his time in a _Lazaretto_, and quit it with reluctance and almost
by compulsion. I have known him detained in a house for more than a
fortnight, by a secret plot with his servant to neglect his orders and
not to drive round the carriage, pack up his things, or announce the
hour of his departure. He has been in his carriage on the eve of a long
journey, and suddenly induced to get out of it in search of a book left
behind in the room, where, finding and beginning to read it, he has
thrown himself into a chair, and insensibly allowed the day to pass, and
almost as imperceptibly postponed his intended departure for a week. The
peculiar character of his humour is not easily described. His repartees
or sayings, when deliberately recounted, do not preserve it. There was
a playful archness in his sarcasms, keen but not offensive. There was a
felicity in his phraseology (though he was not fluent) which, without
exceeding the tone of familiar conversation, displayed a reach of fancy
and strength of feeling delightful and unusual. He was a superstitious
admirer of past times. He loved to sneer at the self-complacency with
which our generation contemplates its real or supposed improvements in
philosophy and the arts of life. When the unproductive state of the
Peninsula was objected to his exaggerated praises of Spain and Portugal,
he replied that “he loved a country where God Almighty kept large
portions of land in his own hands.”
He had read little or nothing systematically, but he devoured every
book that fell within his reach, and remembered all he met with in such
desultory studies with an accuracy almost miraculous. Such facility of
emotion, combined with a strong propensity to exercise his faculties on
every subject presented to his mind, made him a very indulgent critic.
He not only saw much more in a book than the author ever intended to
convey, but he frequently built systems on foundations created by his own
imagination and in no degree warranted by the work in which he fancied
that he had discovered them.
What Montesquieu said of Voltaire is true of him, “Tous les livres qu’il
lit, il les fait; après quoi il approuve ou critique ce qu’il a fait.”
Hence he delighted in authors who deal in obscure allusions, whimsical
images, and fanciful theories. Rabelais and Aristophanes were among
his favourites. He was not only capable of tasting the satire, poetry,
and wit of the latter, but he lent most of those qualities to every
indifferent passage of his plays, discerning in every word more than
struck the ear, and ascribing to the whole composition a systematic and
patriotic design which was certainly never professed, and probably never
harboured, by the writer. According to Frere, it was not gaiety, vanity,
or malignity, which induced the great Athenian comic poet to libel the
best man of his country and expose the first tragedian of his time to the
ridicule of the rabble; it was, forsooth, a due sense of the pernicious
effects of a mistaken theory of morals, and a deliberate apprehension of
the consequences of an enervated and effeminate taste in composition.
His scurrility and buffoonery were patriotic endeavours to rescue his
countrymen from the persuasive philosophy of Socrates and the seductive
poetry of Euripides.
In the interval between school and college I made a tour in Scotland, but
I missed, on that and some subsequent occasions, the advantage of making
acquaintance with the Principal, Robertson, the historian,[327] to whom I
had letters of introduction. In truth, I heard very little conversation
on literature in that northern land of letters, except strictures on
the spirit and criticisms on the details of Dr. Johnson’s _Tour to the
Hebrides_. That work and the poems of Ossian were then comparatively
recent publications. They had not ceased to excite, in a different
manner though nearly to an equal degree, the passions of the _literati_
in Scotland, where society, though divided on other topics, is and ever
will be singularly tenacious on such as in any way affect their national
character or reputation. Boswell was accused of having sacrificed his
country to his authorship, of having led the English philosopher into
the least attractive regions and least polished society he could find,
with the view of provoking epigrams and extorting sarcasms wherewith
to season his narrative and give a zest to tales otherwise insipid and
uninteresting. It was Henry Erskine,[328] afterwards Lord Advocate, who
termed Boswell “the Bear Leader,” and pretended that on being introduced
to Dr. Johnson in the streets of Edinburgh, he had simply bowed to the
stranger, but turned round to his countryman and slipped half-a-crown
into his hand with thanks for the show.
In no town in which I ever resided did I see less of men distinguished
for learning and literature than in Oxford during the two years I spent
in that University. Tom Warton[329] was dead before I was entered, and
his place in Trinity College was ill supplied by a gentleman of the name
of Kett,[330] as an epigram very current in those days attests, _viz._,
The glorious sun of Trinity is set,
And naught shines now but farthing candle Kett.
Mr. Crowe,[331] the public orator, a fellow of New College, had more
merit. As a Latin scholar he was without a rival, as a poet he was not
despicable. Mr. Rogers has so unfeigned an admiration for his works
that he seldom travels without a copy of them, as well as of Gray,
in his chaise pocket. His verses on the installation of the Duke of
Portland[332] contain an invective against war worthy of Milton himself.
But his Whig, not to say Republican, propensities, which peep forth in
that very poem, were so offensive in Oxford that blemishes in his moral
character were remembered, and perhaps invented, to justify the neglect
he experienced from successive Governments and the little store set by
the University on his productions and lectures. His manners, it must be
acknowledged, as well as his habits, were somewhat coarse and unsocial.
Dr. Sibthorp,[333] who, I believe, succeeded his father in the Botanical
Chair, and who travelled and died in Greece, had acquired some celebrity
in his humble walk of science. An awkward circumstance was said to
have occurred on his application for the professorship. To qualify,
the candidate must be furnished with testimonials not only of having
studied, but of having actually practised, physic. Dr. Sibthorp had,
indeed, attended the sick, but then there were none alive to attest it;
so that in adducing proof of his having exercised his profession, he was
compelled to raise a strong presumption of his unfitness for it, and to
divulge the mortifying fact that not one of his few patients had survived
his prescriptions.
Dr. Cyril Jackson,[334] Dean of Christ Church, enjoyed and deserved great
reputation as the head of a college. He had some general knowledge, was
a good scholar, and by some little artifices of manner, as well as by
many real acts of benevolence, contrived to excite in the young men much
respect for the institutions of the University and great notions of his
dignity, abilities, and virtues. He was, in truth, a very honourable,
disinterested, and warm-hearted man. He taught, however, and, I believe,
felt, so indiscriminate a veneration for all received opinions because
they were received, that he became, without meanness, a worshipper of
rank, and, although not destitute of sagacity and utterly exempt from
the mean passions of envy or jealousy, a favourer of mediocrity. The
effect, though not intention, of his system, could it have prevailed,
would have been to leave all prejudices unmolested, and thereby to
slacken exertion and discourage improvement, to inculcate caution on
his pupils till he had damped their genius, and to reduce all political
and literary merit to deference for authority and prudent admiration of
acknowledged excellence. He had been employed under Markham, Archbishop
of York, in the education of the Prince of Wales and Frederick, Duke of
York. That circumstance gave him access to both those Princes throughout
his life: and he affected more than he actually enjoyed, recounting to
his listeners at Oxford, at one time, the blunt reproofs, at others, the
friendly advice he had given to his Royal pupils. From compliance with
George III.’s partiality, or from a genuine preference of manly character
over quickness of parts, he always professed more attachment to the Duke
of York than the Prince of Wales. The latter, aware of his predilections
and nettled at them, took an odd method of revenging himself by
retaliation. In all companies he launched forth in commendation of
William Jackson, younger brother of the Dean.[335] He would extol his
merits as a companion, friend, and scholar, though he well knew him to be
a dull, selfish, and ordinary man; and he studiously represented him as
superior to his brother, though he owed to the celebrity and friendship
of that brother what little credit or reputation he enjoyed at college,
as well as all the preferment, including the Bishopric of Oxford, that he
obtained in the Church.
Dr. Beddoes[336] had not closed his lectures when I first went to
college, but I never attended them; nor did I become acquainted with the
lecturer till he had retired from the University in consequence of some
disgust arising either from his opinions in politics and religion, or
from the peculiarities of his temper, which was neither conciliatory nor
tractable.[337] He was a man of science and of genius, but by no means
successful as a lecturer. His figure and delivery were ungraceful, his
language inflated and ambitious, and he was so singularly awkward in the
mechanical part of his experiments that they generally failed, and he was
then compelled to proceed in his discourse on the hypothesis that the
result had been the reverse of that which the eyes of his audience would
have led them to believe. He contributed, however, to the advancement
both of chemistry and medicine, and had the merit of discovering the
talents and directing the labours and studies of an indigent youth
who afterwards became Sir Humphry Davy. All his writings, whether on
politics or science, are eloquent and original, but they betray great
want of taste, judgment, and prudence. He was rash and paradoxical in
the extreme. He above once announced discoveries which he was obliged to
retract; and Dr. Ingenhousz[338] (who somewhat enjoyed his discomfiture)
blamed him more for his ignominious candour in abandoning, than his
hasty presumption in publishing, such crude and erroneous conjectures.
As an instance of his bad taste in language and conversation, I remember
that when asked by Lord Lansdown[339] how an election at Bristol was
likely to go, he began his reply with these words, “My Lord, when the
floodgates of the human mind are once opened....” I believe Lord Lansdown
and his audience were not much disposed to await the torrent of eloquence
and metaphysical reasoning which was to ensue. In proof of the wildness
of his theories, suffice it to mention that he seriously maintained the
non-existence of bodily pain. It was the mere effect of education: and
a child properly trained for that purpose would find it a pleasurable
sensation, and what we consider as pleasurable sensations might, by an
opposite system of discipline from that usually practised, be rendered
odious and disagreeable and abhorrent to our desires. He afterwards
undertook the tuition of young men; and the acquirements of his pupils
(of whom Mr. Lambton was one), as well as their attachment to the memory
of their preceptor, do much credit to his head and heart.
The same commendation may be bestowed on the person next presented to
my recollection, Dr. Parr.[340] Though a Cambridge man, he frequently
visited Oxford, where he lodged at the house of his friend Dr.
Routh,[341] Principal of Magdalen, a quiet, learned, and benevolent
man, a Tory in his principles and a recluse in his habits. Dr. Parr’s
reputation for scholarship and his zeal for Whig politics, together
with the singularity of his countenance, dress, habits, and manners,
rendered him an object of much curiosity and some little dread, both to
the tutors and undergraduates. His visits formed a sort of era in Oxford.
His sayings were repeated, his appearance, his monstrous wig, his velvet
coat, his lisping speech and penetrating eye, his love of smoking, and
affected laugh with his shoulders, were the topics of conversation in all
the Common rooms and wine parties in the University.
This was precisely what he sought for. It was the sort of celebrity
that delighted him. He panted, indeed, for opportunities of conflict
with the High Churchmen of the place, with the hope of astonishing the
undergraduates by the boldness of his paradoxes, the variety of his
quotations, and the wit of his retorts. But the heads of Houses and
professors were by no means disposed to indulge him in such intellectual
gymnastics. They are seldom inclined to court notoriety, and they
seemed somewhat afraid of Dr. Parr. At Christ Church, our superiors
refrained from courting him with any ostentation of civility, but they
were wonderfully cautious not to offend by any remarks on his maxims
in scholarship, politics, and divinity, though printed in sermons and
pamphlets and circulated very freely in conversation by his admirers in
the University. A distant sneer or an arch inquiry was the utmost symptom
of hostility ever hazarded against this active champion of every cause
they disapproved.[342]
Among the professors at Oxford there was indeed one who had good cause
for fear, and yet more for resentment, against Dr. Parr, had he had the
ability to gratify it. This was Dr. White,[343] the Arabic Professor.
He had signalised himself a few years before by the publication of his
Bampton lectures, which were hailed by the orthodox as a triumph for
Christianity over Islamism achieved by a member of the Church of England,
and by the Oxonians as a proof of the success with which the Oriental
languages were studied in their University.
But short-lived was their exaltation. It was soon discovered that a
Nonconformist minister, of the name of Badcock, had, for a stipulated
sum (which, I think, the professor in an evil hour disputed with his
executors), furnished much of the reasoning and of the Arabic of that
vaunted publication. Upon that detection, Dr. Parr, with more eagerness
and less generosity than was usual in him, exclaimed, “I, too, could
pluck a feather from the crest of that Oxford Phœnix”; and he accordingly
made good his claim to several Greek quotations and other admired
passages in the lectures. Thus were the hopes of orthodoxy and Oxford
suddenly blighted, or rather, the harvest they expected to reap cruelly
wrested from them and divided between Nonconformity and Cambridge. Poor
Dr. White, stripped of his borrowed plumes, was hooted at and reviled by
all the satirists and witlings of the day.
Cui color _albus_ erat, nunc est contrarius _albo_.
The obvious punning quotation of George Selwyn was repeated by every
schoolboy, and the professor, though he had raised himself from a low
condition in life by learning only, and was, in truth, a good Arabic
scholar, a studious, simple,[344] and inoffensive man, could never
re-establish his credit or advance his fortune. He edited, in vain, some
Oriental works; he acquired no fame and obtained little preferment.[345]
To return to Dr. Parr, I was introduced to him by Mr. Canning, who had
made his acquaintance at Mr. Sheridan’s or at Crewe Hall. I do not
enlarge on his moral, intellectual, or political virtues, all which were
very great, because the publications devoted to his memory will be full
of them. My task is only to preserve some diverting but harmless foibles
in his manners and conversation, which the dignity of graver biographers
will very probably suppress.
I should, however, be sorry, were my reader to imagine that I was really
insensible to Dr. Parr’s many excellent qualities of head and heart, his
learning, his eloquence, his political consistency and integrity, his
warm affections, disinterestedness, and generosity. Of the latter virtue
especially, I have known many instances in his conduct to his pupils.
None, however, but such as have seen him in a society of undergraduates,
surrounded by old pupils and young admirers over whom he exercised
unlimited jurisdiction in all matters of taste and learning, can believe
the liberties he took or the absurdities into which his vanity betrayed
him. So little was any interchange of ideas necessary to gratify him
that he launched forth in praise of the extraordinary _erudition_ of his
neighbour at a public dinner on a Gaudy day, who turned out to be neither
more nor less than the beadle of the college, admitted by old usage to a
seat at the table on such solemn occasions, but aspiring to no further
academical attainments than the sweeping[346] the quadrangles, or, at
the utmost, writing down the name of the students for whom the gates
were opened after sunset. He had, however, no doubt earned the panegyric
bestowed upon him, by listening with profound silence and veneration to
the Latin and Greek which Dr. Parr had poured into his ears. The Doctor
enlarged with great complacency on the effect, as well as Latinity, of
his preface to Bellendenus.[347] He had introduced into that work some
severe strictures on the character of Mr. Pitt’s eloquence, and he
observed that his friend Mr. Horner thought it would “turn that Minister
out”; but then he would add, with an appearance of overstrained humility,
“But Horner is a sanguine man.”
He told us, I well remember, that he suspected Pitt of a settled design
of subverting the idiom of the language, as well as overturning the
constitution. “The dog talks grammar,” he said, “but it is an insidious
masked battery under which he may better assail our idiom.” Then he would
relate how he had sat in the gallery of the House of Commons and thrown
his “whole grammatical mind” upon the orator, a process which he acted
with most significant gestures, and then added, “The dog caught my eye,
and chastised his faulty phraseology.”
There was a report at that time that our late fellow-collegian, Mr.
Jenkinson (afterwards Lord Liverpool and Prime Minister), had been
entrusted with a mission to the French Princes, who had taken refuge and
were then meditating war against their country at Coblentz. Dr. Parr
inveighed against such an appointment, but we were all somewhat startled
upon discovering that it was not the mission but the choice of the envoy
alone which scandalised him. So young a man, he observed, could not be
equal to it; and although he would himself never serve Billy (for so he
contemptuously termed Mr. Pitt), that Premier would do well to look out
for a clergyman of such habits, sagacity, and scholarship as himself, to
ascertain the views and fathom the designs of those revolted Princes on
the Rhine.
In speaking of living scholars, metaphysicians, and writers, he would
frequently name those whom he thought the first and the third in each
department of excellence; but he always omitted the second, manifestly
reserving that place for himself, and as manifestly pluming himself on
his modesty in not asserting his right to the first, which he hoped his
auditors would in their hearts assign him. In this scale of excellence
he always placed Mr. Porson[348] at the head of our Greek scholars.
It was just and prudent to do so. The concurrent testimony of all his
contemporaries would have granted to that gentleman the same pre-eminence
that Dr. Parr, perhaps rather reluctantly, assigned him.
Porson was in scholarship _facile princeps_; in memory he was a prodigy;
in wit and understanding a much more extraordinary man than such
prodigies usually are. Persons intimate with him have assured me that he
not only knew most of the ancient poets and all the Greek tragedians by
heart, but would repeat nearly _verbatim_ the notes of the most approved
editions. He usually did so when any passage was quoted in his presence,
specifying the page, the column, and the place of the respective
editions, where the passage itself and the notes he had repeated were to
be found. His recollection of words was certainly not confined to poetry
or eloquence. He could, and did often, recite long and dull comments in
Greek, Latin, and English, _verbatim_. He knew all the notes of Gibbon
by heart; and when sentences of the text of that historian or of any
of his favourite works (among which Foote’s Farces must be reckoned)
were read or alluded to, he usually finished the paragraph or scene
without omitting a word. He was not, like Napoleon, a great proficient
in mathematics; but he had, like him, a memory as retentive of numbers
as of everything else. He occasionally took an unaccountable pleasure in
repeating large sums, and had a tiresome trick of counting them aloud,
especially after he had drunk much wine, and was disposed by such a test
to prove to himself that his faculties were not sensibly impaired thereby.
Such peculiarities did not add to his charms as a companion. I never saw
him but twice, and on both occasions in a club, where he was a visitor
and not a member,[349] and where he had little opportunity of display,
except indeed by long quotations from Hickes’ _Thesaurus_ and other
singular rather than agreeable proofs of the extent and accuracy of his
memory. When I asked him to my house he peremptorily declined coming;
on my repeating my invitation, he sent me word that he had “broken his
leg and could not come,” though he was frequently met about the same
time walking in the streets. Perhaps he was affronted at my sending the
invitation by a common friend, instead of calling myself, or perhaps he
was on that, as on other occasions, extremely jealous of being invited as
a show. Such, at least, was the interpretation frequently put by him on
the marks of homage which slight acquaintances, and even strangers, were
naturally disposed to pay to his extraordinary talents and celebrity.
In recording such misplaced pride and false notions of independence, it
is just to add that in the more important concerns of life his sense of
honour was to the full as susceptible and his spirit as inflexible. He
sacrificed without ostentation great advantages of station and prospects
of fortune to conscience. Having eluded the manœuvres and rejected
the solicitations of those who urged him to qualify for a clerical
fellowship in his college, as well as subsequent preferment by taking
holy orders, he, from the same scruple and dislike of the Thirty-nine
Articles, was willing to forego the favourite object of his ambition,
the Greek Professorship at Cambridge. His sarcastic letter to Dr.
Postlethwaite,[350] on that occasion, establishes beyond dispute both
his disapprobation of those Articles and his conscientious adherence to
truth at the expense of interest and advancement. When one reflects that
he had no private fortune, no rich connections,[351] no expectations
whatever, such inflexibility of principle and self-respect must extort
one’s admiration and applause. His conduct is the more praiseworthy,
as it was dictated neither by the vanity of fanaticism nor the zeal of
making proselytes. What his particular opinions on religion were is not
known; at least, he never took much pains to promulgate them. He speaks
of himself as not a “sound believer” in the Church sense of that word.
Whether he confined his objections to the peculiar creed of the Church of
England, or denied revelation altogether, I have never ascertained.