HE MATCHED A TRICK OF THE DEVIL.
Like the more celebrated scholars and divines, Clarke, Paley, Markland, &c., he would join an evening party at cards, always preferring the old English game of whist, and resolutely adhering to his early determination of never playing for more than a nominal stake. Being once, however, induced to break through it, and play with the late learned Bishop of Llandaff, Dr. Watson, for a shilling, which he won, after pushing it carefully to the bottom of his pocket and placing his hand upon it, with a kind of mock solemnity, he said, “There, my lord Bishop, 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, though he was not the less ardent in pursuit of success, or less joyous on winning his rubber. Like our great moralist, Johnson, he had an aversion to punning, saying, it exposed the poverty of a language. Yet he perpetrated the following
THREE CLASSICAL PUNS:
One day reaching a book from a shelf in his library, two others came tumbling down, including a volume of Hume, upon which fell a critical work of Lambert Bos: “See what has happened,” exclaimed the Doctor, “procumbit humi bos.” At another time, too strong a current of air being let into the room where he was sitting, suffering under the effects of a slight cold, “Stop! stop!” said he, “this is too much; at present I am only par levibus ventis.” When he was solicited to subscribe to Dr. Busby’s translation of Lucretius, published at a high price, he declined doing so, by observing, at the proposed cost it would indeed be “Lucretius carus.”
HIS LAW ACT AT CAMBRIDGE.
On proceeding to the degree of LL.D. at Cambridge, in 1781, Dr. Parr delivered “in the law schools, before crowded audiences,” says Field, “two theses, of which the subject of the first was, Hæres ex delicto defuncti non tenetur; and of the second, Jus interpretandi leges privatis, perinde ac principi, constat. In the former of these, after having offered a tribute of due respect to the memory of the late Hon. Charles Yorke (the Lord Chancellor,) he strenuously opposed the doctrine of that celebrated lawyer, laid down in his book upon ‘the law of forfeiture;’ and denied the authority of those passages which were quoted from the correspondence of Cicero and Brutus; because, as he affirmed, after that learned and sagacious (Cambridge) critic, Markland (in his Remarks on the Epistles of those two Romans,) the correspondence itself is not genuine. The same liberal and enlightened views of the natural and social rights of man pervaded the latter as well as the former thesis; and in both were displayed such strength of reasoning and power of language, such accurate knowledge of historical facts and such clear comprehension of legal principles bearing on the questions, that the whole audience listened with fixed and delighted attention. The Professor of Law himself, Dr. Hallifax, afterwards Bishop of St. Asaph, was so struck with the uncommon excellence of these compositions, as to make it his particular request that they should be given to the public; but with which request Dr. Parr could not be persuaded to comply.
“THERE IS A PLEASANT STORY
Reported of the Doctor,” says Barker, in his Parriana, when on a visit to Dr. Farmer, at Emanuel Lodge. He had made free in discourse with some of the Fellow Commoners in the Combination-room, who, not being able to cope with him, resolved to take vengeance in their own way; they took his best wig, and thrust it into his boot: this indispensable appendage of dress was soon called for, but could nowhere be found, till the Doctor, preparing for his departure, and proceeding, to put on his boots, found one of them pre-occupied, and putting in his hand, drew forth the wig, with a loud shout—perhaps ευρηκα.” “When the late Dr. Watson,” adds the same writer, “presided in the divinity-schools, at
AN ACT KEPT BY DR. MILNER,
The reputation of whose great learning and ability caused the place to be filled with the senior and junior members of the University, one of the opponents was the late Dr. Coulthurst, and the debate was carried on with great vigour and spirit. When this opponent had gone through his arguments, the Professor rose, as usual, from his throne, and, taking off his cap, cried out—