to conceal; and by the horrid features of exaggeration, in which he paints the vices of his species, he produces a sickness of temper, a secret and restless spirit of incredulity, when for a moment he twists our attention to a contemplation of their virtues.
| 442 | MEMOIRS OF THE |
But in Rousseau there are brighter
talents and more amiable qualities. He was himself benevolent; and, upon the minds of
others, he inculcated that benevolence, which he loved. He admired virtue in some of her
most noble forms; and has displayed her with a splendour, which enraptures the imagination,
and warms the heart. Dangerous as I think the tendency of his general system, I am not
totally destitute of taste to discern, of sensibility to feel, and of justice to
acknowledge, his moral and his intellectual excellencies. But these excellencies may stamp
an unjust and fatal authority upon his errors. As an inquirer therefore after truth, and as
a friend to religion, I cannot applaud the one without lamenting the other. Fictitious
representations of what is praiseworthy are useful, I confess, for preparing the mind of
man to act in real life. Yet fiction itself has boundaries, which sound and sober sense has
a right to prescribe, but which the acuteness of feeling, and the vigour of fancy, in lieu
of genius, are apt to overleap. After repeated—after serious, I am sure, and, I hope, after
impartial perusal of his celebrated work, I think the scenes romantic, and the tendency on
the whole very pernicious, in the mixed condition of the world, and amidst the mixed
characters of those, who form the mass of mankind. The readers, who cannot discriminate,
will assuredly be misled; and when admiration overpowers the judgment in persons of a
better class, the inclination and the power to discriminate are too often lost. Many of the
circumstances which he has supposed will rarely exist; and in
| LIFE OF DR. PARR. | 443 |
Three Characters, evidently intended for three late judges, whom Dr. Parr entitled the Three Furred Manslayers.
With learning, taste, and genius, which adorned the head, but improved not the heart, one of them was a sober, subtle, inexorable interpreter and enforcer of sanguinary statutes. With a ready memory, keen penetration, barren fancy, vulgar manners, and infuriate passion, another indulged himself in the gibberish of a canting fanatic, and the ravings of an angry scold, before trembling criminals. With sagacity enough to make the worse appear the better cause to superficial hearers, and with hardihood enough not to express much concern for the bodies of men, or their souls, the third carried about him an air, sometimes of wanton dispatch, and sometimes of savage exultation, when he immolated hecatombs at the altar of public justice. Armed with “giant strength,” and accustomed to use it “like a giant,” these protectors of our purses transferred to thievery that severity, which the court of Areopagus employed only against cut-throats, and they did so where judges were not bound by a peculiar, direct, and sacred oath, adapted to the peculiar character of the tribunal, and where offenders had not the chance, as among the Athenians, of a more favourable issue from appeals to Thesmothetæ; nor that privilege of
1 Discourse on Education, p. 71. |
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If a Βωμος Έλέου, like that at Athens, had been placed
in the avenue to our English courts, these διχασπόλοι ανδρες would have differed from each
other in their outward demeanour, and yet would have remained equally guilty of
“bearing the sword in vain.” Elaphocardius,
upon approaching the hallowed spot, might have paused for a second, winced under a slight
stroke of rebuke from the monitor within, and quietly sneaked by on the other side.
Cardamoglyphus would have wrung his hands, lifted up his eyes to
heaven, implored forgiveness to himself as a miserable sinner, and before sunset would have
boasted of “not being as other men are,” regraters, sabbath-breakers,
libertines, and more especially, as that execrable criminal who stood before him at the
bar. But the steps of Cynopes would not have been turned aside to the
right hand or to the left; his eye would have darted upon the emblems of the altar with a
glare of fierce disdain; he would negligently have swept the base of it with the skirts of
his robe; he would have laughed inwardly at the qualms of one of his compeers, and scoffed
without disguise at the mummeries of the other. Happily these arbiters of life and death
are now no more; they have left an example not very likely to be imitated by their
venerable successors; and my hope is, that the mercy which they showed not to
| LIFE OF DR. PARR. | 445 |
Jortin.—As to Jortin, whether I look back to his verse, to his prose, to his critical, or to his theological works, there are few authors, to whom I am so much indebted for rational entertainment, or for solid instruction. Learned he was, without pedantry. He was ingenious, without the affectation of singularity. He was a lover of truth, without hovering over the gloomy abyss of scepticism; and a friend to free inquiry, without roving into the dreary and pathless wilds of latitudinarianism. He had a heart, which never disgraced the powers of his understanding. With a lively imagination, an elegant taste, and a judgment most masculine and most correct, he united the artless and amiable negligence of a schoolboy. Wit without ill-nature, and sense without effort, he could, at will, scatter upon every subject; and in every book, the writer presents us with a near and distinct view of the real man. His style, though inartificial, is sometimes elevated; though familiar, it is never mean; and though employed upon various topics of theology, ethics, and criticism, it is not arrayed in any delusive resemblance, either of solemnity, from fanatical cant; of profoundness, from scholastic jargon; of precision, from the crabbed formalities of cloudy philologists; or of refinement, from the technical babble of frivolous connoisseurs.
At the shadowy and fleeting reputation, which
1 Characters of Fox, Notes, p. 344. |
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| LIFE OF DR. PARR. | 447 |
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Leland.—Of Leland my opinion is not, like the Letter-writer’s, founded upon hearsay evidence, nor is it determined solely by the great authority of Dr. Johnson, who always mentioned Dr. Leland with cordial regard and marked respect. It might, perhaps, be invidious for me to hazard a favourable decision upon his “History of Ireland,” because the merits of that work have been disputed by critics, some of whom are, I think, warped in their judgment by literary, others, by national, and more, I have reason to believe, by personal prejudices. But I may with confidence appeal to his writings, which have long contributed to public amusement, and have often been honoured by public approbation—to the “Life of Philip,” and to the translation of Demosthenes, which the Letter-writer professes to have not read: to the judicious “Dissertation upon Eloquence,” which the Letter-writer did vouchsafe to read, before he answered it: to the spirited defence of that Dissertation, which the Letter-writer probably has read, but never attempted to answer. The “Life of Philip” contains many curious researches into the principles of government established amongst the leading states of Greece:
1 Tracts by Warburton and a Warburtonian, p. 194. |
| LIFE OF DR. PARR. | 449 |
Henry Homer was born in 1751, and was the eldest of seventeen children. His father, the Rev. Henry Homer, was rector of Willoughby, in Warwickshire. He was sent at the age of seven to Rugby School; and became, at the end of seven years, the head boy of sixty. The celebrity of that school, then under the care of the Rev. Mr. Burrows, was not so great, nor the plan of education pursued in it so elegant and compre-
1 Tracts by Warburton and a Warburtonian, p. 193. |
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“In November 1768, Mr.
Homer was admitted of Emanuel College, Cambridge, under Dr. Farmer; and, in that college, I saw him, at a very
early period of his academical life. The pleasantry and good sense diffused through his
conversation, and perhaps the singularity of his name, attracted my attention; and
produced an acquaintance, which soon grew into friendship. I will hazard the imputation
of arrogance for saying that new incitements were given to his industry, and new
prospects opened to his curiosity, by my well-meant advice. Mr.
Homer proceeded regularly to his Bachelor’s degree in 1773, to his
Master’s in 1776, to his Bachelor’s in Divinity in 1783. He had lived in
Warwickshire, about three years before he became a
| LIFE OF DR. PARR. | 451 |
“As the merits of Mr.
Homer stand at this
| 452 | MEMOIRS OF THE |
“Mr. Homer, in consequence of some religious scruples, refused to take priest’s orders; when, by the statutes of the founder he was required to take them, in order to preserve the rank he had attained in college. From a senior fellow he became a junior; and after various negotiations his fellowship was declared vacant, on the 20th June, 1788. The first intelligence I had of this affair, was sent me by a common friend; and, sure I am, no man living could have been more surprised and afflicted than I was, upon receiving it. I wrote to Mr. Homer several letters of sympathy and counsel. I asked about the unknown cause—I deprecated the probable consequence, but to no purpose—for his answers were short and sharp; evidently intended to check inquiry and to avert expostulation. When I afterwards saw him in London, I twice resumed the subject; and spoke with that mixture of delicacy and earnestness, which was adapted to the difficulties of his situation, and the exquisiteness of his feelings. Twice he repelled and silenced me, by declaring that his conduct was the result of long and serious deliberation; that his mind was made up to all possible inconveniences; and that the interposition of his friends would answer no other purpose, but that of irritation.
“Knowing that enlightened and amiable men
| LIFE OF DR. PARR. | 453 |
“Though I collected from the general conversation of Mr. Homer that he was not adverse to a partial and
temperate reform of the Church of England; yet, in no one moment of the most private
and confidential intercourse, did he open to me his doubts, upon any particular subject
of doctrine. When I was talking to him about the events, which had recently passed in
college, he, for the first time, told me, that, many years before, he stood aloof from
some preferment, which, in all probability, was within his reach; and that he had taken
an unalterable resolution of not accepting any living, either from private patrons, or
from any academical society. The reasons, upon which that resolution was founded, he
did not reveal to me: nor did I think myself authorised to investigate them. But I ever
have honoured, and ever shall honour, so much moderation, mixed with so much firmness.
He never indulged himself in pouring
| 454 | MEMOIRS OF THE |
“From the quickness of Mr.
Homer’s temper, and perhaps of my own, we now and then wrangled,
in our conversation, and in our letters. But the effects of these little altercations
were temporary: and I feel the very highest and purest satisfaction in being able to
affirm that, from the commencement of my acquaintance with him, to the very latest hour
of his life, we never had one serious dispute—one difference which sent us, with
throbbing bosoms, to a restless pillow, for
| LIFE OF DR. PARR. | 455 |
“Mr. Homer, in his last
illness, which took place early in 1791, had been for three or four weeks with his
father in Warwickshire, before I knew that he was ill. But the very day after the
evening, in which the intelligence reached me, I sent a special messenger, with a
letter full of anxious and affectionate inquiry; and I received an answer, which I
clasped to my bosom; and which I, at this moment, keep deposited among the most
precious records of friendship. In a day or two, I hastened in person to his
father’s house. With anguish of soul, I found my friend pale, emaciated, and sunk
beyond the power of recovery. I talked to him with all the tenderness, which the sight
of such a friend, in such a situation, could have excited in the most virtuous breast.
I came away with a drooping head, and with spirits quite darkened by the gloom of
despair. Again I hastened to see him, if the lamp of life should not be wholly gone
out; and again I did see him, on the evening before his eyes were closed in death. With
tears, not easily stifled, and with an aching heart, I accompanied his sad remains to
the grave; and, in many a pensive mood, have I since reflected on the melancholy scene.
Many a look of fondness have I cast upon his countenance, which meets
| 456 | MEMOIRS OF THE |
Mr. Homer died of a rapid decline, May. 4, 1791, in the fortieth year of his age.1
Mr. Lunn resided, as a bookseller, at Cambridge, for ten years. In March, 1797, he came to London, and succeeded Mr. Samuel Hayes, in Oxford-street. On his removal into Soho-square, in 1801, he, by the advice of scholars, and with the approbation of friends, established the Classical Library upon a new and extensive plan. His views were announced in a perspicuous and even elegant advertisement; in which, with a tone of thinking far raised above the narrow and selfish views of a mind, intent only upon profit, he endeavoured to interest in his own favour such persons, as habitually look with veneration to the memory of Bentley, to the erudition of Hemsterhuis, and his illustrious school, and to the sagacity, taste, and learning, of our celebrated countryman, Richard Porson.
The whole of Mr. Lunn’s property was embarked in his trade; and, under circumstances more favourable, his accumulation must have been rapid. But he had to struggle with unusual and most stubborn difficulties. Insurances were high.—Goods were often delayed; for which Mr. Lunn had been obliged to pay before they reached him.
| LIFE OF DR. PARR. | 457 |
We have now to record the chief cause of those embarrassments, which
disturbed his spirits, and shortened his existence. The return of peace, by opening a free
communication with the continent, was beneficial to other traders, but most injurious to
Mr. Lunn. They accumulated their stock, without
the numerous impediments, which Mr. Lunn had encountered. They were
exempt from many of those restrictions upon importation, to which Mr.
Lunn had for many years been obliged to submit. They were able to buy, and
therefore to sell, at a cheap rate those articles, for which Mr. Lunn
had previously paid the foreigners a
| 458 | MEMOIRS OF THE |
Here follows the interesting passage already given before in this volume,1 and with some further particulars relative to the melancholy situation of Mr. Lunn’s family, the memoir closes.
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1 P. 89. |
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