1826.] Recollections of Dr. Parr. 23 



there was '< a little mistake in the Latin of that." Then turning to the 

 portrait of Twining, " that was a clever fellow," he said, " a good 

 scholar, but a sad ugly dog. It is not necessary for a man to be 

 handsome, but I should be sorry to be as ugly as Twining I" Over 

 the chimney hung a painting of Dr. Parr, in his red doctor's hood, and 

 on his right and left — Horner, Esq. M.P., and Sir Samuel Romilly. 

 Beside this painting, a good bust and engraving of Dr. Parr ornamented 

 the sitting-room. Two views of Harrow (a place so intimately connected 

 with his earlier classical recollections), two views of Salisbury, and a fine 

 de^gn from an antique Neapolitan vase, formed nearly all the decoration 

 of this kind that the room exhibited. A footstool covered with cats in 

 tent-stitch, the needle-work done by one of the daughters of the late 

 Duchess of Gordon, formed an appropriate companion to the worked 

 elbow-chair, and was carefully prized by the Doctor. The library, which 

 was also the eating-room, was a spacious apartment, lined with books, 

 not splendidly bound, but, as Moore delightfully said, " looking like 

 books that could be made free with." In this, however, he would have 

 been woefully mistaken. The roses of Azor were not more jealously 

 guarded than the Doctor's books. No one durst touch them under pain 

 of death, unless the master offered them : and, as a convincing reason 

 for this prohibition, the Doctor, mentioned, when he formerly permitted 

 his guests the unbounded use of his library, curious passages, and even 

 engravings, had been cut out of his favourite books ! a species of un- 

 principled depredation to which nothing but the conscience of an 

 amateur could ever be reconciled. He would lend books himself, 

 liowever. I once saw a singular one, which a young lady was reading 

 at his recommendation — the life of George Psalmanzar. Not only 

 the library, but the landing-place of the first floor, and the passages 

 leading to the sleeping-rooms, were tapisses de livres. The quantity 

 thus accumulated was sometimes mentioned as one of the reasons for the 

 Doctor's unwillingness to quit Hatton, although a village of few resources, 

 from the difficulty he would have found in safely removing all his books. 



At dinner the Doctor talked a great deal of Homer, and the 

 unabated " rapture with which he read him," and supported (but I 

 think sportively) Bryant's hypothesis, that the Iliad was not the work 

 of Homer, but that of several poets first collected by him ; but the novelty 

 of a first introduction,* and the variety of new objects, prevented the 

 author from giving such undivided attention to the Doctor's conversa- 

 tion as in subsequent opportunities : so that we shall here put down, 

 without farther particularizing dates, such remarks and opinions, given 

 at different times, as may be truly termed his " table-talk." 



In the opinion of Dr. Parr, the five best writers of English style were : 

 Gray, the poet ; Uvedale Price, author of a Treatise upon Landscape 

 Gardening ; Dr. Shipley, Bishop of St. Asaph ; Dugald Stewart, and 

 Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Next to these, but at a long interval, he 

 placed John Home Tooke ! 



Of Gray he seemed to think it scarcely possible to speak with suffi- 



• The author doubted whether a more distinct allusion would be consistent with 

 delicacy towards the unobtrusive merit that never in any way courted public admiration, 

 but it would be unpardonable here to omit to mention, that the second Mrs. Parr, who 

 at that time did the honours of his house, was in person, manners, and conduct 

 every thing calculated to do honour to her husband's choice, and gild the evening of 

 his days. 



