of our own youthful experience at second hand in respect to Dr Parr and his colloquial prowess. When we add, that in those years of teeming and fermenting intellects, at a crisis so agitating for human interests upon the very highest scale, no mere philologist or grammaticaster -though he had been the very best of his class-could have held much space in our thoughts; and, with respect to Dr Parr in particular, when we say that all avenues to our esteem had been foreclosed from our boyish days by one happy sarcasm of the Pursuits of Literature, where Parr had been nicknamed, in relation to his supposed model, the Birmingham Doctor; and, finally, when we assure the reader that he was the one sole specimen of a Whig parson that we had ever so much as heard of within the precincts of the Church of England;-laying together all this, it may be well presumed, that we did not anticipate much pleasure or advantage from an hour's admission to Dr Parr's society. In reality, having heard all the fine colloquial performers of our own times, we recoiled from the bare possibility of being supposed to participate in the curiosity or the interest which, in various degrees, possessed most of those who on that morning surrounded us. The scene of this little affair was-a front drawing-room in the London mansion of one of Dr Parr's friends. Here was collected a crowd of morning visitors to the lady of the house: and in a remote back drawing-room was heard, at intervals, the clamorous laugh of Dr Samuel Parr, then recently arrived from the country upon a visit to his London friend. The miscellaneous company assembled were speedily apprised who was the owner of that obstreperous laugh-so monstrously beyond the key of good society; it transpired, also, who it was that provoked the laugh; it was the very

celebrated Bobus Smith. And, as a hope was expressed that one or both of these gentlemen might soon appear amongst us, most of the company lingered in the reasonable expectation of seeing Dr Sam,-we ourselves, on the slender chance of seeing Mr Bobus. Many of our junior readers, who cannot count back far beyond the year in question, (1812,) are likely to be much at a loss for the particular kind of celebrity, which illustrated a name so little known to fame in these present days, as this of Bobus Smith. We interrupt, therefore, our little anecdote of Dr Parr, with the slightest outline of Mr Smith's story and his pretensions. Bobus, then, (who drew his nickname, we conjecture, though the o was pronounced long, from subscribing the abbreviated form of Bobus, for his full name Robertus)—a brother of the Rev. Sydney Smith,who now reposes from his jovial labours in the Edinburgh Review, upon the bosom of some luxurious English Archdeaconry,-had first brought himself into great notice at Cambridge by various specimens of Latin verse, in the Archaic style of Lucretius. These we have sought for in vain; and, indeed, it appears from a letter of Mr Smith's to Dr Parr, that the author himself has retained no copies. These Latin verses, however, were but bagatelles of sport. Mr Smith's serious efforts were directed to loftier objects. We had been told, as early as 1806, (how truly we cannot say,) that Mr Bobus had publicly avowed his determination of first creating an ample fortune in India, and then returning home to seize the post of Prime Minister, as it were by storm; not that he could be supposed ignorant, how indispensable it is in ordinary cases, that good fortune, as well as splendid connexions, should concur with commanding talents, to such a result. But a condition, which for

other men might be a sine quâ non, for himself he ventured to waive, in the audacity, said our informant, of conscious intellectual supremacy. So at least the story went. And for some years, those who had heard it continued to throw anxious gazes towards the Eastern climes, which detained her destined premier from England. At length came a letter from Mr Bobus, saying, "I'm coming." The fortune was made: so much, at least, of the Cambridge menace had been fulfilled; and in due time Bobus arrived. He took the necessary steps for prosecuting his self-created mission: he caused himself to be returned to Parliament for some close borough: he took his seat on a fitting occasion he prepared to utter his maiden oration for that purpose he raised himself boltupright upon his pins: all the world was hushed and on tiptoe when it was known that Bobus was on his legs you might have heard a pin drop. At this critical moment of his life, upon which, as it turned out, all his vast cloud-built fabrics of ambition were suspended, when, if ever, he was called upon to rally, and converge all his energies, suddenly his presence of mind forsook him: he faltered: rudder and compass slipped away from him: and-oh! Castor and Pollux !-Bobus foundered! nor, from that day to this, has he been heard of in the courts of ambition. This catastrophe had occurred some time before the present occasion; and an event which had entirely extinguished the world's interest in Mr Bobus Smith had more

than doubled ours. Consequently we waited with much solicitude. At length the door opened; which recalls us from our digression into the high-road of our theme; for not Mr Bobus Smith, but Dr Parr entered. Nobody announced him; and we were left to collect his name from his dress and his conversation. Hence it happened, that for some time we were disposed to question ourselves whether this might not be Mr Bobus even, (little as it could be supposed to resemble him,) rather than Dr Parr, so much did he contradict all our rational preconceptions. "A "A man," said we, "who has insulted people so outrageously, ought not to have done this in single reliance upon

Dr

his professional protections; a brave man, and a man of honour, would here have carried about with him, in his manner and deportment, some such language as this,' Do not think that I shelter myself under my gown from the natural consequences of the affronts I offer; mortal combats I am forbidden, sir, as a Christian minister, to engage in; but, as I find it impossible to refrain from occasional license of tongue, I am very willing to fight a few rounds, in a ring, with any gentleman who fancies himself ill-used.'" Let us not be misunderstood; we do not contend that Dr Parr should often, or regularly, have offered this species of satisfaction. But we do insist upon it—that no man should have given the very highest sort of provocation so wantonly as Dr Parr is recorded to have done, unless conscious that, in a last extremity, he was ready, like a brave man, to undertake a short turn-up, in a private room, with any person whatsoever whom he had insulted past endurance. A doctor, who had so often tempted a cudgeling, ought himself to have had some ability to cudgel. Johnson assuredly would have acted on that principle. Had volume the second of that same folio with which he floored Osborn, happened to lie ready to the prostrate man's grasp, nobody can suppose that Johnson would have gainsaid his right to retaliate; in which case, a regular succession of rounds would have been established. Considerations such as these, and the Doctor's undeniable reputation (granted even by his most admiring biographers) as a sanguinary flagellator, throughout his long career of pedagogue, had prepared us-nay, entitled us-to expect in Dr Parr a huge carcass of man, fourteen stone at the least. Even his style, pursy and bloated, and his sesquipedalian words, all warranted the same conclusion. Hence, then, our surprise, and the perplexity we have recorded, when the door opened, and a little man, in a buz wig, cut his way through the company, and made for a fauteuil standing opposite to the fire. Into this he lunged; and then forthwith, without preface or apology, began to open his talk upon us. Here arose a new marvel and a greater. If we had been

scandalized at Dr Parr's want of thewes and bulk, conditions so indispensable for enacting the part of Sam. Johnson, much more, and with better reason, were we now petrified with his voice, utterance, gestures, and demeanour. Conceive, reader, by way of counterpoise to the fine* enunciation of Dr Johnson, an infantine lisp-the worst we ever heardfrom the lips of a man above sixty, and accompanied with all sorts of ridiculous grimaces and little stage gesticulations. As he sat in his chair, turning alternately to the right and to the left, that he might dispense his edification in equal proportions amongst us, he seemed the very image of a little French gossiping

abbé.

Yet all that we have mentioned, was, and seemed to be, a trifle by comparison with the infinite pettiness of his matter. Nothing did he utter but little shreds of calumnious tattle-the most ineffably silly and frivolous of all that was then circulating in the Whig salons of London against the Regent. He began precisely in these words: "O! I shall tell you" (laying a stress upon the word shall, which still further aided the resemblance to a Frenchman) "a sto-hee" (lispingly for story)" about the Pince Thegent" (such was his nearest approximation to Prince Regent.) "Oh, the Pince Thegent-the Pince Thegent!-what a sad, sad man he has turned out! But you shall hear. Oh! what a Pince! what a Thegent!-what a sad Pince Thegent!" And so the old babbler went on, sometimes wringing his little hands in lamentation, sometimes flourishing them with French grimaces and shrugs of shoulders, sometimes expanding and contracting his fingers like a fan. After an hour's twaddle of the lowest and most scandalous description, suddenly he rose, and hopped out of the room, exclaiming all the way," Oh! what a Pince, oh, what a Thegent-did any body ever hear of such a sad Pince-such a sad Thegent-such a sad, sad Pince The gent? Oh, what a Pince," &c., da capo.

Not without indignation did we ex

claim to ourselves, on this winding up of the scene, " And so that then, that lithping slander-monger, and retailer of petty scandal and gossip, fit rather for washerwomen over their tea, than for scholars and statesmen, is the champion whom his party propound as the adequate antagonist of Samuel Johnson! Faugh!" We had occasion, in this instance, as in so many others which we have witnessed, to remark the conflict between the natural and the artificial (or adopted) opinions of the world, and the practical triumph of the first. A crowd of ladies were present: most of them had been taught to believe that Dr Parr was a prodigious scholar, and in some mysterious way, and upon something not exactly known or understood except by learned men, a great authority, and, at all events, what is called a public character. Accordingly, upon his first entrance, all of them were awed

deep silence prevailed-and_the hush of indefinite expectation. Two minutes dispersed that feeling; the Doctor spoke, and the spell was broken.

Still, however, and long afterwards, some of them, to our own knowledge, continued to say-" We suppose" (or, "we have been told") "that Dr Parr is the modern Johnson." Their artificial judgments clung to them after they had evidently given way, by a spontaneous movement of the whole company, to the natural impression of Dr Parr's conversation. For no sooner was the style and tendency of Dr Parr's gossip apparent, than a large majority of those present formed themselves into little parties, entered upon their own affairs, and, by a tacit convention, agreed to consider the Doctor as addressing himself exclusively to the lady of the house and her immediate circle. Had Sam. Johnson been the talker, nobody would have presumed to do this; secondly, nobody, out of a regard to his own reputation, would have been so indiscreet as to do this; he would not have acknowledged weariness had he felt it: but, lastly, nobody would have wished to do this weariness was impossible in the presence of Sam. Johnson. Nei

ther let it be said, that perhaps the ladies present were unintellectual, and careless of a scholar's conversation. They were not so: some were distinguished for ability-all were more or less tinctured with literature. And we can undertake to say, that any man of tolerable colloquial powers, speaking upon a proper topic, would have commanded the readiest attention. As it was, every one felt (if she did not even whisper to her neighbour) " Here, at least, is nothing to be learned."

Such was our first interview with Dr Parr; such its issue. And now let us explain our drift in thus detailing its circumstances. Some people will say, the drift was doubtless to exhibit Dr Parr in a disadvantageous light-as a petty gossiper, and a man of mean personal appearance. No; by no means. Far from it! We have a mean personal appearance ourselves; and we love men of mean appearance. Having one spur more than other men to seek distinction in those paths where nature has not obstructed them, they have one additional chance (and a great one) for giving an extended developement to their intellectual powers. Many a man has risen to eminence under the powerful reaction of his mind in fierce counter-agency to the scorn of the unworthy, daily evoked by his personal defects, who with a handsome person would have sunk into the luxury of a careless life under the tranquillizing smiles of continual admiration. Dr Parr, therefore, lost nothing in our esteem by shewing a meanish exterior. Yet even this was worth mentioning, and had a value in reference_to_our present purpose. We like Dr Parr; we may say even, that we love him for some noble qualities of heart that really did belong to him, and were continually breaking out in the midst of his singular infirmities. But this, or

even a still nobler moral character than Dr Parr's, can offer no excuse for giving a false elevation to his intellectual pretensions, and raising him to a level which he will be found incapable of keeping when the props of partial friendship are withdrawn. Our object is to value Dr Parr's claims, and to assign his true station both in literature and in those other walks of life upon which he has come forward as a public man. With such a purpose before us, it cannot be wholly irrelevant to notice even Dr Parr's person, and to say, that it was at once coarse, and in some degree mean; for his too friendly biographers have repeatedly described his personal appearance in flattering terms, and more than once have expressly characterised it as "dignified;" which it was not, according to any possible standard of dignity, but far otherwise; and it is a good inference from such a mistatement to others of more consequence. His person was poor; and his features were those of a clown-coarse, and ignoble, with an air, at the same time, of drollery, that did not sit well upon age, or the gravity of his profession. Upon one feature, indeed, Dr Parr valued himself exceedingly; this was his eye: he fancied that it was peculiarly searching and significant: he conceited, even, that it frightened people; and had a particular form of words for expressing the severe use of this basilisk function: "I inflicted my eye upon him," was his phrase in such cases. But the thing was all a mistake his eye could be borne very well: there was no mischief in it. Doubtless, when a nervous gentleman, in a pulpit, who was generally the subject of these inflictions, saw a comical looking old man, from below, levelling one eye at him, with as knowing an expression as he could throw into it,-mere perplexity as to the motive and proper construction of

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so unseasonable a personality might flutter his spirits; and to the vain, misjudging operator below, might distort this equivocal confusion, arising out of blank ignorance of his meaning, into the language of a conscious and confessing culprit. Explanations, in the nature of the thing, would be of rare occurrence: for some would not condescend to complain; and others would feel that the insult, unless it was for the intention, had scarcely body enough and tangible shape to challenge enquiry. They would anticipate, that the same man, who, in so solemn a situation as that between a congregation and their pastor, could offer such an affront, would be apt to throw a fresh ridicule upon the complaint itself, by saying" Fix my eye upon you, did I? Why, that's all my eye with a vengeance. Look at you, did I? Well, sir, a cat may look at a king." This said in a tone of sneer: and then, with sneer and strut at once, "I trust, sir,-humbly, I take leave to suppose, sir, that Dr Parr is not so obscure a person, not so wholly unknown in this sublunary world, but he may have license to look even at as great a man as the Reverend Mr so-and-so." And thus the worthy doctor would persevere in his mistake, that he carried about with him, in his very homely collection of features, an organ of singular power and effect for detecting hidden guilt.

A mistake at all events it was; and his biographers have gone into it as largely under the delusions of friendship, as he under the delusions of vanity. On this, therefore, we ground what seems a fair inferencethat if, in matters so plain and palpable as the character of a man's person, and the expression of his features, it has been possible for his friends to fall into gross errors and exaggerations, much more may we count upon such fallacies of appreciation in dealing with the subtler qualities of his intellect, and his less determinable pretensions as a scholar. Hence we have noticed these lower and trivial misrepresentations as presumptions with the reader, in aid of our present purpose, for suspecting more weighty instances of the same exaggerating spirit. The animus, which prompted so unserviceable a falsification of the real case, is not

likely to have hesitated in coming upon ground more important to Dr Parr's reputation, and at the same time much more susceptible of a sincere latitude of appraisement, even amongst the neutral. It is with a view to a revision of too partial an adjudication, that we now institute this enquiry. We call the whole estimates to a new audit; and submit the claims of Dr Parr to a more equitable tribunal. Our object, we repeat, is-to assign him his true place, as it will hereafter be finally assigned in the next, or more neutral generation. We would anticipate the award of posterity; and it is no fault of ours, that, in doing so, it will be necessary to hand the doctor down from that throne in the cathedral of English clerical merit, on which the intemperate zeal of his friends has seated him for the moment, into some humble prebendal stall. Far more agreeable it would naturally have been to assist in raising a man unjustly depreciated, than to undertake an office generally so ungracious as that of repressing the presumptuous enthusiasm of partisans, where it may seem to have come forward, with whatever exaggerations, yet still in a service of disinterested friendship, and on behalf of a man who, after all, was undeniably clever, and, in a limited sense, learned. The disinterestedness, however, of that admiration which has gathered about Dr Parr, is not so genuine as it may appear. His biographers (be it recollected) are bigots, who serve their superstition in varnishing their idol: they are Whigs, who miss no opportunity of undervaluing Tories and their cause: they are Dissenters, who value their theme quite as much for the collateral purpose which it favours of attacking the Church of England, as for its direct and avowed one of lauding Dr Parr. Moreover, in the letters (which, in the undigested chaos of Dr Johnstone's collection, form three volumes out of eight) Dr Parr himself obtains a mischievous power, which, in a more regular form of composition, he would not have possessed, and which, as an honest man, we must presume that he would not have desired. Letters addressed to private correspondents, and only by accident reaching the press, have all the license of private conversation. Most of us,