you hinder sane persons from becoming mad. Awaken their activity; accustom them to order; bring them to see that they hold their being and their fate in common with many millions; that extraordinary talents, the highest happiness, the deepest misery, are but slight variations from the general destiny: in this way, no insanity will enter; or, if it has entered, will gradually disappear. I have portioned out the old man's hours; he gives lessons to some children on the harp; he labours in the garden; he is already much more cheerful. He wishes to enjoy the cabbages he plants; my son, to whom in case of death he has bequeathed his harp, he is ardent to instruct, that the boy may be able to make use of his inheritance. I have said but little to him, as a clergyman, about his wild mysterious scruples; but a busy life brings on many incidents, that ere long he must feel how true it is, that doubt of any kind can be removed only by activity. I go softly to work; yet if I could get his beard and hood removed, I should reckon it a weighty point; for nothing more exposes us to madness than distinguishing ourselves from others, and nothing more contributes to maintain our common sense than living in the universal way with multitudes of men.— Alas! how much there is in education, in our social constitutions, to prepare us and our children for insanity."" Vol. ii. pp. 175, 176.

Our readers would form a most incorrect and unworthy opinion of the work before us, if they suffered themselves to suppose that such passages as that just quoted, were mere appendages; the baubles of a fertile mind, exhibited with the ostentation of a savage. There is scarcely an observation, of any kind, introduced, that does not fall into the natural current of association, and that the reader, when put in possession of the whole narrative, does not acknowledge to conduce to the combined effect of the whole. In the present instance, whilst Wilhelm is discoursing with the clergyman and his friend the physician concerning insanity, the mind of the reader is gradually undergoing a preparation for the denouement of the piece.

"For man,' he (the physician) used to say, 'there is but one misfortune; when some idea lays hold of him, which exerts no influence on active life, or still more, which withdraws him from it. At the present time,' continued he, on this occasion, 'I have such a case before me; it concerns a rich and noble couple; and hitherto has baffled all my skill. The affair belongs, in part, to your department, worthy pastor; and your friend here will forbear to mention it again.'

"In the absence of a certain nobleman, some persons of the house, in a frolic not entirely commendable, disguised a young man in the master's clothes. The lady was to be imposed upon by this deception: and although it was described to me as nothing but a joke, 1 am very much afraid the purpose of it was to lead this noble and most amiable lady from the path of honour. Her husband, however, unexpectedly returns, enters his chamber; thinks he sees his spirit; and from that time falls into a melancholy temper, firmly believing that his death is near.

"He has now abandoned himself to men who pamper him with religious ideas; and I see not how he is to be prevented from going among the Herrnhuthers with his lady; and as he has no children, from depriving his relations of the chief part of his fortune.'

"With his lady?' cried our friend, in great agitation; for this story had affrighted him extremely

"And alas !' replied the doctor,' who regarded Wilhelm's exclamation only as the voice of a common sympathy; this lady is herself possessed with a deeper sorrow, which renders a removal from the world desirable to her also. The same young man was taking leave of her: she was not circumspect enough to hide a recent inclination towards him; the youth grew bolder, clasped her in his arms, and pressed a large portrait of her husband, which was set with diamonds, forcibly against her breast. She felt a sharp pain, which gradually went off, leaving first a little redness, then no trace at all. As a man, I am convinced that she has nothing more with which she can reproach herself in this affair; as a physician, I am certain that this pressure could not have the smallest ill effect. Yet she will not be persuaded that an induration is not taking place in the part; and if you try to overcome her notion by the evidence of feeling, she maintains, that though the evil is away this moment, it will return the next. She conceives that the disease will end in cancer; and thus her youth and loveliness be altogether lost to others and herself.'

"Wretch that I am!' cried Wilhelm, striking his brow, and rushing from the company into the fields. He had never felt himself in such a miserable case before." Vol. ii. pp. 178–180.

The "Confessions of a fair Saint" occupy the whole of the sixth book. They are exquisitely written, and display a knowledge of the human heart, particularly as it appears, when at once humbled and purified by the influence of religious faith. It is occasionally somewhat mystical, and we felt at first inclined to quarrel with it as an unnecessary halt in the march of the narrative. The marvellous skill with which it is connected, both with the preceding and succeeding events of the story, have nevertheless quite pacified our critical spleen. Indeed, Goethe has pared off a large portion from the frightful amplitude of our lion's claws, and we have become as docile as it becomes us.

In the course of the subsequent books, many new characters are introduced, and the whole plot is unravelled with inimitable skill. Many of the events appear strange, yet the magic of the author's genius has managed to clothe them with an air of probability. Twenty-five years of increasing reputation warrants us in the prediction, that Wilhelm Meister is destined to a fame as lasting as that of any work of genius, which has ever been produced. Who shall say that the illustrious author does not deserve his immortality, when he reflects that this work, the darling child of its parent, engaged fifteen years of his best

pro

labours and most matured judgment in bringing it to perfection. Let no one presume, with indecent speed, to judge of such duction in as many hours. We have been reluctantly compelled to form an opinion of it through the medium of a translation, and yet under this disadvantage, it displays beauties, which seem to multiply themselves in exact proportion to the intensity with which we gaze upon them.

ART. VI.-1. Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Opinions of the Rev. Samuel Parr, L. L. D.; with Biographical Notices of many of his friends, pupils and contemporaries. By the Rev. WILLIAM FIELD. 2 vols. 8vo. Colburn. London. 1828.

2. Parriana: or Notices of the Rev. Samuel Parr, L. L. D. collected from various sources, printed and manuscript, and in part written by E. H. BARKER, Esq. of Thetford, Norfolk. Vol. 1st. Colburn. London. 1828.

"ENGLAND has seen but three Greek scholars, I mean real scholars," was wont to say, with a full pompous voice and strong lisp, an old gentleman arrayed in black velvet, and an ample cauliflower wig, surmounted by a cocked hat. "The first of these scholars was the immortal Bentley, the second is Porson, and the third," continued he, with a swelling satisfaction that belied his words-"the third, modesty forbids me to mention." It is to this third Grecian that we now introduce our readers.

More than thirty years ago, Dr. Parr was ranked by many as "by far the most learned man of his day;" by others proclaimed a second Dr. Johnson ;* and ever since, public opinion in the United Kingdoms has accorded him a reputation which, on this side of the Atlantic, we have for the most part taken on hearsay in absence of better proof. His various claims to immortality are at last fully before us, and if we cannot laud very highly the talents and taste of his biographers, their industry and fairness seem to merit our confidence. We could, indeed, have wished

* See Seward's Letters, Pursuits of Literature, Edinburgh Review, &c.

that the Memoirs of the Doctor's life by Dr. Johnstone, had reached us, but we are inclined to think they could have added nothing of very great importance to the ample materials furnished by two persons who had every opportunity of acquiring correct and minute knowledge of the subject.

Dr. Samuel Parr was born at Harrow-on-the-Hill, January 26th, 1747. His father was firmly attached to the divine right of kings and to the Pretender, to whom he lent the greatest part of his fortune. "The son when a child," to use his own words, "read through Rapin's History several times." "In studying the pages of that judicious and impartial writer, he often declared, he found all his hereditary prejudices powerfully counteracted; and it was from them that he imbibed his first notions of those great principles of civil and religious liberty, which he so ardently embraced and so strenuously maintained through his future life."*

That he evinced talents at a very early age, we have his own testimony. "He, himself often observed that his mental faculties were unfolded very prematurely; adding too, that with him prematurity did not, as years advanced, sink into imbecility."+ Perhaps it is a proof of this, that "he has sometimes been heard to declare, that he recollected being suckled at his mother's breast. He spoke with perfect sincerity, though with an evident distrust of being believed." At four years old, he was successfully taught the Latin Grammar by his father, and owing, probably to this cause, he insisted on the necessity of commencing very young to attain a thorough knowledge of the ancient languages, though he acknowledged that Scaliger, Gibbon, and his own friend, Richard Payne Knight, were splendid exceptions. Mr. Field relates also, as how "the child," whom he sometimes compares to an infant Hercules in the cradle, mounted upon a chair, or, perchance, more conspicuously upon a table, would spout choice passages to an admiring audience, or even extemporarily delight bearded sages with the fruits of his precocity.

He was sent at the age of five years to Harrow school, first under the learned Dr. Thackeray, and afterwards under the more celebrated Dr. Sumner, of whom Sir William Jones has left a beautiful portrait. Before Parr had completed his fourteenth year, he arrived at the first place in the first form, although such men as Nathaniel Brassy Halked, Bishop Bennet, and Sir William Jones, were his competitors; with the two last, he formed a friendship that remained undiminished in their riper

years.

Memoirs, vol. i. p. 6.

+ Ibid. p.

18.

Ibid. p. 8.

Jones, Bennet and Parr were accustomed to divide the neighbouring fields among them, and assuming ancient names, proffered to maintain their fancied domains against all invaders. "Thus at one time it was agreed that Jones should be called Euryalus, King of Arcadia; Bennet, Nisus, King of Argos; and Parr, Leander, Prince of Abydos and Sestos. Under these and similar names, they held councils, they wrote memorials; they uttered harangues; they declared war; they negociated peace; whilst some of their school-fellows consented (very complaisantly) to be styled barbarians."* Hence these lads of thirteen, before putting on long-tailed coats, "must have acquired," as Mr. Field very seriously and sapiently observes, "just ideas of international law and civil government," without the trouble of poring over Puffendorf or Grotius. The three also studied logic together, and practised themselves in syllogystic disputation. Metaphysics too engaged their attention; but here Episcopal Bennet and Oriental Jones toiled in vain to keep pace with the eagle flight of Parr. "In truth," said he, and who knew better, "I was often engaged in diving into the depths or unravelling the intricacies of subjects, which they, at that time, could not comprehend."+ The friends too, frequently imitated the style of different authors, as Phalaris, Hervey, Swift, Addison or Johnson. In after life, he attributed his facility in extempore preaching, to his contests with his two talented rivals at Harrow.‡

In 1761, the father of Dr. Parr, who was an apothecary and surgeon, thinking his son's classical acquirements sufficient for the medical profession, took him from his darling studies, and set him to mixing medicines, and to witness with trembling nerves, that often met the stern animadversions of the veteran, the scientific gashes of the healing art. Whether these terrific exhibitions of chirurgical skill, or the bad Latin of the prescriptions, deterred our neophyte, we know not; but at all events, he took little liking to the calling of his progenitor. The elder Parr one day handed him a prescription, in which the son detected a grammatical arrangement, unwarranted by any good classical authority, and with suitable gravity, pointed out the unpardonable blunder. "Sam! damn the language of the prescription," exclaimed the angry apothecary, "make the mixture." His time, meanwhile, was not lost from his favourite pursuits. Ascertaining every day the lesson which the head class was reciting, whilst engaged in preparing the pill or

+ Ibid. p. 22.

* Memoirs, vol. i. p. 21. Ibid. p. 119.-Parriana, 20. ₫ Parriana, 153-Memoirs, vol. i. p. 27.