150 Mr. Field's Memoirs and Opihiotts of Dr. Parr. [FEB. 



wards, " I remember that interview well ! / gave him no quarter f Our 

 subject was the liberty of the press." But he added afterwards, that 

 Johnson (in that conversation) had been " very great." (p. 161). We 

 regret that we must pass over the dispute with Boswell, which occa- 

 sioned at the time a terrible warfare in the Gentleman's Magazine. Parr, 

 however, was not satisfied with Boswell's Life of Johnson, and proposed 

 writing a life of that eminent man himself. Of this he often spoke ; and 

 said " it would have been one of the best things he ever wrote: it would 

 have been the third most learned work that had ever yet appeared !" On 

 another occasion, he said still speaking in anger of Boswell's insufficient 

 ft Life" " Mine should have been, not the droppings of his lips, but the 

 history of his mind." 



We now leave Norwich, where Parr's scholastic exertions had met (as 

 has already been stated) with indifferent success ; and proceed to Hatton, 

 where he resided for so long a period, and where the author of the pre- 

 sent work first met him under circumstances particularly interesting 

 and picturesque. " Formerly," he says [this is Mr. Field], " on the 

 summit of Hatton-hill there stood a windmill; and as Dr. Parr was 

 sitting on one of its lower steps, on a fine day early in the summer of 1790, 

 in a flowered damask morning gown, and a pipe in his hand " [for the 

 good man took tobacco], " the present writer had the pleasure of seeing 

 for the first time," &c. &c. " that extraordinary person." The pleasure, 

 it need hardly be added, turned out to be mutual. 



A peculiar feature in the doctor's domestic arrangement was the 

 management of his library ; which was f ' hung round with numerous 

 prints," chiefly " the portraits of literary men." Mr. Burke was once 

 a member of this " illustrious assemblage ;" but when he cried down the 

 French Revolution, " his picture was suspended in an inverted position; 

 and some time after, entirely removed." A similar token of displeasure 

 was once inflicted upon the picture of Dr. Paley ; but " this was after- 

 wards restored to its right position, and suffered to retain its allotted place." 



We have already hinted that a gentle style of " flogging" was one of 

 Parr's specifics in the management of his academy. The following exqui- 

 site anecdote in illustration of this fact, the biographer copies from a 

 memorandum in the New Monthly Magazine. " Lumbos dolare virgis, 

 Dr. Parr considered so essential a process in the business of education, 

 that, when, asked respecting any one whether he had been his pupil ? 

 his usual reply was ( Yes I flogged him.' Introducing one of his 

 pupils, on some occasion, to a lady, he addressed her in the following 

 words: ' Allow me, madam, to introduce to you an old pupil of mine, 

 whom I have often flogged, and who I assure you is all the better for 

 it.' " The delicacy of this allusion (under such circumstances) may be 

 something doubtful : but, for the affair of the rod, we agree with the 

 doctor entirely. Because what is so natural, when we find that we cannot 

 beat sense into one end of a person, as to try what can be done at the other? 



From this point, saving and excepting the story of the preface to the 

 Treatises of Bellendenus about which nobody cares a farthing ; and the 

 disappointment of Dr. Parr in his view to obtain a bishopric, at the time 

 of the late king's illness in 1789; on which occasion (oh, this hope !) 

 Mr. Field says " With so much confidence did he look towards this 

 flattering prospect, that his domestic plans he said were settled with his 

 family ; and the great principles fixed in his own mind which should 

 guide his conduct both as the head of a diocese, and as a lord of Parlia- 

 ment !" From this point, the remainder of the tx>ok treats more of the 



