THE REVEREND DR. PARR. WITH A PORTRAIT. THE lives of men engaged in literary pursuits very seldom abound in rich and curious stores for biographical research; and nothing certainly occurs in that of the subject of the present sketch to exempt it from the application of this general remark. Dr. Samuel Parr was born on the 26th of January, at Harrow on the Hill, where his father exercised the profession of a surgeon with considerable reputation. He was placed in 1758 at Harrow school, (a seminary long celebrated for producing accomplished scholars and distinguished characters) and was head boy at the age of fourteen. Dr. Sumner, then master of the school, held his talents in such high esteem as to appoint him one of the sub-preceptors in a few years after; and it was, we understand, by the admonitions of Dr. Parr, that Mr. Sheridan, then a boy in the lower forms, was roused from his natural indolence, and induced to cultivate, with care, those extraordinary powers which have been since displayed with so much brilliancy in the theatre and the senate. Previously to his appointment as principal assistant at Harrow, he had been entered of Emanuel college, Cambridge, where he soon became conspicuous by his classical acquirements, and the spirit and energy with which his academic exercises were written. On the death of Dr. Sumner, he was prevailed upon by the advice of his friends to become a candidate for the place of master; but although their hopes of success were sanguine, his youth proved an insuperable objection. Disappointed in the attainment of an object which promised an affluent and respectable settle ment, Dr. Parr left Harrow, and established a school at Stanmore. After a residence of some years at Stanmore, he was appointed in 1777 master of the endowed school at Colchester; and was next year promoted to the superintendance of the grammar school at Norwich, a situation of considerable emolument. Although he had been ordained in 1769, while at Harrow, he had been either negligent of acquiring fame as a preacher, or no proper opportunity had presented itself since that period, for we find that his first claim to eminence, in the eloquence of the pulpit, is derived from two sermons delivered at Norwich, for the benefit of the charity schools of that city. These discourses, which were justly admired for soundness of doctrine, pathetic invocation, and perspicuity and force of language, have been since published. The patronage of Bishop Lowth, obtained, as it is generally supposed, by the extraordinary merit of his first sermon, conferred on him a prebend in the cathedral of St. Paul; and in 1785 he was presented by Lady Trafford to the perpetual curacy of Hatton, situated in the vicinity of Warwick. He was admitted in 1781, by VOL. 2.-No. 9. X by the University of Oxford, to the degree of L. L. D. while at Norwich; and having resigned his school in that city, he retired to the village of Hatton, where he confined himself to the tuition of seven pupils. With the exception of his sermons the Doctor was hitherto unknown as a writer; but his preface to the three books of Bellendenus de Statu, and his dedication for each part, render him an object of general enquiry and eulogium, on the part of the learned, who candidly admitted, that in point of strength of sentiment, purity of style, and the curiosa felicitas of expression, they were not inferior to the most finished pieces of modern latinity. His reply to Dr. Combe's Statement of Facts, also gave him a distinguished rank as an author in his own language. In 1789 he came forward as the editor of tracts, by Warburton, and a Warburtonian, not admitted into the collection of their respective works. To this publication he appears to have been induced by the marked neglect of the Bishop of Worcester, by whom the tracts were omitted in his superb edition of Warburton's Works. The dedication and preface to the two tracts of a Warburtonian, which conclude the volume, are perhaps the happiest of Dr. Parr's compositions. Of the literary disputes in which he has been engaged we shall take no notice. The revival of such subjects could not tend to any benefit; and we shall content ourselves with observing, that in all his controversies he has given several fine specimens of sound argument, true wit, spirited satire, and manly eloquence, Dr. Parr is unquestionably one of those writers, who, from the injudicious choice of their subjects, cannot hope to instruct or en tertain posterity; nor can the impartial critic defend with any consistency, the phraseology, at once quaint and redundant, of which he is too frequently guilty. He affects in too many instances to imitate the turn, the construction, and the vigorous amplification of Johnson. A single specimen of his style will be sufficient to establish the propriety of this remark. Speaking of the attempt to burn his house and library at Hatton, which was meditated by the mob of Birmingham, during the riots of 1791, in consequence of his supposed intimacy with Dr. Priestley, he exclaims, "And was it for this, that in a season of deep distress and dreadful danger, my principles were on a sudden gnawed at by vermin whisperers, and worried by brutal reproaches? That my house was marked out for conflagration? That my family were, for three days and three nights, agitated by consternation and dismay? That my books, which I have long been collecting with indefatigable industry, upon which I have expended more than half the produce of more than twenty years unwearied labour, and which I considered as the pride of my youth, the employment of my riper age, and, perhaps, the best solace of declining life,-w -was it for this, I say, that my books were exposed to most unexpected, most unmerited destruction?" In 1801.] AND IMPERIAL REGISTER. In private life the character of Dr. Parr is in every respect irreproachable. He has uniformly proved himself an affectionate husband, a tender parent, and a zealous and disinterested friend. His manners are plain and unaffected, and although his conversation abounds in the sequipedalia verba, it is frequently entertaining, and never uninstructive. As a preceptor, his merits claim peculiar notice; and his mode of instruction, in the higher classes, has been attended with the most important advantages to his pupils. Not satisfied with communicating to them a radical knowledge of the Greek and Latin languages, he enlarged their faculties, and refined their taste, by making them compare the sentiments and style of writing, for which the principal authors of antiquity were distinguished, with those of our most enlightened moderns. Whilst they were engaged in the study of Eschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles, Shakespeare and Milton were not neglected; and the philosophy of Aristotle, Cicero, and Seneca, was almost uniformly illustrated and corrected by the discoveries and science of Bacon, Newton, and Locke. Dr. Parr married Miss Maisendale shortly after he was ordained. He has had several children, of whom only two daughters survive. The Influence of Free Masonry upon Society, philosophically enquired into: with an Account of the Institution. T may be observed, that Solon, Lycurgus, Numa, and all the other political legislators, have not been able to render their establishments durable; and that, however sagacious might have been their laws, they had at no time the power to expand themselves over all countries, and in all ages. Having little more in view than victories and conquests, military violence, and the elevation of one people above another, they were never universal, nor consonant to the taste, or genius, or interest of all nations. Philanthropy was not their basis. The love of country, badly understood, and pushed into limits on which they should not verge, often destroys in warlike republics, the love of general humanity. Men are not to be essentially distinguished by the difference of tongues which they speak, of clothes which they wear, of countries which they inhabit, nor of dignities with which they are ornamented. The whole world is no other than one great republic, of which each nation is a family, and each individual a child. It was to revive and re-animate such maxims, that the society, of free masons was first instituted. The great and first design was to unite all men of sense, knowledge, and worthy qualities, not only by a reciprocal love of the fine arts, but still more by the great principles of virtue, where the interest of the fraternity might become that of the whole human race; where all nations might increase in knowledge; and where every subject, of every country, might exert himself without jealousy, live without discord, and embrace mutually without forgetting, or too scrupulously remembering, the spot in which he was born. The sanctity, which attends the moral qualities of this society is the next branch of the subject worthy of observation. Religious 152 THE UNION MAGAZINE gious orders were instituted to make men more perfect christians: military orders were founded to inspire a love of glory but the order of masonry was instituted to moralize and form men into good citizens and good subjects; to make them faithful to their promises-sincere votaries to the god of friendship-humane, and more lovers of liberality than of wealth. But free masonry is not bounded by the display of virtues merely civil. As a severe, savage, sorrowful, and misanthropic kind of philosophy, disgusts its votaries, so the establishment under consideration, renders men amiable by the attraction of innocent pleasures, pure joys, and rational gaieties. The sentiments of this society are not such as a world which love ridicule, may be tempted to suppose. Every vice of the head and the heart is excluded. Libertinism, irreligion, incredulity, and debauchery, are banished as unqualified. The meetings of the masons resemble those amiable entertainments spoken of by Horace, where all those are made welcome guests, whose understandings. may be enlightened, whose hearts may be mended, or who may be any way emulous to excel in the good or the great From the society in question, are banished all those disputes, which might affect the tranquility of friendship, or interrupt that perfect harmony, which cannot subsist but by rejecting allindecent excesses, and every discordant passion. The obligation, imposed upon this order, is, that every member is to protect a brother, by his authority; to edify him by his virtues; to assist him in every exigence; to sacrifice personal resentment; and to seek diligently for every thing that may contribute to the pleasure and profit of the society. True it is, that this society hath its secrets: but let not those who are not initiated, laugh at the confession: for those figurative signs, and sacred words, which constitute, among free masons, a language sometimes mute and sometimes eloquent, will prevent imposition, communicating at the greatest distance, and distinguish the true member from the false, of whatever country be. or tongue he may Another quality required of those who enter into the order of free masonry, is a taste for all useful sciences, and liberal arts of all kinds. Thus the decorum expected from each of the members, is a work which no academy nor university has so well established. The name of free mason, therefore, ought not to be taken in- a literal sense, as if the institutors had been really workers in stone and in marble. There were not only able architects, but many princes, both warlike and religious, dedicated their talents and their fortunes, under this banner, to the Most High. In the times of the holy wars in Palestine, a great number of princes, nobles, and citizens, entered into a scheme to establish christian temples in the holy land; and engaged themselves to employ their talents and fortunes to give them all the primitive advantages of architecture. They agreed amongst themselves to use certain signs and symbolical words to distinguish themselves. These mysteries were never communicated but to those who solemnly promised at the foot of the altar, never to reveal them. But this sacred promise, so far from being the impious and unmean ing ing oath which some people imagine, was a respectable guarantee, in order to unite men of all nations in the same confraternity. Free masonry, therefore, ought not to be looked upon as a revival of bacchanalian dissipation, or scandalous intemperance; but as a moral order, instituted by virtuous men, with a view to recall the remembrance of the most sublime truths, in the midst of the most innocent and social pleasures, founded on liberality, morality, and charity. The kings, princes, and noblemen, on their return from the holy land, established a number of lodges: and in the time of the last crusade, we find several of these were erected in Germany, Italy, France and Spain. King James of Scotland was grand master of a lodge established at Kilwinnen, in the year 1286, a short time after the death of Alexander the third, one year before Baliol mounted the throne. This prince received into his lodge, the earls of Gloucester and Ulster. After the expiration of the crusades, the discomfiture of the christian armies, and the triumph of Bendoeder, sultan of Egypt. Henry III. of England, seeing there was no longer any security for the masons in the holy land, led them from Palestine, and established his colony of brothers in England. As prince Edward was endowed with all those qualities of the heart and understanding, which form the hero, he publicly declared himself protector of the order; and gave it the name of the free mason society. From England, the institution passed into France and spread itself into Germany, under the protection and patronage of the late king of Prussia. At this time, it flourishes in all the civilized states of Europe and America, also in the European settlements in the East Indies, Its universality is a proof of its value and worthy tendency: aud if, by means of this short essay, any one acquires a clearer idea of its origin and intent than he had before, the pains and purpose of writing it will be amply answered. Petition of an African Slave, to the Legislature of Massachusets. THAT 1 |