1826.] Recollections of Dr. Parr. Ul 



good. So unaftected was the earnestness of his public Kpirit, that his 

 dearest friend, on communicating to him the contents of the letters 

 and papers that arrived with the news, did not, at first, inform him oi' 

 the full extent of the fatal truth. The Doctor received the first news 

 like one stunned, but after a pause he inquired, " and the child ?" 

 When told the extent of the national bereavement, his feelings seemed 

 of the acutest description, and he was some hours recovering any degree 

 of serenity. The two distinctive qualities of Dr. Parr's mind, which he 

 preserved to the last, were, a literary enthusiasm, and an ardent sen- 

 sibility, which seldom preserve their fires so long unimpaired ; but if 

 these were often a source of exquisite delight to him, they were often, 

 doubtless, the cause of many sorrows. Manifold and severe had been 

 liis domestic trials, and if his cheerfulness, and quick relish of all the 

 pleasures of social life, enabled him apparently to bear up against them, 

 it must still be remembered, — 



" The heart that is soonest awake to the flowers. 

 Is always the first to be touched by the thorns." 



Such was Dr. Parr. Wliether it is best for the wise and good thus to live 

 among their fellow-citizens, participating in their pains, and sharing in their 

 pleasures, keeping vice in awe, and virtue in countenance, by the check, 

 and by the animation of their presence — or to shut themselves up from 

 mankind as from contagion, depriving society of the influence of their 

 example, and leaving the vacant space to be filled by the idle and the 

 vicious — is a question which the reader, according to his preconceived 

 opinions and practice, will determine. Doctor Parr was the last relic 

 of a former and a distinguished age ; and if his epitaph were to consist 

 only of two words, expressive of the two leading principles of his life, 

 they might be thus summed — " in politics, liberty ; in religion, tole- 

 ration." His character cannot be better concluded, than in the em- 

 phatic words he addressed to the author in the year 1819: — " I am 

 now seventy-two years old, and I can safely say, that through the 

 course of my long life, I have never, in a single instance, deceived man 

 or woman." 



THE WARNING. 



Trust not to Love ! shun the treacherous boy. 



Whoso pinion fair is ever spread for flight. 

 And gaze not on the witching smiles of joy. 



Which beam for ever from his e3'es of light ; 

 For in that radiant glance, so sweet and coy. 



Lurk deadliest spells th' enamoured heart to blight, 

 Infelt, the soul's high freedom to destroy, 



And plunge it in his slavery's darkest night. 

 Then scorn the boy, and shun his wreathy chain ; 



For Beauty's magic wove the fatal flowers. 

 Culled by her hand from heavenly field and plain. 



And twined in Cytherea's fairest bowers. 

 O, who in such weak bondage would complain, 



When Heaven's gigantic fabric round him towers ! 

 And high to soar through being's boundless reign. 



All nature calls his soul's immortal powers. 

 Where wrapt in gloom her dazzling glories he, 

 To meet in splendour hio aspiring eye I . 



L.P. 



I 



