made his first literary attempt in a drama founded on the Book of Ruth. On leaving school, he attended, for two or three years, to his father's business; but more ambitious of literary than surgical distinction, he was, at his own earnest desire, sent to Emanuel College, Cambridge. He entered the university in 1765; but wanting the means to support his continuance there, he soon quitted it, and, in 1767, became first assistant to Dr. Sumner, at Harrow School.

In Christmas, 1769, he was ordained to the curacies of Wilsdon and Kingsbury, Middlesex, which he resigned in the following year; and, in 1771, he was, through the interest of the Duke of Grafton, created A. M. by royal mandate. The degree was conferred upon him to qualify him for the head-mastership of Harrow, vacant by the death of Dr. Sumner; but failing to obtain the situation, he resigned his place of assistant, and opened a school at Stanmore, where he was followed by nearly fifty of the Harrow scholars. Finding, however, after five years' experiment, that his establishment did not answer, he, in 1776, accepted the mastership of Colchester grammar-school, whither he was also followed by several of his scholars. Being ordained priest in the succeeding year, he was presented to the cures of Trinity and Hythe, in Colchester, where he generally preached extempore. In 1778, he obtained the mastership of the Norwich grammarschool; and, in 1780, he was presented, by Lady Trafford, the mother of one of his pupils, to the rectory of Asterley, in Lincolnshire. About the same time, he made his first essay as an author, by the publication of two celebrated sermons on Education; and, in 1781, he took the degree of L.L.D. at Cambridge. In the summer of the same year, he printed A Discourse on the late Fast, by Phileleutherus Norfolciensis, which excited great attention, in consequence of its advertence to the contest with America, and is considered among the best of his productions. In the spring of 1783, Lady Trafford presented him to the perpetual curacy of Hatton, to which he retired; and he was shortly afterwards presented, by Bishop Lowth, to a prebend in St. Paul's Cathedral.

In 1785, he published a quarto vo

lume, containing A Discourse on Education; and, in 1787, he assisted the Rev. Henry Homer in a new edition of the third Book of Bellendenus, dedicated to Mr. Burke, Lord North, and Mr. Fox; of whose characters, and style of oratory, he drew a masterly sketch, in an elegant Latin preface, said to be the most successful modern imitation of the style of Cicero. A translation of the preface being published without his concurrence, in 1788, excited a great sensation in the literary world; and, by giving greater publicity to Parr's sentiments in favour of the popular party, put an end to his hopes of preferment from government. On this account, the leading Whigs made a subscription in his favour, and purchased him a life annuity of £300 per annum. In 1789, he printed Tracts by Warburton and a Warburtonian, not admitted into the collection of their respective works; which, though it is said to have been produced by hostile feelings towards Bishop Hurd, contained some admirable critical remarks. In 1790, he exchanged Hatton for Waddenhoe, in Northamptonshire, but continued to officiate at the former as deputy-curate; and during the same year, he became acquainted with Dr. Priestley. About the same time, he took part in the controversy respecting White's Bampton Lectures, of which, it appeared, he had written nearly one-fifth.

In July, 1791, his intimacy with Priestley, whose house had been recently destroyed by the Birmingham rioters, exposed him to similar danger, and was the occasion of his famous Letter from Irenopolis to the Inhabitants of Eleutheropolis; or, a Serious Address to the Dissenters of Birmingham. In 1793, he became engaged in a controversy with Dr. Combe, the surviving editor of Mr. Homer's edition of Horace, in consequence of his strictures upon the former in The British Critic, to which, as well as The Monthly, and Gentleman's Magazines, Parr appears to have contributed. In 1800, he preached, at Christchurch, Newgate Street, his celebrated spital sermon, the publication of which, with notes, gave rise to a pamphlet by Mr. Godwin, in answer to Parr's attack upon his Political Justice. A writer in The Quarterly Review concurs with his biographer, Dr. Johnstone,

in thinking it "the best, the calmest, and the finest of all Parr's literary productions. It is," continues the same authority, "liberal without being latitudinarian; it conciliates without compromise; it advises without dictation." In 1802, he was presented, by Sir Francis Burdett, to the rectory of Graffham, in Huntingdonshire; and he appears to have been on the point of obtaining a bishopric, in 1807: for "had my friends," he once said to a gentleman, “continued in power one fortnight longer, Dr. Hungerford was to have been translated to Hereford, and I was to have had Gloucester. My family arrangements were made; and I had determined that no clergyman in my diocese, who had occasion to call upon me, should depart without partaking of my dinner;" adding, after a pause of a moment, "in the house of peers I should seldom have opened my mouth, unless -unless (said he, with some warmth) any one had presumed to attack the character of my friend Charles Fox,and then I would have knocked him down with the full torrent of my impetuosity." In 1808, he, a second time, declined leaving Hatton, though offered the valuable rectory of Buckingham, by Mr. Coke, of Holkham; and, on the decease of Fox, he announced his intention of publishing a life of that great man; but the work, which appeared in 1809, under the title of Character of the late Charles James Fox, selected, and in part written, by Philopatris Varvicensis, in two volumes, octavo, did not realize the expectations of the public. From this period, he appears to have been vacillating from one literary project to another; and, in 1818, he wrote a refutation, which was not published until after his death, of the assertion of Milne, the catholic prelate, that Bishop Halifax bad died in the Romish persuasion.

In 1819, he reprinted Speeches by Roger Long, and John Taylor, of Cambridge, with a Critical Essay and Memoirs of the Authors; and, in 1820, he began to take an active part in the defence of Queen Caroline. When her name was ordered to be struck out of the liturgy, he recorded his sentiments in the prayer-book of Hatton church; observing, "It is my duty as a subject and ecclesiastic, to read what is prescribed by my sovereign as head of the

church of England; but it is not my duty to express my approbation as well as yield obedience, when my feelings as a man, and my principles as a Christian, compel me to disapprove and to deplore." He was afterwards appointed her head chaplain, and was one of her most trusted advisers and zealous advocates, from the moment of her arrival in England to the period of her death. The venerable subject of our memoir died at the age of seventy-eight, on the 6th of March, 1825, and was buried at Hatton, his remains being followed by many eminent characters, both churchmen and dissenters.

Parr undoubtedly stands at the head of the classical scholars of his time, being alike unequalled for profundity, variety, and extent of knowledge. He was deeply versed in history, metaphysics, philosophy, and theology; and, as Archdeacon Butler observes, "he has left a chasm in English literature, which none of us shall ever see filled up." Few have thought more deeply, or read more extensively; and none, perhaps, could boast so complete an acquaintance with what are called the constitutional writers. "His pretensions as a man of letters," says a writer in Blackwood's Magazine, "were splendid; and fitted, under a suitable guidance, to have produced a more brilliant impression on his own age than they really did, and a more lasting one in the next age than they ever will. In his lifetime, it is true, that the applauses of his many pupils, and his great political friends, to a certain extent, made up for all deficiencies on his own part; but now, when these vicarious props are withdrawn, the disproportion is enormous, and hereafter will appear to be more so, between the talents that he possessed, and the effects that he accomplished." In addition to the works already mentioned, Parr wrote several reviews, memoirs, epitaphs, prefaces, &c., and left a variety of manuscripts relating to ethics, philosophy, and mathematics. In 1828, appeared Memoirs of his Life and Writings, by John Johnstone, M.D.; and in the same year was published Parriana.

In his private character he was moral, humane, and charitable; and, both as a pastor and a man, enjoyed the esteem and affection of his neighbours

and parishioners. He visited the clubs and cottages of Hatton with the most condescending familiarity; comforted the distressed, laughed with the merry, and administered to the wants of the poor. "I rarely," said he, "sent a beggar from my door unrelieved;" and for the same purpose, says his biographer, Dr. Johnstone, " money was placed in the hands of his servants." In conversation he was unequalled; though it will be seen, from some of the anecdotes towards the close of this memoir, that it was accompanied by a coarseness, not consistent with the general urbanity of his character. He is said to have been an epicure; and certainly he had some peculiarities at table, for which a better excuse was wanting than vigour of appetite, which the doctor possessed in no ordinary degree. A shoulder of mutton was his favourite dish, with the choice bits of which he would fill four plates, and then, pushing the joint away, observe he had had enough.

In his political principles, he preserved the strictest and most honourable consistency, and acted upon them with an utter disregard to personal emoluments, and professional honours. He was often branded as a Jacobite; but the observations he made at a public dinner, on the toast of "Church and King" being proposed, sufficiently refute the supposition. "I will not drink that toast," cried Parr, "nor will I suffer it to be given in my presence. It was the toast of Jacobites, and it is the yell of incendiaries: it means a church without the Gospel, and a king above the laws!" In his youth he had many singularities: he always looked forward to becoming a clergyman, and used to practise preaching in discourses to his schoolfellows, and in funeral orations over dead birds, cats, &c. When found sitting, one day, on the church-yard gate at Harrow, and asked, by Dr. Allen, why he did not join in play with his schoolfellows, he replied, with seriousness, "Do you not know, sir, that I am to be a parson?" Another of his juvenile peculiarities was, his fondness for putting forth his strength in ringing church bells, and knocking down oxen at the slaughter-house, and to the last he retained his predilection for a bull-bait. He was, however, extremely

kind in his treatment of animals; and the only battle he fought at school, was in defence of a worried cat. Like Dr. Johnson, Parr sometimes carried his rudeness towards the fair sex to a most ungallant excess. To one, who ventured to oppose him with more warmth of temper than cogency of reasoning, and afterwards apologized for it by saying, "it was the privilege of women to talk nonsense," he answered, "No, madam, it is not their privilege, but their infirmity: ducks would walk if they could, but Nature only permits them to waddle."-Whenever the ladies were about to retire, he claimed the privilege of smoking, of which he was passionately fond, and used to observe, "no pipe, no Parr." Being invited, one day, to dine with a gentleman, whose wife had a great aversion for smoking, it was in vain that he gave several hints for the production of a pipe. "I never will allow," at length said the lady,

my drawing-room to be defiled with the odious smoke of tobacco. I have, therefore, ordered a room below to be prepared for those gentlemen who wish to indulge in such a disagreeable habit." "Madam!" exclaimed the doctor, with emphasis. "Sir !" said the lady, half rising. "Madam, you are tinued the doctor. "I beg, sir, you will not express any rudeness here," exclaimed the lady. Raising his voice, "Madam," added the doctor, "you

are

con

the greatest tobacco-stopper in England!" His passion for book-collecting frequently, it is said, caused bickerings between himself and wife; everything else being neglected. On the subject of the decayed state of his library chairs, she, one morning, said to him, "Mr Parr, we ought, indeed, to have new chairs for the library; they are in a very sad way." "I can't afford it," was the reply. "Not afford it!" exclaimed the lady, "when you give ten guineas for a musty book you never open." "I tell you I can't afford it!" vociferated the doctor. "Not afford," said the lady again, pointing to his own garments, threadbare and falling to tatters," when your rents are coming in so fast."-He is said to have had an aversion for tea; having been once invited to partake of some by a lady, he uttered the following delicate compliment:

Non possum te-cum vivere, nec sine fo!

And being once asked for a theme on a tea-chest, he is said to have exclaimed, with admirable wit, "Tu doces !" [thou teachest (tea-chest)].-He, one day, called a clergyman a fool, who, taking offence thereat, said he would complain to the bishop of the usage. "Do so," was the reply, "and my lord bishop will confirm you!"

The doctor was twice married: first in 1771, to Jane, daughter of Zachariah Marsengale, Esq., of Carleton, in Yorkshire; a union into which he entered, it is said, because he wanted a housekeeper, and the lady because she

wanted a house. There seems, indeed, to have been too much reason for the saying of Porson, "that Parr would have been a great man, but for three thingshis trade, his wife, and his politics!" She is said to have put him in such a passion, one day, that he rose from the table, and drawing his penknife from his pocket, opened it, and drew it across the throat of her portrait. She died in 1810; and in 1816, he married Mary, the sister of Mr. Eyre, of Coventry, who survived him. By his first wife he had three sons and three daughters, all of whom he survived, except two daughters.

JOHN AIKIN, the son of a dissenting minister, was born at Kilworth, in Leicestershire, on the 15th of January, 1747. In 1758, he went to a dissenters' academy, at which his father was tutor, and, about three years afterwards, having chosen medicine as a profession, was apprenticed to Mr. Garthshore, at Uppingham, where he remained three years, and prosecuted his professional studies" with more than usual success." In November, 1764, he went as a student to the University of Edinburgh, whence, after passing there two winters and the intervening summer, he returned to England in 1766, and became a pupil of Mr. C. White, a celebrated operating surgeon, at Manchester. Here he added much to his professional knowledge, and wrote an Essay on the Ligatures of Arteries, which received great commendation from Mr. White, and was published by him in his work, entitled Cases in Surgery.

In 1769, he went to London, and after passing the winter in attending the lectures of Dr. Hunter, proceeded to Chester, where he practised as a surgeon till November, 1771, when he removed to Warrington, the residence of his parents, and "where his prospects of success were less obstructed by competition." While at Chester, he pubfished his first work, entitled Observations on the External Use of Preparations of Lead; which was succeeded, during the period he remained at Warrington,

by several others, particularly those entitled Thoughts on Hospitals, Biographical Memoirs of Medicine, to the time of Harvey, and an enlarged edition of Lewis's Materia Medica. At the academy of this place, he was elected lecturer on chemistry and physiology, an appointment which brought him in frequent connexion with Dr. Priestley, Dr. Enfield, and other eminent literary and scientific men, with whom he formed some of his most valued and lasting friendships. While pursuing his professional occupations, he also devoted much of his time to natural history and polite literature; in the latter branches of which, he evinced much taste and genius, by his Essays on Song Writing, The Calendar of Nature, and other similar productions; his Miscellaneous Pieces in Prose, however, being the joint composition of himself and Mrs. Barbauld, of which celebrated authoress he was the brother.

On the dissolution of the academy at Warrington, and in consequence of "the inadequate encouragement offered to the practice of surgery as distinct from pharmacy," he determined on taking a physician's degree, which he obtained at Leyden, a short while after his arrival there, in the summer of 1784. From the continent he proceeded to Yarmouth, and thence, after a twelvemonths' practice, to London, where he had not long remained, when he received an unanimous invitation from

the inhabitants of the former place to return there, and resume his business, which he accordingly did. At Yarmouth he established a literary society, and continued to derive respect, reputation, and emolument, from the manner in which he behaved, till the early part of 1792, when the publication of two pamphlets, which he had written in favour of the dissenters, obliged him to quit the town. One of these compositions was entitled, The Spirit of the Church and of the Constitution Compared: the other, An Address to the Dissidents of England on their late Defeat; and both advocating the repeal of the test and corporation acts. Before leaving Yarmouth, he had also published A View of the Character and Public Services of J. Howard, Esq., and a system of English geography, called England Delineated, an useful and excellent work, which has passed through several editions. In March, 1792, he settled in London, but his habits and temper being unsuited to the bustle and activity necessary to a residence in the metropolis, he devoted himself chiefly to literary pursuits: and, shortly afterwards, produced the two first volumes of Evenings at Home, of which the sixth and last appeared in 1795. This work, chiefly intended for the young, still continues to support the popularity it acquired at first, and is the most interesting one, with respect to the author, as "being highly characteristic of him, exhibiting, not only his various acquisitions, but representing his opinions on a variety of topics."

In 1796, he published the concluding volume of his Letters from a Father to his Son, &c.; a work in which are discussed some of the most important questions of morals and of general politics, and is considered the most valuable and important of his produc

tions. Three years previous to this, he had undertaken the editorship of a then new periodical, The Monthly Magazine, to the establishment and success of which he greatly contributed by his writings and management. About the same period he also engaged himself, with Dr. Enfield and others, in compiling The General Biographical Dictionary, published in 1815, which now bears his name, and is often consulted as a standard authority. In 1797, he removed, for the benefit of his health, to Dorking, and subsequently to Stoke Newington, where he wrote his Letters on English Poetry, published in 1803; and also his Annals of the Reign of George the Third, published in 1815. The former was intended to direct young persons, particularly of the female sex, in the choice and study of English poetry; the latter has been pronounced as "the freest from party colouring of any of the histories as yet published of the important and eventful reign of George the Third." Aikin died on the 7th of December, 1822, in consequence of a paralytic attack, which had previously brought on a decay of his mind, very trying and painful to those who witnessed it. The writings of Dr. Aikin were like the qualities of his mind, more calculated to divert, inform, and amuse, than to instruct, impress, or elevate. He was averse to mathematical minuteness and metaphysical speculations, and derived more pleasure from the social conversations of domestic life, than in listening to the discourses of the most profound and able philosophers. His marriage took place at Warrington, about 1772, and produced him a family, in which, latterly, consisted his only comfort, and to which he had much endeared himself by his uniform affection and solicitude.

Dr.

WILLIAM COXE, eldest son of Dr. William Coxe, physician to the king's household, was born in London, on the 7th of March, 1747; and received the rudiments of education at the grammar

school of Marylebone. In 1753, he was sent to Eton, and remained there till 1765, when he was elected to King's College, Cambridge; and soon after gained a Battie's university scholar