1828.] Mr. Field's Memoirs and Opinions of Dr. Parr. 147 



pleasure afterwards to find him retaining to the very last moments of his 

 life. 



If this, however, was said by the doctor himself, it may well be 

 guessed what would be the opinions of other people. And, accordingly, 

 it seems, that, when a boy at Harrow, his " excellent and celebrated 

 master," Dr. Thackeray, whose rule it was " never to bestow the least 

 praise, even on the best performances of his pupils ; because he con- 

 ceived that applause tended only to. produce indolence and vanity ;" 

 " could not help expressing" (in Parr's case) " by his complacent looks" 

 -. (good man ! we see him now !) " those praises, which an uncompro- 

 mising adherence to system forbad him to utter with his lips !" This 

 was, perhaps, rather a Jesuitical mode of evading the " compromise ;" 

 but we all have our weaknesses ; and the doctor's, at least, was an amiable 

 one. 



We now find Parr living, however, in close intimacy with the leading 

 spirits of his day : Sir William Jones, Dr. Bennet (afterwards Bishop of 

 Cloyne), and " Peter, the Hanover wild boy," who was a fellow-boarder 

 of the last two gentlemen ! And as they walked abroad in the fields, 

 each cc assumed to himself some ancient name," and " appropriated to 

 himself " (in fancy's fee) "some particular district; the honour and 

 integrity of which he was to maintain against all assailants/' Thus, 

 " Jones was called Euryalus, king of Arcadia ; Bennet, Nisus, king of 

 Argos ; and Parr" (who had a double empire) " Leander, prince of 

 Abydos and Sestos V (p. 21). They " also discussed abstruse questions/' 

 in which difficult exercise, Parr " carried his inquiries" (again according 

 to his own account) " farther than his two associates ;" whose " wonder, 

 he said, was often excited, by the manner in which his thoughts seemed 

 to be absorbed, and lost in speculations," which " they" were unable (at 

 that time) to comprehend!" (p. 22). We mark the pages, that our 

 readers who are not credulous may satisfy themselves that we have 

 extracted fairly. 



But the days of our youth, like its pleasures, are fleeting ! At the age 

 of sixteen, Parr commenced in his father's shop the study of physic : 

 for which pursuit he immediately discovered an extraordinary aptitude, 

 by " doubling" (of his own suggestion) " the quantity of laudanum" 

 prescribed, in a dose which he was desired to make up ! Of course, the 

 effect (from such a hand) was admirable ; and such as proved very 

 curiously too, that a man may be an apothecary, as FalstafF was a cow- 

 ard, " upon instinct :" for it was only when he reported, with " exulta- 

 tion" to his son " the good effects of the medicine/' that Mr. Parr, senior, 

 learned from his adventurous eleve, the materials of which it had been 

 composed. 



As repeated speculations on the same principle, however, might perhaps 

 not have turned out quite so well ; and as Parr had a knack of always 

 reading, while he made up or dispensed medicines (a practice which 

 leads every day to mistakes between Epsom salts and Oxalic acid), the 

 medical career was ^abandoned, and Samuel permitted to study for the 

 church. This allowance, which had ever been his object, rendered him 

 perfectly happy ; and he went to Cambridge in 1765 ; from whence want 

 of means compelled him to return in little more than twelve months, 

 when he became chief assistant (under circumstances very honourable 

 to himself) at the school in which he had been originally educated, at 

 Harrow. Five years subsequently, failing on the death of Dr. Simmer 



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