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by which we may prevent them from degenerating into excess. Rapine and revenge are not less natural than parental and filial affection; which latter class of feelings may themselves be a source of crimes, if they overpower (as they frequently do) the sense of justice. It is not, therefore, a sufficient justification of our actions, that they are natural. We must seek, from our reason, some principle which will enable us to determine what impulses of nature we are to obey, and what we are to resist: such is that of general utility, or, what is the same thing, of universal good; a principle which sanctifies and limits the more particular affections. The duty of a son to a parent, or a parent to a son, is not an `ultimate principle of morals, but depends on the principle of universal good, and is only praiseworthy, because it is found to promote it. At the same time, our spheres of action and intelligence are so confined, that it is better, in a great majority of instances, to suffer our conduct to be guided by those affections which have been long sanctioned by the approbation of mankind, than to enter into a process of reasoning, and investigate the relation which every trifling event might bear to the general interests of the world. In his principle of universal benevolence, Mr. Godwin is unquestionably right. That it is the grand principle on which all morals rest-that it is the corrective for the excess of all particular affections, we believe to be undeniable: and he is only erroneous in excluding the particular affections, because, in so doing, he deprives us of our most powerful means of promoting his own principle of universal good; for it is as much as to say, that all the crew ought to have the general welfare of the ship so much at heart, that no sailor should ever pull any particular rope, or hand any individual sail. By universal benevolence, we mean, and understand Dr. Parr to mean, not a barren affection for the species, but a desire to promote their real happiness; and of this principle, he thus speaks:

'I admit, and I approve of it, as an emotion of which general happiness is the cause, but not as a passion, of which, according to the usual order of human affairs. it could often be the object.

I approve of it as a disposition to wish, and, as opportunity may occur, to desire and do good, rather than harm, to those with whom we are quite unconnected.'

It would appear, from this kind of language, that a desire of promoting the universal good were a pardonable weakness, rather than a fundamental principle of ethics; that the particular affections were incapable of excess; and that they never wanted the corrective of a more generous and exalted feeling. In a subsequent part of his sermon, Dr. Parr atones a little for this overzealous depreciation of the principle of universal benevolence; but he nowhere states the particular affections to derive their value and their limits from their subservience to a more extensive philanthropy. He does not show us that they exist only as virtues, from their instrumentality in promoting the general good; and that, to preserve their true character, they should be frequently referred to that principle as their proper

criterion.

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In the latter part of his sermon, Dr. Parr combats the general objections of Mr. Turgot to all charitable institutions, with considerable vigour and success. say that an institution is necessarily bad, because it will not always be administered with the same zeal, proves a little too much; for it is an objection to political and religious, as well as to charitable institutions; and, from a lively apprehension of the fluctuating characters of those who govern, would leave the world without any government at all. It is better there should be an aslyum for the mad, and a hospital for the wounded, if they were to squander away 50 per cent. of their income, than that they should be disgusted with sore limbs, and shocked by straw-crowned monarchs in the streets. institutions of this kind must suffer the risk of being governed by more or less of probity and talents. The good which one active character effects, and the wise order which he establishes, may outlive him for a long period; and we all hate each other's crimes, by which we gain nothing, so much, that in proportion as public opinion acquires ascendency in any particular country,

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every public institution becomes more and more guaranteed from abuse.

Upon the whole, this sermon is rather the production of what is called a sensible, than of a very acute man; of a man certainly more remarkable for his learning than his originality. It refutes the very refutable positions of Mr. Godwin, without placing the doctrine of benevolence in a clear light; and it almost leaves us to suppose, that the particular affections are themselves. ultimate principles of action, instead of convenient instruments of a more general principle.

The style is such, as to give a general impression of heaviness to the whole sermon. The Doctor is never simple and natural for a single instant. Every thing smells of the rhetorician. He never appears to forget himself, or to be hurried by his subject into obvious language. Every expression seems to be the result of artifice and intention; and as to the worthy dedicatees, the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, unless the sermon be done into English by a person of honour, they may perhaps be flattered by the Doctor's politeness, but they can never be much edified by his meaning. Dr. Parr seems to think, that eloquence consists not in an exuberance of beautiful images-not in simple and sublime conceptions-not in the feelings of the passions; but in a studious arrangement of sonorous, exotic, and sesquipedal words: a very ancient error, which corrupts the style of young, and wearies the patience of sensible men. In some of his combinations of words the Doctor is singularly unhappy. We have the din of superficial cavillers, the prancings of giddy ostentation, fluttering vanity, hissing scorn, dank clod, &c. &c. &c. The following intrusion of a technical word into a pathetic description renders the whole passage almost ludicrous.

Within a few days, mute was the tongue that uttered these celestial sounds, and the hand which signed your indenture lay cold and motionless in the dark and dreary chambers of death.'

In page 16. Dr. Parr, in speaking of the indentures of the Hospital, a subject (as we should have

thought) little calculated for rhetorical panegyric, says

of them

'If the writer of whom I am speaking had perused, as I have, your indentures and your rules, he would have found in them seriousness without austerity, earnestness without extravagance, good sense without the trickeries of art, good language without the trappings of rhetoric, and the firmness of conscious worth, rather than the prancings of giddy ostentation.'

The latter member of this eloge would not be wholly unintelligible, if applied to a spirited coach horse; but we have never yet witnessed the phenomenon of a prancing indenture.

It is not our intention to follow Dr. Parr through the copious and varied learning of his notes; in the perusal of which we have been as much delighted with the richness of his acquisitions, the vigour of his understanding, and the genuine goodness of his heart, as we have been amused with the ludicrous self-importance, and the miraculous simplicity of his character. We would rather recommend it to the Doctor to publish an annual list of worthies, as a kind of stimulus to literary men; to be included in which, will unquestionably be considered as great an honour, as for a commoner to be elevated to the peerage. A line of Greek, a line of Latin, or no line at all, subsequent to each name, will distinguish, with sufficient accuracy, the shades of merit, and the degree of immortality conferred.

Why should Dr. Parr confine this eulogomania to the literary characters of this island alone? In the university of Benares, in the lettered kingdom of Ava, among the Mandarins at Pekin, there must, doubtless, be many men who have the eloquence of *Bappovos, the feeling of Ταιλωρος, and the judgment of Ωκηρος, of whom Dr. Parr might be happy to say, that they have profundity without obscurity-perspicuity without prolixity-ornament without glare-terseness without barrenness-penetra

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* Πάντες μὲν σοφοί. ἐγὼ δε κηρον μὲν σέβω, θαυμάζω δὲ Βάῤῥουον, καὶ φιλῶ Talλwpor. See Lucian in Vita Dæmonact. vol. ii. p. 394.-(Dr. Parr's note.)

tion without subtlety-comprehensiveness without digression—and a great number of other things without a great number of other things.

In spite of 32 pages of very close printing, in defence of the University of Oxford, is it, or is it not true, that very many of its professors enjoy ample salaries, without reading any lectures at all? The character of particular colleges will certainly vary with the character of their governors; but the University of Oxford so far differs from Dr. Parr in the commendation he has bestowed upon its state of public education, that they have, since the publication of his book, we believe, and forty years after Mr. Gibbon's residence, completely abolished their very ludicrous and disgraceful exercises for degrees, and have substituted in their place a system of exertion, and a scale of academical honours, calculated (we are willing to hope) to produce the happiest effects.

We were very sorry, in reading Dr. Parr's note on the Universities, to meet with the following passage:

Ill would it become me tamely and silently to acquiesce in the strictures of this formidable accuser upon a seminary to which I owe many obligations, though I left it, as must not be dissembled, before the usual time, and, in truth, had been almost compelled to leave it, not by the want of a proper education, for I had arrived at the first place in the first form of Harrow School, when I was not quite fourteen-not by the want of useful tutors, for mine were eminently able, and to me had been uniformly kind-not by the want of ambition, for I had begun to look up ardently and anxiously to academical distinctions-not by the want of attachment to the place, for I regarded it then, as I continue to regard it now, with the fondest and most unfeigned affection-but by another want, which it were necessary to name, and for the supply of which, after some hesitation, I determined to provide by patient toil and resolute self-denial, when I had not completed my twentieth year. I ceased, therefore, to reside, with an aching heart: I looked back with mingled feelings of regret and humiliation to advantages of which I could no longer partake, and honours to which I could no longer aspire.'

To those who know the truly honourable and respectable character of Dr. Parr, the vast extent of his learn

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