written by John Taylor, the editor of Demosthenes, a scholar whom it is the fashion with the Porsonians, to mention very lightly indeed; but I hold him to have been a thorough scholar, though he knew little of iambics and trochees. I know not any philologist now living, or lately dead who could put so much good sense into discourses for the pulpit. John Nichols is to reprint them, and I mean to be answerable for their re-publication, in a short preface. I received a very affectionate, and a very elegant, and a very interesting letter, from Mr. Bloomfield, and I am proud to assign him a very elevated station in the catalogue of my friends. The medallion of your father is a magnificent ornament to my library. I was very glad indeed, not merely to see, but again and again to survey the bust at Glasgow. I am happy to tell you that my business with the Canal Company is concluded; and that, after the expiration of four years and two months, my income will be considerably augmented. I am abused by some of my wellwishers for certain sacrifices of immediate interest; but I have acted according to my own sense of right, and as usual, I have paid little regard to good or evil report. I may soon give you a commission to look after some books for me. I despise, and I hate, and, to a small extent, I dread the radicals; but I hate the ministry, &c. more, and I dread them much more. Charles, I am almost bereaved of the scanty and precarious consolation which hope supplies upon public affairs; and so it is, my boy, that I have the experience and the observation of fifty years to convince me that my own political principles are just and salutary. Certainly, I have not been led by recent events to think more favourably of my ecclesiastical brethren, either as social or religious beings. My sojournment here will soon be at an end, and my last moments will not be embittered by certain reflections. Remember me to your wife, and children; to John Nichols, Mr. A. Chalmers, and to that intelligent, honourable, warm-hearted man, Tom Payne. The very mention of his name, and the remembrance of his father, delight me.

Namesake, remember the Greek verse which I some time ago sent you. Bind it as a phylactery around the forehead of your child.

All human duty may be comprised in three Greek words. Can you guess what they are? I have just repeated them to Johnny Bartlam. I am truly your well-wisher, and obedient humble servant, S. PARR.

DEAR AND LEARNED GODSON,

Hatton, Dec. 23, 1824. I have the happiness to tell you that my health improves daily, and that I hope to encounter bravely the rigours of the winter; I trust that your excellent wife and all your children are well, and that the success of your school is proportionate to your great learning and diligence. Charles, I have particular reasons for desiring that you would be upon the watch to seize a book called Blunt on the Greek Articles in the New Testament.

The book, I hear, has considerable merit, and there is appended to it a story which I am very anxious to investigate, and after such investigation I will tell you the curious particulars. Again, about sixty or seventy years ago a Mr. Peck published a 4to, some memoirs of Oliver Cromwell, and he inserted two Latin compositions which have been ascribed to Milton, and which, from internal evidence in the matter and the style, I pronounce not to have been written by Milton. They are not without considerable merit, but they are not Miltonian. Milton might upon some occasion or other eulogize Cromwell, almost in the language of adulation; this I admit, but Milton could not write in a tone of thinking and expression so very inferior to what we find in Latin confessedly genuine. Inquire about Peck's book. I read it in the summer, and wish to have it. Charles, remember that the 26th of January is my birth-day, and do your duty as a good godson; remember me very kindly to Mrs. Burney, and believe me truly your friend, S. PARR.

This letter was written not twenty-two days before the writer was laid on his death-bed.

Rev. Dr. George Butler, to Dr. Parr.

MY DEAR DR. PARR,

Harrow, March 17, 1811.

Our anniversary dinner went off remarkably well; Lord Moira was in the chair; and I had the honour to sit between him and Sheridan. Amongst other healths yours was drunk with great and distinguished applause, after a prefatory speech by Sheridan, in honour of your virtues.

I have lately had more discussions than I could have wished with some of my turbulent neighbours. Vexed at the failure of their attack in Chancery, the leaders of the faction (to use a parliamentary phrase) have thought to annoy the school by convening a meeting of their self-appointed Committee, and recommending to the poor to send their children to the school. Accordingly, at the opening of the school this time, a list was presented to me containing about thirty names, and specifying a day on which the whole party would present themselves in the school. You will easily conceive the sort of bustle, which such a procession might have excited. I accordingly determined to divide them into small parties for admission, and therefore sent a written reply to the person, who was the principal leader in the business, stating my determination to examine the children in successive parties of about six per diem, till the number should be completed. This did not suit the wishes of the leader; and, accordingly, on the day by him appointed, he and another man came up with the whole squadron of boys to attend the school. I refused to admit them without previous examination, and authority as well from the Governors' order book, as from the statutes of our founder; as follows.

John Lyon, you know, established us as a Grammar School, not as a school for teaching children to spell and read; for this humble department of study he has made no provision; indeed his object was of a high description, as the books of study mentioned by him, beginning with Latin grammar, abundantly shew.

As early as October 5, 1660, the Governors established, I. Six School Dames, who should be paid for teaching the children to read, so as to fit them for the free school. The substance of this order is repeated in an order of 7th October, 1672, and VOL. VII. 2G 4

from that time the School Dames have been a regular part of the establishment, excepting when the funds have been too poor to pay them their stipend.

II. "Item, the Governors of the said Free Grammar School, or the more part of them for the time being, shall have authority, with the advice of the Schoolmaster for the time being, to admit children into the said Free Grammar School." Orders, Statutes, &c. Order 33.

What the nature is of that advice, seems sufficiently explained in a very old Governors' Order.

III. "March 6, 1698-9. It is this day ordered, That both Schoolmaster and Usher shall give it under their hands, and the two present Treasurers, what free scholars can read well enough to be admitted into the said School."

Upon these data I have grounded my plan of proceeding. I have examined the children, who have been brought to me; those who could read tolerably well (with the help of a little spelling in words of two syllables or more) have received from me a certificate, to advise the treasurers that they were qualified for admission. With this certificate they have proceeded to Lord N. the acting treasurer for the year; and he, after reading to the parents the orders of John Lyon, to which they are required to assent, gave them a certificate for admission, subject to my consent and approbation (for the word consent is found, in this application, in the Statutes). The result of all this machinery has been (risum teneas ?), that four boys have been admitted, and no more. Some few of the parents, on learning from me that Latin and Greek did not mean English (of which they could not be persuaded till I shewed them a copy of Buhle's Aristotle, with a Latin translation under the text), withdrew their claims; and, of the rest, not above four or five could read monosyllables without much labour of spelling, and much failure of just pronunciation. Some did not know the whole alphabet correctly.

In conclusion, while I have gained some credit for good-humoured affability and forbearance, the above-mentioned leader of the faction has been strongly censured by the greater part of the parish, and even by many of his own adherents, for his factious incivility towards me, and his selfish deception of his party.

Adieu! instead of a line and a half, you have almost two

sheets; at your leisure, let me hear from you copiously, strongly, frankly, kindly, Parrishly, as usual.

Vive, valeque,-Et me, ut facis, ama.

Yours most sincerely,

G. BUTLER.

I hope you will not disapprove of my conduct with regard to the admission and non-admission of the parish boys; it has been much admired by the masters; they are ready to apply the words of Demosthenes (quoted for their dactylic rythm by Longinus), τοῦτο τὸ ψήφισμα τὸν τότε τῇ πόλει περιστάντα κίνδυνον παρελθεῖν ἐποίησεν, ὥσπερ νέφος.

Pray excuse haste; if I have written ill, believe that it has been for the sake of prolonging to you the pleasure of reading (I flatter myself, you will not reject this apologetic plea).

Dr. Parr, to Dr. George Butler.

DEAR DOCTOR BUTLER,

Hatton, April 13, 1814.

But I have no dealings with the "Sosii" of our own days. I am content with half-bindings and old bindings. I hunt not after black letter, nor principes editiones, nor large paper copies. I buy that I may read like a man of letters, not that I may write like a German, nor display my treasures like a collector. To be sure, though a country parson, I have taken care, with a scanty purse, that there should be no want of number, or want of variety in my books; and if you were to spend two or three days among them, you would find them adapted to the pursuits and the mind of their owner. But I assure you that such men as yourself and Dr. Charles Burney would find nothing to envy on the score of splendour or rarity. I have steadily kept in view use only, and perhaps few scholars have been more successful than myself in getting together the most useful books, upon subjects the most interesting to one who has employed his attention upon original writers in Greek and Latin, upon philology, upon archæology, upon theology, upon ontology, and upon ethics. Do not grudge me Polenus.

Well, upon the state of public affairs, my judgment is now satisfied, and my best feelings have met with the most exquisite