exercised by Lady Blessington over the most eminent persons of her time in statesmanship or in literature, have been withheld from publication, from a desire to insert no letters in these volumes except on account of some intrinsic value and interest in such correspondence. These omitted letters include communications from Mr. Canning, Lords Hutchinson, Grey, Rosslyn, Beresford, Lyndhurst, Brougham, Durham, Jersey, Ashburnham, Aberdeen, Morpeth, Glenelg, Westmoreland, Abinger, Normanby, Auckland, Chesterfield, Douro, Castlereagh, Strangford, Holland, Clanricarde, the Marquess Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington, Sir T. Lawrence, Sir Alured Clerk, Sir F. Burdett, Sir Edwin Landseer, Sir E. B. Lytton, Sir H. Bulwer, Sir W. Sommerville. Moore, Campbell, Rogers, Byron, Barry Cornwall, Lady Tankerville, Miss Landor, Mrs. Romer, Mrs. Sigourney, Mrs. Mathews, Miss Louisa Sheridan, Madame Guiccioli, Mademoiselle Rachel. Vicomte D'Arlincourt, the Duc D'Ossuna, le Prince Schwartzenburg, le Prince Soutza, le Prince Belvidere, W. S. Landor, the Right Hon. B. D'Israeli, Dickens, Fonblanque, Forster, Sergeant Talfourd, the Hon. Spencer Cooper, Wilkie, Maclise, Wyatt, Unwin, Eugene Sue, Alfred de Vigny, Casimir Delavigne, Colonel D'Aguilar, Hay, Dr. Parr, Dr. Lardner, Dr. Quin, Dr. Beattie, James and Horace Smith, Macready, C. Greville, C. J. Mathews, Jekyll, Jack Fuller, Leitch Ritchie, Baillie Cochrane, Bernal Osborne, B. Simmonds, F. Mansell Reynolds, Theodore Hook, J. H. Jesse, Henry Chester, J. G. Wilkinson, Washington Irving, Kenyon, Luttrell, Hon. R. Spencer, Thackeray, Albert Smith, Jerdan, Haynes Bailey, &c., &c., &c. CHAPTER XIII. DOCTOR SAMUEL PARR, LL.D, THIS celebrated Greek scholar and eminent critic was born at Harrow-on-the-Hill in 1746. He was educated at Harrow, and Emmanuel College, Cambridge. In 1769 he entered into orders. He established a school at Stanmore, and superintended schools in Colchester and Norwich, before he obtained the rectory at Asterby in 1780, and a prebend's stall in the Cathedral of St. Paul in 1781. The perpetual curacy of Hatton, near Norwich, was conferred on him in 1785. In 1791, the riots at Birmingham, which proved destructive to the property of Dr. Priestley, extended to Hatton, and the property of Dr Parr, on account of his friendship with Dr. Priestley, and his own liberal principles, was endangered. The following year Dr. Parr exchanged his perpetual curacy at Hatton for a rectory in Northamptonshire. Early in 1793 he began to contribute to "The British Critic,' and later wrote much in "The Classical Journal." In 1802 Sir Francis Burdett presented him to the rectory of Graffham in Huntingdonshire. The doctor's strong Whiggish principles, when Mr. Fox came into power, it is said, weighed down the merits of his erudition and theological acquirements in the estimation of the king, and prevented a bishopric being given him. He died in March, 1825, in his eightieth year, like the celebrated linguist and scholar Mezzofanti, leaving behind few records of his vast erudition. All the remains of Dr. Parr are comprised in a Collection of Sermons; a Tract on Education, and the plans pursued by Charity Schools," 4to, 1786; a Preface to Bellendenus de Statu, and "A Letter from Irenopolis to the Inhabitants of Eleutheropolis, or a Serious Address to the Inhabitants of Birmingham," in 1792; "Character of the late Charles James Fox, by Philopatris Varvicensis," 2 vols. 8vo, 1809, and some ephemeral pamphlets, occasioned by his critical disputes and controversies with Dr. Charles Combe and others. "Of Bentley's feuds-of Porson's-Parr's few remains are left; and mankind would be nothing the worse if their battles had never been waged at all. Dr. Parr was renowned for his smoking, even more than Dr Isaac Barrow. He would empty twenty pipes of an evening in his own house, but when he was on his good behavior in fashionable circles, it is said he pined after the weed. About two years before his death he was introduced by Mr. Pettigrew to Lady Blessington, and was so charmed by her appearance, manners, and conversation, that he would willingly, at any time, have relinquished his pipe ever after for the pleasure of her society. After the first interview, he spoke to Mr. Pettigrew of her as the gorgeous Lady Blessington. LETTERS FROM DR. PARR TO LADY BLESSINGTON. "Hatton, January 26th, 1822. "May it please your ladyship to accept the tribute of my best thanks for the present of a gorgeous cake, which does equal honor to your courtesy and your taste. It reached me last night. It seized the admiration of my wife and two Oxford friends. They gazed upon its magnitude. They eulogized the coloring and the gilding of the figures with raptures. They listened gladly to the tales which I told about the beautiful, ingenious, and noble donor. I perceive that your ladyship's gift was sent by the Crown Prince coach, which I had pointed out, and upon which I depend chiefly. My wife and my cook, and her auxiliary, are waiting, with some anxiety, for a magnificent turbot, with which Lord Blessington intends to decorate the banquet. "You may be assured that grateful and honorable mention of your names will be made in our toasts. I shall write to Lord Blessington when I know the fate of the fish. "As it did not come by the Crown Prince, possibly it may be conveyed by the mail, which passes my door about nine, or by the Liverpool, which passes about the middle of the day. "My village peal of eight bells is ringing merrily, and I wish that you and Lord Blessington were here, the witnesses of their music. "I probably shall visit the capital in the spring, and, with the permission of your ladyship and Lord Blessington, I shall pay my personal compliments to you in St. James's Square. I have the honor to be, with the greatest respect, my lady, your ladyship's faithful well-wisher and much obliged humble servant, S. PARR." "January 27th, 1822. "INGENIOUS AND HONORED LADY BLESSINGTON,-Accept my praise as a critic, and my best thanks as a well-wisher, for the honor which you have done me in sending me a most elegant poetical congratulation on the return of the anniversary of my birth-day. Lady Blessington, I have ventured to impress three kisses upon the precious communication, and I will order it to be preserved among my papers as a memorial of your ladyship's taste and courtesy. The cake, from its magnitude and its richness, would have adorned the table of a cardinal. Be assured, Lady Blessington, that not only was your name pronounced in the second toast with that of the Duke of Sussex and some other contributors to the dainties, but that I took an opportunity to speak about the gracefulness of your person and the lustre of your talents. I hope, in the spring, that we shall meet together, and talk upon many interesting subjects which must present themselves to our minds. "Soon after the conclusion of my first letter, another coach brought me Lord Blessington's magnificent turbot, and a very eminent scholar bestowed a classical eulogium on the "Spatium admirabili rhombi.' "Lord Blessington will tell you that the expression occurs in the fourth satire of Juvenal, and if you have a translation, pray amuse yourself with an account of Domitian's feast, and his guests, and his wicked nature, when a huge fish had been presented to him, and he had summoned his trembling companions to the banquet. I am sure that Lord Blessington will like to refresh his memory, and, after certain military outrages at Manchester, Hyde Park Corner, and Kensington, I shall applaud his lordship for committing to memory the whole sixteenth satire of Juvenal. The composition is less adorned than many of the other satires; but his lordship may take my word for it that it came from the pen of Juvenal, and there will be found in it abundance of matter applicable to the odious and alarming occurrences which disgrace the government of the English Sardanapalus. Pray tell my lord that, with allusion to the notorious voluptuary, a friend of his lordship has put together a most proper and most poignant epitaph for George the Fourth. Give my best compliments to your lively sister, and permit me to have the honor to subscribe myself, dear madam, your faithful well-wisher, and respectful, obedient servant, "S. PARR." LETTER FROM MISS EMILY CALCRAFT TO LADY BLESSINGTON IN RELATION TO DR. PARR. "DEAR LADY BLESSINGTON,-I have the pleasure to send you Mr. Horseman's excellent parody of a libel on Dr. Parr, together with his letter, and the doctor's prompt and courteous reply. I beg you will excuse the paper having been much read; you are welcome, if you please, to copy it, but let it be only for yourself. "I have transcribed for your ladyship the brilliant oratorical passage which Lord Erskine was accustomed to ascribe to Viscount Strafford, and I have written a few lines to Dr. Parr's executors, which, should you determine upon addressing them, you may employ as the envelope of your communication. "To these papers I venture to add two letters, containing most interesting traits of Dr. Parr's character. I trust to your good nature to credit my showing them on this account, rather than because the notice taken in them of my pamphlet is so partial. "I am, with great truth, your ladyship's obliged and sincere EMILY CALCRAFT." LETTER TO DR. PARR FROM THE REV. MR. HORSEMAN. “REV. SIR,—In a shameful and shameless newspaper, misnamed 'John Bull,' there appeared, last Monday, a miserable attack upon a character held in the highest estimation by the wisest and best of mankind. From a Tory acquaintance of mine, this infamous paper reached me last Saturday, and today I happened to go to Royston, where I desired the agent at that place for the 'Cambridge Independent Press' newspaper to forward to the proprietor for insertion in his next paper, what, upon the spur of the occasion, I hit off as I drove, in the shape of an answer. "I take the liberty of sending you both these trifles for your amusement. It would give me far greater pleasure had I the ability and opportunity to express in a better way, and more worthy of the very accomplished and distinguished personage so grossly and wretchedly libeled, my sincere admiration of his acute genius, his deep learning, his sound piety, and his unaffected virtue. "I paid a delightful visit last November to your most excellent friend, Mr. Coke, and hope again to accept the kindly proffered hospitality of Holkham, when it would very considerably add to my gratification were I to have the good fortune to be honored with an introduction to Dr. Parr, whom I have seen only at Oxford and Cambridge, with whose learned and liberal publications I am familiar, and of whose personal character I know enough to be anxious to know more. Should you think proper to notice the receipt of this communication, I shall be much flattered by a letter directed to the Rev. John Horseman, Heydon Royston. "I have the honor to be, reverend sir, with the profoundest esteem, your most obedient and very humble servant, JOHN HORSEMAN." From the "John Bull," August 23d, 1821. "RECIPE FOR COMPOUNDING A POLITICAL RADICAL, D.D., A.S.S., &c., &c. "To half of Busby's skill in mood and tense, Add Bentley's pedantry without his sense; From Warburton take all the spleen you find, But leave his genius and his wit behind; Squeeze Churchill's rancor from the verse it flows in, And knead it stiff with Johnston's turgid prosing; Add all the piety of Saint Voltaire, Mix the gross compounds-Fiat-Dr. Parr. ANSWER. "Q. IN THE CORNER." "To more than Busby's skill in mood and tense, |