138 Recollections oJDr. Parr, [Feb. 



" you remember his fine eye — his fine erect carriage — and then the 

 gentleman — the perfect gentleman ! — Johnson used him very ill ; but 

 Johnson was humbly born, and Sheridan was a man of high family. 

 I was once delighted to hear Sheridan and Johnson arguing. Johnson 

 thundered and lightened, and rained, and hailed, and poured. Sheridan, 

 after hearing him in perfect calmness, repeated to him quietly the 

 arguments and very words he had made use of, simply divested of the 

 " bow-wow manner" of Dr. Johnson. Their futility was then apparent ; 

 and Sheridan, who knew that it was only in the consciousness of the 

 plenitude of his strength that the Doctor would now and then thus 

 " talk for victory," concluded, by saying, — "1 have repeated to you,. 

 Doctor, your very words : how can you, who are such a master of argu- 

 ment, condescend to make use of such a» these ?" 



Speaking of Fox and Sheridan, he said Richard Brinsley Sheridan's 

 " penetration was unecjualled in matters of business," but that Charles- 

 Fox was in those things " a mere baby" — " A mere baby," he re- 

 peated, " but I liked him the better for it." Of Georgiana, Duchess of 

 Devonshire, he said, " Ah! there was a sweet, polite, amiable creature 

 — wit, without the least tincture of bitterness." 



This year (1824) the doctor was in his 78th year. He spoke with 

 perfect clearness, distinctness, and recollection of mind, on subjects of 

 life and literature. The " New Monthlj' Magazine" for April, being, 

 on the table. Dr. Parr (to whom it was quite a novelty) seized on it with 

 a kind of " Johnson-like" avidity, continued reading it for half an hour, 

 and expressed himself much pleased with the first article — " Spirits of 

 the Age ;" said the Magazine was " in an odd style, but interesting ;" 

 and asked many questions about it, as if inclined to take it in. 



Towards the end of this year Dr. Parr became very feeble, and could 

 not get in and out of his carriage without the greatest difficulty. Five 

 years before he had had a very severe attack of illness, which had only 

 been subdued by the combination of friendliness and medical skill in 

 the highest degree united. For a time the danger was imminent. To 

 use his own energetic expression in describing it, " For three days it 

 was death — death — death !" Symptoms of the same kind had occa- 

 sionally returned, and distress of mind added to their acuteness. In 

 the celebration this year of his birth-day of 77,* Dr. Parr had given a 

 touching instance that the memory of his lost friends, however sus- 

 pended, was never absent from his mind. Three empty chairs were set 

 to mark the accustomed place of three friends, who were wont to be 

 welcome guests at that hospitable board, but who had all, within the 

 preceding year, been snatched away by death. 



It was on Sunday, January 1825, on which day he performed duty at 

 his parish church, (which he munificently embellished) that Dr. Parr was 

 seized with a shivering and faintness, the precursor of the illness from 

 which he was to rise no more. After church, the funeral of one of his 

 parishioners took place : the Doctor performed the burial service : the 

 place was damji and the day cold, and on the conclusion of the duty the. 

 Doctor complained of faintness, and of being completely chilled. 



During his illness. Dr. Parr was constantly attended by those faith- 

 ful friends and able medical practitioners. Doctor Middleton, of 



Jan. 26, 18-i4. 



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