gence, mend as fast as I can, assuring you the fault you so obligingly complain of is neither voluntary nor unregretted, and, moreover, carries with it its own punishment. The first opportunity I can lay hold of shall terminate both the one and the other. F. B."

"Wednesday evening, August 8th, 1834.

"The brave General Rebinski is to dine with me on Friday, and, I believe, Prince Czartorinski. Perhaps D'Orsay would meet them. I will call in the evening to know. I don't know where you saw any report of what I said last night, but The Times' makes me talk sad nonsense, and say the reverse, in some instances, of what I did say.

"To make any thing like the thing itself, it would be necessary to write a new speech, as far as 'The Times' is concerned, and this is a tiresome task; but I would do what I never did before, if it had a chance of serving the gallant, unhappy Poles.

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Many thanks for your obliging administration.

F. B."

"June 22d, 1839.

"What next! The king's death seems the deuce's own turn up. Lord Durham, it seems, is the violet in the lap of the new court. Eh bien nous Conjecture is useless and impossible, indeed.

verrons.

F. B."

LETTER SIGNED H

“August 8th.

"Your very kind and flattering note gave me great pleasure. Believe me that I long have wished to put an end to any estrangement that existed; and the happy and merry hours I passed at the Villa Gallo are too agreeably engraven on my memory for me to feel any thing but gratitude and affection for its inmates. I have often heard and known how kindly you and Alfred have spoken of me, and have often wished for an opportunity of breaking through the semblance of an enmity which I believe never really existed much on either side.

"Many, many thanks for your kind permission to come to Gore House, which I hope some morning or evening soon to avail myself of.

"The inclosed letter I am very much obliged to you indeed for letting me see. I know no one whose happiness and prosperity I am more seriously glad to hear of, or who deserves better to be happy and prosperous; kindhearted, generous, sincere, and disinterested, full of the best qualities of her delightful country, without any of the faults that grow in that soil.

"Pray, when you next write, remember to convey to her my sincere congratulations upon her marriage and new position. I hope, the next time I go to Paris, to have an occasion of expressing them viva voce.

"Ever very faithfully yours,

H."

LETTERS SIGNED C

66 August 23d, 1831.

-'s

"I am this moment, dear Lady Blessington, returned from JSmarriage; his wife is a piquante brunette, and decidedly pretty. He asked me to go as one of his witnesses; he had no Englishman to support him. I really thought I should have died while two little boys kept a white cloth over the head of J- and he stood there the symbol of innocence.

C."

"Rome, March 4th, 1843.

"Many, very many thanks for your kind letter. You can not conceive what real pleasure I received when your letter arrived, it was so very kind of you to write to me. We are now just returned from the Carnival, which has been very gay, and for which we have had decent weather, it only having poured two of the days, which we thought very fortunate, in this rainy climate. We had an excellent balcony opposite the Via Condotti, and from which we and our friends pelted away some thousand pounds of bonbons, &c. "I think it most amusing to observe the effect it has on different people; some are so remarkably angry, some so dignified, and others enjoying it. I wish you could have seen Lord Winchelsea dressing at the Corso to call on some one, covered with white dust, and looking as if he were preparing a violent anti-Catholic speech for the House of Lords.

"A party of us, E—, P—, L——, and F, went one day in a car; we were dressed as the priestesses of Norma, and we were attended by our servants as ancient Roman warriors; and I can assure you we made a great sensation. I went in the evening to Madame L's in a woman's domino, with rather short petticoats-the latter garment being trimmed with lace, and being adorned with rose-colored ribbons. Of course, I took occasion to show it. I was beautifully chaussée with satin shoes, and completely mystified every one.

"I am so charmed to hear that Alfred bears up against his confinement with his usual fortitude. As to any success he may have in painting and sculpture, it does not in the least surprise me, as, with his talents, success crowns all his undertakings.

C."

A vast number of letters exist-certainly several hundreds of letters-addressed to Lady Blessington, while she was residing in St. James's Square, in the Villa Belvidere in Naples, the Palazzo Negroni in Rome, the Hotel Ney in Paris, Seamore Place and Gore House, London; answers to invitations, inquiries of a priyate nature, and applications of Lady Blessington in behalf of friends and protegés, which, however important as showing the extent and nature of her correspondence, or the influence

exercised by Lady Blessington over the most eminent persons of her time in statesmanship or in literature, have been withheld from publication, from a desire to insert no letters in these volumes except on account of some intrinsic value and interest in such correspondence. These omitted letters include communications from Mr. Canning, Lords Hutchinson, Grey, Rosslyn, Beresford, Lyndhurst, Brougham, Durham, Jersey, Ashburnham, Aberdeen, Morpeth, Glenelg, Westmoreland, Abinger, Normanby, Auckland, Chesterfield, Douro, Castlereagh, Strangford, Holland, Clanricarde, the Marquess Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington, Sir T. Lawrence, Sir Alured Clerk, Sir F. Burdett, Sir Edwin Landseer, Sir E. B. Lytton, Sir H. Bulwer, Sir W. Sommerville.

Moore, Campbell, Rogers, Byron, Barry Cornwall, Lady Tankerville, Miss Landor, Mrs. Romer, Mrs. Sigourney, Mrs. Mathews, Miss Louisa Sheridan, Madame Guiccioli, Mademoiselle Rachel.

Vicomte D'Arlincourt, the Duc D'Ossuna, le Prince Schwartzenburg, le Prince Soutza, le Prince Belvidere, W. S. Landor, the Right Hon. B. D'Israeli, Dickens, Fonblanque, Forster, Sergeant Talfourd, the Hon. Spencer Cooper, Wilkie, Maclise, Wyatt, Unwin, Eugene Sue, Alfred de Vigny, Casimir Delavigne, Colonel D'Aguilar, Hay, Dr. Parr, Dr. Lardner, Dr. Quin, Dr. Beattie, James and Horace Smith, Macready, C. Greville, C. J. Mathews, Jekyll, Jack Fuller, Leitch Ritchie, Baillie Cochrane, Bernal Osborne, B. Simmonds, F. Mansell Reynolds, Theodore Hook, J. H. Jesse, Henry Chester, J. G. Wilkinson, Washington Irving, Kenyon, Luttrell, Hon. R. Spencer, Thackeray, Albert Smith, Jerdan, Haynes Bailey, &c., &c., &c.

CHAPTER XIII.

DOCTOR SAMUEL PARR, LL.D.

THIS celebrated Greek scholar and eminent critic was born at Harrow-on-the-Hill in 1746. He was educated at Harrow, and Emmanuel College, Cambridge. In 1769 he entered into orders.

He established a school at Stanmore, and superintended schools in Colchester and Norwich, before he obtained the rectory at Asterby in 1780, and a prebend's stall in the Cathedral of St. Paul in 1781. The perpetual curacy of Hatton, near Norwich, was conferred on him in 1785. In 1791, the riots at Birmingham, which proved destructive to the property of Dr. Priestley, extended to Hatton, and the property of Dr Parr, on account of his friendship with Dr. Priestley, and his own liberal principles, was endangered. The following year Dr. Parr exchanged his perpetual curacy at Hatton for a rectory in Northamptonshire. Early in 1793 he began to contribute to "The British Critic,' and later wrote much in "The Classical Journal." In 1802 Sir Francis Burdett presented him to the rectory of Graffham in Huntingdonshire. The doctor's strong Whiggish principles, when Mr. Fox came into power, it is said, weighed down the merits of his erudition and theological acquirements in the estimation of the king, and prevented a bishopric being given him. He died in March, 1825, in his eightieth year, like the celebrated linguist and scholar Mezzofanti, leaving behind few records of his vast erudition. All the remains of Dr. Parr are comprised in a Collection of Sermons; "a Tract on Education, and the plans pursued by Charity Schools," 4to, 1786; a Preface to Bellendenus de Statu, and "A Letter from Irenopolis to the Inhabitants of Eleutheropolis, or a Serious Address to the Inhabitants of Birmingham," in 1792; "Character of the late Charles James Fox, by Philopatris Varvicensis," 2 vols. 8vo, 1809, and some ephemeral pamphlets, occasioned by his critical disputes and controversies with Dr. Charles Combe and others.

"Of Bentley's feuds-of Porson's-Parr's
Most savage Greek and Latin wars,"

few remains are left; and mankind would be nothing the worse if their battles had never been waged at all. Dr. Parr was renowned for his smoking, even more than Dr Isaac Barrow. He would empty twenty pipes of an evening in his own house, but when he was on his good behavior in fashionable circles, it is said he pined after the weed. About two years before his

death he was introduced by Mr. Pettigrew to Lady Blessington, and was so charmed by her appearance, manners, and conversation, that he would willingly, at any time, have relinquished his pipe ever after for the pleasure of her society. After the first interview, he spoke to Mr. Pettigrew of her as the gorgeous Lady Blessington.

LETTERS FROM DR. PARR TO LADY BLESSINGTON.

"Hatton, January 26th, 1822. "May it please your ladyship to accept the tribute of my best thanks for the present of a gorgeous cake, which does equal honor to your courtesy and your taste. It reached me last night. It seized the admiration of my wife and two Oxford friends. They gazed upon its magnitude. They eulogized the coloring and the gilding of the figures with raptures. They listened gladly to the tales which I told about the beautiful, ingenious, and noble donor. I perceive that your ladyship's gift was sent by the Crown Prince coach, which I had pointed out, and upon which I depend chiefly. My wife and my cook, and her auxiliary, are waiting, with some anxiety, for a magnificent turbot, with which Lord Blessington intends to decorate the banquet.

"You may be assured that grateful and honorable mention of your names will be made in our toasts. I shall write to Lord Blessington when I know

the fate of the fish.

"As it did not come by the Crown Prince, possibly it may be conveyed by the mail, which passes my door about nine, or by the Liverpool, which passes about the middle of the day.

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My village peal of eight bells is ringing merrily, and I wish that you and Lord Blessington were here, the witnesses of their music.

"I probably shall visit the capital in the spring, and, with the permission of your ladyship and Lord Blessington, I shall pay my personal compliments to you in St. James's Square.

"I have the honor to be, with the greatest respect, my lady, your ladyship's faithful well-wisher and much obliged humble servant, S. PARR."

"January 27th, 1822.

"INGENIOUS AND HONORED LADY BLESSINGTON,-Accept my praise as a critic, and my best thanks as a well-wisher, for the honor which you have done me in sending me a most elegant poetical congratulation on the return of the anniversary of my birth-day. Lady Blessington, I have ventured to impress three kisses upon the precious communication, and I will order it to be preserved among my papers as a memorial of your ladyship's taste and courtesy. The cake, from its magnitude and its richness, would have adorned the table of a cardinal. Be assured, Lady Blessington, that not only was your name pronounced in the second toast with that of the Duke of Sussex