Part 38

In 1791, when in his twenty-fifth year, Parr became a candidate for the head-mastership of Harrow, though he was beaten by Dr. B. Heath. A rebellion ensued among the boys, many of whom took Parr's part; and he threw up his situation of assistant, and withdrew to Stanmore. Here he was followed by forty of the young rebels, and with this stock-in-trade he proceeded to set up a school on his own account. This is thought to have been the crisis of Parr's life. The die had turned against him, and the disappointment, with its immediate consequences, gave a complexion to his future fortunes, character, and comfort. He had already mounted a full-bottomed wig when he stood for Harrow, anxious as it should seem to give his face a still further chance of keeping its start. He now began to ride on a black saddle, and bore in his hand a long wand with an ivory head, like a crosier, in high prelatical pomp. His neighbours, who wondered what it could all mean, had scarcely time to identify him with his pontificals before they saw him stalking along the street in a dirty striped dressing-gown. A wife was all that was now wanted to complete the establishment at Stanmore, and accordingly, Miss Jane Marsingale, a lady of an ancient Yorkshire family was provided for him; Parr, like Hooker, appearing to have courted by proxy, and with about the same success. Thus Stanmore was set agoing as the rival of Harrow. These were fearful odds, and it came to pass that, in spite of "Attic Symposia," and grooves of Academus, and the enacting of a Greek play, and the perpetual recitation of the fragment in praise of Harmodius and Aristogeiton, the establishment at Stanmore declined; and at the end of five years, Parr was not sorry to accept the mentorship of an endowed school at Colchester.

Parr was evidently fond of living in troubled waters: accordingly, on his removal to Colchester, he got into a quarrel with the trustees of the school on the subject of a lease; and he printed a pamphlet about it, which was so violent that he never published it, probably influenced by his prospect of succeeding to Norwich School. This occasioned Dr. Foster to remark, "That Norwich might be touched by a fellow-feeling for Colchester; and the crape-makers of the one place sympathize with the bag-makers of the other." The pamphlet was withheld, and Parr was elected to the school at Norwich. The preferment which he gained was the living of Asterby, which he exchanged for the perpetual curacy of Hatton, in Warwickshire. Neither was of much value. Lord Dartmouth, whose sons had been under Parr's care, endeavoured to procure something for him from Lord Thurlow, but the Chancellor is reported to have said "No," with an oath. The great and good Bishop Lowth, however, at the request of the same nobleman, gave Parr a prebend in St. Paul's, which, though a trifle at the time, eventually became, at the expiration of leases, a source of affluence to Parr in his old age. How far he was from such a condition at this period of his life, is seen by an incident related by Mr. Field. The Doctor was one day in that gentleman's library, when his eye was caught by the title of Stephens's Greek Thesaurus. Suddenly turning about, he said to Field, vehemently, "Ah! my friend, my friend, may you never be forced, as I was at Norwich, to sell that work, to me so precious, from absolute and urgent necessity."

Dr. Parr and Dr. Johnson once had a sort of stand-up fight at argument. After the interview was over, Johnson said, "I do not know when I have had an occasion of such free controversy. It is remarkable how much of a man's life may pass without meeting with any instance of this kind of open discussion." Here is Dr. Parr's account of the meeting: "I remember the interview well. I gave him no quarter. The subject of our dispute was the liberty of the press. Dr. Johnson was very great; whilst he was arguing, I observed that he stamped. Upon this I stamped. Dr. Johnson said, 'Why did you stamp, Dr. Parr?' I replied, 'Sir, because you stamped; and I was resolved not to give you the advantage of a stamp in the argument.'" It is impossible to do justice to this description of the scene. The vehemence, the characteristic pomposity with which it was accompanied, may easily be imagined by those who knew him, but cannot be adequately represented to those who did not.

In the party was Dr. —, an Arian minister, and Mr. —, a Socinian minister. One of the party seeing Parr was on friendly terms with the above gentlemen, said, "I suppose, sir, although they are heretics, you think it is possible they may be saved?" "Yes, sir," said he, adding with affected vehemence, "but they must be scorched first." Parr talked of economy; he thought that a man's happiness was secure, in proportion to the small number of his wants, and said that all his lifetime it had been his object to prevent the multiplication of them in himself. Some one said to him, "Then, sir, your secret of happiness is to cut down your wants." Parr. "No, sir, my secret is, not to let them grow."

The doctor used, on a Sunday evening, after church, to sit on the green at Hatton, with his pipe and his jug, and witness the exertions of his parishioners in the truly English game of cricket, making only one proviso, that none should join the party who had not previously been to church. It is needless to say his presence was an effectual check on all disorderly conduct. The skittle-grounds were deserted, and a better conducted parish was rarely seen than the worthy Doctor's.

Dr. Parr was one of the enthusiastic admirers of Shakspeare, who fell upon their knees before Ireland's MSS., and by their idolatry inspired hundreds of others. Still, Parr attempts to explain this in a note to the catalogue of his library at Hatton, as follows:—"Ireland's (Samuel) Great and Impudent Forgery, called 'Miscellaneous Papers and Legal Instruments, under the hand and seal of William Shakspeare,' folio, 1796. I am almost ashamed to insert this worthless and infamously trickish book. It is said to include the tragedy of King Lear, and a fragment of Hamlet. Ireland told a lie when he imputed to me the words which Joseph Warton used, the very morning I called on Ireland, and was inclined to admit the possibility of genuineness in his papers. In my subsequent conversation I told him my change of opinion. But I thought it not worth while to dispute in print with a detected impostor.—S. P."

Parr, it will be recollected, was an everlasting smoker—he smoked morning, noon, and night. Once at a Visitation dinner in Colchester, he had the impudence to call for his pipe; but Dr. Hamilton, the archdeacon, told him there were other rooms in the house where he might enjoy himself without annoying others. Of a piece with this was his behaviour at a literary club in Colchester. Knowing the temper of the man, a pipe and bottle (contrary to the law of the club) were placed on the table, and he did ample justice to both; for he smoked and drank the whole night, and talked so incessantly that Dr. Foster, the president, sat silent, like one who had lost the use of his tongue.

In July, 1818, Dr. Parr dined at Emmanuel (Cambridge), and met Dr. Butler, of Shrewsbury, afterwards Bishop of Lichfield. Dudley North seemed to be very popular in his college, for they drank his health after dinner. Parr spoke of him in very high terms. The principal objections to the society of "the learned pig" were that he had a more than Mahommedan fondness for tobacco, and the smoking of a pipe was with him, as with the followers of the Prophet, a certain passport to friendship. The chief objects of his detestation seemed to be a Christchurch man, a Johnian, a Welshman, and the Regent, all of whom suffered in turn under the lash of his invective. Harrow and Trinity were the idols of his adoration. Butler appeared to be much more of a civilized being than the Grecian Goliah. Parr took his breakfast in the room of Charles Brinsley Sheridan. The breakfast was given on Sunday. Parr never showed the slightest disposition to attend the morning service, but when breakfast was over, said, "Charles, Charles, where are the pipes?" and they had to be sent for from a neighbouring public-house. And the room was uninhabitable for three hours after Parr's déjeûner fumigations.

Dr. Parr almost always spent his evenings in the company of his family and his visitors, or in that of some neighbouring friends. At such times his dress was in complete contrast with the costume of the morning; for he appeared in a well-powdered wig, and always wore his band and cassock. On extraordinary occasions he was arrayed in a full-dress suit of black velvet, of the cut of the old times, when his appearance was imposing and dignified.

Speaking of the honour once conferred upon him, of being invited to dinner at Carlton House, Parr mentions, with evident satisfaction, the kind condescension of the Prince of Wales, who was pleased to insist upon his taking his pipe as usual after dinner. Of the Duke of Sussex, at whose table Parr was not unfrequently a guest, he used to tell that his Royal Highness not only allowed him to smoke, but smoked with him. He often represented it as an instance of the homage which rank and beauty delight to pay to talents and learning, that ladies of the highest station condescended to the office of lighting his pipe. He appeared to no advantage, however, in his custom of demanding the service of holding the lighted paper to his pipe from the youngest female who happened to be present; and who was often, by the freedom of his remarks, or by the gaze of the company, painfully disconcerted. This troublesome ceremony, in his later years, he wisely discarded.

The reader will probably recollect, in the well-known story, his reply to the lady who refused to allow Parr the indulgence of his pipe. In vain he pleaded that such indulgence had always been kindly granted in the mansions of the nobility, and even in the presence and in the palace of his sovereign. "Madam," said Parr to the lady, who still remained inexorable, "you must give me leave to tell you, you are the greatest—" whilst she, fearful of what might follow, earnestly interposed, and begged that he would express no rudeness. "Madam," resumed Dr. Parr, speaking aloud, and looking stern, "you are the greatest tobacco-stopper in England." This sally produced a loud laugh; but Parr found himself obliged to retire, in order to enjoy the pleasures of his pipe.

Dr. Parr was accustomed to amuse himself in the evening with cards, and whist was his favourite game. He would only play for a nominal stake; but, upon one occasion, he was persuaded to play with Bishop Watson for a shilling, which he won. Pushing it carefully to the bottom of his pocket, and placing his hand upon it, with a kind of mock solemnity, "There, my Lord Bishop," said Parr, "this is a trick of the devil; but I'll match him. So now, if you please, we will play for a penny;" and this was ever after the amount of his stake. He was not, on that account, at all the less ardent in the prosecution, or the less joyous in the success of the rubber. He had a high opinion of his own skill in the game, and could not very patiently tolerate the want of it in his partner. Being engaged with a party, in which he was unequally matched, he was asked by a lady how the fortune of the game turned; when he replied, "Pretty well, madam, considering that I have three adversaries."

Even ladies were not spared who incurred Parr's displeasure by their pertinacity. To one who had held out in argument against him, not very powerfully, and rather too perseveringly, and who had closed the debate by saying, "Well, Dr. Parr, I still maintain my opinion;" he replied, "Madam, you may, if you please, retain your opinion, but you cannot maintain it."

The close of Parr's life grew brighter: the increased value of his stall at St. Paul's set him abundantly at his ease; he could even indulge his love of pomp, and he encumbered himself with a coach and four.

Parr's hand was ever open as day. Poverty had vexed, but had never contracted his spirit; money he despised, except as it gave him power—power to ride in his state-coach, to throw wide his doors to hospitality, to load his table with plate and his shelves with learning; power to adorn his church with chandeliers and painted windows; to make glad the cottages of his poor; to grant a loan to a tottering farmer; to rescue from want a forlorn patriot or a thriftless scholar. Whether misfortune, or mismanagement, or folly, or vice, had brought its victim low, his want was a passport to Parr's pity, and the dew of his bounty fell alike upon the bad and the good, upon the just and the unjust. It is told of Boerhaave that, whenever he saw a criminal led out to execution, he would say, "May not this man be better than I? If otherwise, the praise is due, not to me, but the grace of God." Parr used to quote this saying with applause. Such, we doubt not, would have been his own feelings on such an occasion.

The Doctor was fond of good living, but was not a gourmet. "There are," he says, "certainly one or two luxuries to which I am addicted: the first is a shoulder of mutton, not under-roasted, and richly incrusted with flour and salt; the second is a plain suet-pudding; the third is a plain family plum-pudding; and the fourth, a kind of high-festival dish, consists of hot boiled lobsters, with a profusion of shrimp-sauce."

Parr preached the Spital sermon, at Christ Church, on the invitation of the Lord Mayor, Harvey Combe, and as they were coming out of the church together, "Well," said Parr, "how did you like the sermon?" "Why, Doctor," replied his lordship, "there were four things in it that I did not like to hear." "State them." "Why, to speak frankly, then, they were the quarters of the church-clock, which struck four times before you had finished." But his Spital sermon, in 1799, occupied nearly three hours in its delivery.

Oddities of John Horne Tooke.

The life of this strange person may almost be said to have been commenced with a joke. He was the son of a poulterer, named John Horne, in Newport Street, Westminster; or, as he told his schoolfellows, his father was "a turkey merchant." He was educated for the Church, according to his father's wish, and took orders for the bar.

What Tooke thought of the former profession may be seen in a letter of his to Wilkes, whose acquaintance he made in Paris in 1765, and to whom he thus wrote:—"You are now entering into correspondence with a parson, and I am greatly apprehensive lest that title should disgust; but give me leave to assure you, I am not ordained a hypocrite. It is true I have suffered the infectious hand of a bishop to be waved over me, whose imposition, like the sop given to Judas, is only a signal for the devil to enter. I hope I have escaped the contagion; and, if I have not, if you should at any time discover the black spot under the tongue, pray kindly assist me to conquer the prejudices of education and profession."

Tooke was, upon one occasion, memorably outwitted by Wilkes, who was then sheriff of London and Middlesex. Tooke had challenged Wilkes, who sent him the following cutting reply:—"Sir, I do not think it my business to cut the throat of every desperado that may be tired of his life; but as I am at present High Sheriff of the City of London, it may happen that I shall shortly have an opportunity of attending you in my official capacity, in which case I will answer for it that you shall have no ground to complain of my endeavours to serve you." We agree with Mr. Colton, in his Lacon, that the above retort is a masterpiece of its kind.

The violence of Tooke's political predilections, perhaps, was heightened by an accidental circumstance in his early life. His father, the poulterer, had for his neighbour, Frederick, Prince of Wales, at Leicester House, who most unceremoniously had cut through the wall of Horne's garden a doorway, as an outlet towards Newport Market, for the convenience of the Prince's domestics. But the poulterer and his son resisted the encroachment, and triumphed over the heir-apparent to the English crown, and had the obnoxious doorway removed, and the wall reinstated. This victory, it is reasonable to suppose, fanned the political aspirations of Horne Tooke.

For many years Tooke was the terror of judges, ministers of state, and all constituted authorities. When put on trial for his life (for treason), "so far from being moved by his dangerous position, he was never in more buoyant spirits. His wit and humour had often before been exhibited in Courts of Justice; but never had they been so brilliant as on this occasion. Erskine had been at his request assigned to him as counsel; but he himself undertook some of the most important duties of his advocate, cross-examining the witnesses for the Crown, objecting to evidence, and even arguing points of law. If his life had really been in jeopardy, such a course would have been perilous and rash in the highest degree; but nobody in court, except, perhaps, the Attorney and Solicitor-General, thought there was the slightest chance of an adverse verdict. The prisoner led off the proceedings by a series of preliminary jokes, which were highly successful. When placed in the dock, he cast a glance up at the ventilators of the hall, shivered, and expressed a wish that their lordships would be so good as to get the business over quickly as he was afraid of catching cold. When arraigned, and asked by the officer of the court in the usual form, how he would be tried? he answered, 'I would be tried by God and my country—but—' and looked sarcastically round the court. Presently he made an application to be allowed a seat by his counsel; and entered upon an amusing altercation with the judge, as to whether his request should be granted as an indulgence or as a right. The result was that he consented to take his place by the side of Erskine as a matter of favour. In the midst of the merriment occasioned by these sallies, the Solicitor-General opened the case for the Crown."

Massey's History of England.

His change of name to John Horne Tooke is thus explained. At the time when he was rising into celebrity, the estate of Purley, near Godstone, in Surrey, belonged to Mr. William Tooke, one of the four friends who joined in supplying him with an income, while, after resigning the vicarage of New Brentford, he studied for the law. One of Tooke's richer neighbours, having failed in wresting from him his manorial rights by a lawsuit, had applied to parliament and nearly succeeded in effecting his purpose by means of an inclosure bill, which would have greatly depreciated the Purley estate. Tooke despondingly confided his apprehensions to Horne, who resolved at once to avert the blow, which he did in a bold and very singular manner. The third reading of the bill was to take place the next day, and Horne immediately wrote a violent libel on the Speaker of the House of Commons in reference to it, and obtained its insertion in the Public Advertiser. As might be expected, the first parliamentary proceeding next day was the appearance of the adventurous libeller in the custody of the Serjeant-at-Arms. When called upon for his defence, he delivered a most remarkable speech, in which he pointed out the injustice of the bill in question with so much success, that not only was it reconsidered, and the clauses which affected his friend's property expunged, but resolutions were passed by the House to prevent the possibility in future of such bills being smuggled through parliament without due investigation. In gratitude for this important service, Mr. Tooke, who had no family, made Horne his heir; on his death in 1803, the latter became proprietor of Purley, and, as one of the conditions of inheritance, added the name of Tooke to his own, and from this time was known as John Horne Tooke. His celebrated Diversions of Purley was named in compliment to the residence of the author's friend.