24 Recollections oj' Dr. Parr. [Jan. 



cient enthusiasm. He said that his Elegy would live for ever ; that a great 

 deal of his Odes would live ; but then added, that there was a passage in 

 one of them which was nonsense. The author of this " notice" asking 

 him what it was ? he replied " I wo'n't tell -you ; most people think it very 

 fine." He blamed him freely for that ifldolence which prevented Gray, 

 with his vast powers of mind, from communicating a portion of his ex- 

 tensive knowledge in lectures. But it was as a scholar and a critic that, 

 in Dr. Parr's opinion, Gray soared beyond all possibility of competition. 

 " Wlien I read his observaUons. upon Plato," said the Doctor, " my first 

 impression was to exclaim, 'r^J^y. did I not write this ?' " he added, " that 

 Gray alone possessed the nfeife of avoiding the error into which all the 

 other commentators on Plato had fallen." There were no fine-spun 

 theories, no metaphysical nonsense in Gray. He considered Mason as 

 utterly unworthy to be his editor : that " he had not powers to compre- 

 hend the depth and extent of such a mind as Gray's, and, being no 

 scholar himself, had suppressed, from feeling of envy, some part of 

 Gray's various and extensive learning." But of Mr. Mathias's edition of 

 Gray he had the highest opinion. He said " it did his subject perfect 

 justice." 



He had a high esteem for Mathias as a scholar (which name, I 

 suspect, conveyed from his lips greater praise than that of a genius), 

 and considered the following verses on Gray, in the " Pursuits of Litera- 

 ture," very striking. 



" Go then, and view, since closed his cloistered day, 

 The self-supported, melancholy Gray, 

 Dark was his morn of life, and bleak the spring, 

 Without one fostering ray from Britain's king. 

 Granta's dull abbots cast a sidelong glance. 

 And Levite gownsmen hugg'd their ignorance ; 

 With his high spirit strove the master bard, 

 And was his own " exceeding great reward." 



He finished by observing that, " had he known him, he should have 

 esteemed and honoured Gray, but that he could not have liked him." 



The " Pursuits of Literature" reminds me of an anecdote of the 

 Doctor which he related of himself with great pleasure, and which 

 exhibited him in the exercise of his magnanimity, one of his favourite 

 virtues. 



Every reader of that classic performance must remember the rather 

 ill-natured and (I think) unfounded attack upon the Doctor's " unpre- 

 sentability," which one of the notes contains. However opinions may 

 differ upon that subject, the note was certainly one most difficult for the 

 object of it to forgive, as directly attacking his personal peculiarities. 

 Dr. Parr, however, with the noble liberality of genius, overlooked what- 

 ever was offensive to himself in admiration of the writer's talents. To 

 use his own words, he wrote to him, introducing himself, and soliciting 

 his acquaintance " as an honour to learning." " We exchanged pre- 

 sents," continued the Doctor ; and I may conclude this anecdote with 

 remarking, that I do not doubt that the author, after this intercourse with 

 Dr. Parr, perceived the errors into which the most enlightened repoj-ters 

 may fall, who trust in their observation upon a great man to hearsay, 

 and the exaggerated statements of others. •* 



Another writer for whom Dr. Parr had. a great esteem, was Mr. 

 Roscoe, author of the Life of Lorenzo dc Medici, and Life and Ponti- 



