overturn the most received dogmas of literary faith. Bryant had attempted to cheat us of the Trojan war. Bentley once ventured on a fearful paradox, -that the whole text of the Iliad and the Odyssey was suppositious. But, Sir, said Parr, on graver consideration, he relinquished it. The manuscripts of some of his lucubrations on Homer were once in Cumberland's possession. Wolf afterwards professed the same scepticism as to Homer's text. But Payne Knight would cheat us of Homer himself. I, Sir, for one, would stick to Homer, even if he never existed! The truth seems to be this. The versification must be Homeric; the story Homeric; the text, not altogether, but essentially, Homeric. What he owed to the early Athenians, who methodized his poems; what interpolations were inflicted on him by the rhapsodists, who travelled about reciting his verses ;-all that, is uncertain: but the text as it was reformed by the grammarians of Alexandria, and acquiesced in by the critics of the lower empire, I consider to be the text as it now stands. The verses, however, cited from the Iliad by Dionysius of Halicarnassus, and even some quoted by Cicero, do not exactly correspond with our Homeric vulgate."

Parr's fondness for good eating is unquestionable. Like Dr. Johnson, he was quite absorbed in the business of the table. But he had a few strong antipathies, which were carefully registered, and scrupulously remembered by those who invited him to dinner. Amongst these, was his aversion to salmon and to cheese, neither of which were ever permitted to appear on the tables of those who were acquainted with his peculiarities. Dining one day at Mr. Hargrave's, a dish was brought and placed upon the table, which Parr was anxious to encounter. When the cover was taken off, it proved to be a fine piece of salmon. He could not restrain the strongest expressions of disappointment; and turning to Mrs. Hargrave, who politely apologized for having forgotten his dislike to salmon, said, "No, my dear lady, I take this very unkind of you. It is me that you have forgotten. You forget me when you forget my aversions."

In the autumn of 1823, he dined with Mr. George Griffiths, the editor of "The Monthly Review," at his elegant villa near Turnham Green. He was out-talked at dinner by a loquacious physician, who had the singular faculty of talking and eating with equal rapidity at the same time. Parr seemed at first to be lost in surprise at the velocity with which functions, apparently so incompatible, went on together; and, jogging his host by the elbow, said in a low tone of voice,-"It will be my turn when I get my pipe." It proved, however, not quite so easy as he had supposed. The cessation of the masticatory process gave the physician's loquacity freer scope, and every one began to fear that Parr would not "come out." But, interfuit numen. The medical proser was sent for express to a patient in London, and suddenly left the table. An incubus seemed instantly removed from Parr's powers, and he paid us ainply the arrears he had incurred in conversation.

Parr knew Sheridan well. He used to tell several eharacteristic anecdotes of him; but it was confidentially only. He thought it was a violation of the reverence due to exalted genius, to dilate in mixed companies upon its irregularities. I heard him describe a singular scene that took place at a dinner given to Sheridan at the Shakspeare, a tavern formerly much frequented, and situated over the Piazza of Covent Garden. The tide of wit and conviviality flowed for some time without interruption. It happened that a gentleman from the City, to whom Sheridan owed three hundred pounds, and whom he had kept patient by successive promises successively broken, was by ill luck one of the party. The citizen had just before dinner called him on one side, and peremptorily asked for his money; but he was pacified by Sheridan's assurances, and sate down to the table in apparent good-humour. The circulation of the bottle, however, after dinner, contrary to its ordinary effect, awakened all his angry recollections about his money, and he again addressed Sheridan upon the subject across the table; who, in a severe tone of rebuke, admonished him to desist, and added, that if he renewed it Dec. VOL. XVII. NO. LXXII. 2 M

and disturbed the harmony of the company, he should be turned out of the room. The ill-fated wight went on in spite of the admonition; when Sheridan seizing him by the collar of the coat and the waistband of his breeches, lifted him with great muscular strength from the ground, and told him, that as he did not know how to behave like a gentleman, he should be thrown out of the window. The citizen struggled to no purpose with his vigorous assailant, and was struck with horror at the idea of being hurled into the market; when Sheridan, who was better acquainted with the locality of the tavern, opened the window, deposited his burden upon the leads of the Piazza, upon which the window opened, turned the screw and fastened it upon his creditor. Sheridan then returned to his wine, and renewed the conversation, which had of course been interrupted by the incident, as if nothing had happened. In about six minutes a gentle tap was heard at the window; and immediately after the subdued voice of the culprit suing for readmission. "We will try whether you can behave better," said Sheridan, opening the window; "if not, you shall resume your meditations upon the leads." The citizen returned to the table, and conducted himself with the greatest civility to Sheridan during the rest of the evening. This anecdote Is circumstantially authentic. I heard Cobb, of the India House, who was intimately acquainted with Sheridan, relate it in the same way. He was an eyewitness of this extraordinary scene.

Upon the whole, Parr was an extraordinary man. In one department of philology he was deservedly eminent. But it is a reputation, which injudicious and exaggerated praise will injure. It has not base enough to sustain a lofty structure of panegyrick. He wasted upon party what was meant for mankind." He left nothing behind him beyond the passing discussions of the day, and too often threw away the authority of his name, his mighty learning, and the splendour of his diction, upon controversies as trivial and insignificant as those of a parish vestry. It is to be lamented that nothing remains of him strong and enduring; nothing that, in his own generation, filled much space in the public eye, or is likely to transmit his memory to future ones. His Sibylline leaves are barely worth the pains of re-collection. Those of his writings which merit republication, in my opinion, are his Sermons. Of these a judicious selection might be made. He who revives, by force of a powerful and manly eloquence, the religious and moral impres sions, which in the varied and bustling intercourse of life are so apt to be obliterated, unless perpetually renewed, or by fresh and striking illustrations imparts new forms to worn-out and forgotten truths, is a real benefactor to his species. His admonitions, skilfully interposed, recommended by the graces of an elegant rhetoric, and urged with the strength of a resistless logic, will remain a monument of his talents, that will long outlive the labours of critics and commentators, a thousand Hemsterhuises, Pauws, Scultzs, and Jacobs.

BALLAD. NO. II.

The King and the Lady.

He sat in purple pride,

A king, a crowned king;

The will of a realm was at his side,

All pleasure's train could bring.

He bade his court be gay,

And an hour to revel give,

For 'tis meet when the hours fly fast away

To enjoy what time may give.

The court of fair Scotland.

"Let music raise her strain,

The minstrel's song be heard,

And feasting and dance in my palace reign-
It is my sovereign word."

The morrow came, and joy—

The joy of palaces,

That basks on the lip to the heart's annoy,

And music and feast were his.

The wine-cup flush'd with life,
Even envious souls were gay,

And the festering heart hid the gall of strife
From the gazer's eye that day.

Enthroned in pomp of power,
The king exulting sate,

'Till the merry dance and the midnight hour
Made him descend from state.

The monarch left behind,

He now put on the man,

And to pleasure his lordly soul resign'd,

And with the dance began.

He saw a lady stand,

Her face mysterious veil'd,

And he led her among the joyous band-.

But why that face conceal'd?

"O show to me thine e'en,

Fair partner," said the king,

Thou fear'st their lustre, too bright in sheen,

May work us suffering.

"But we have bright eyes here,

If not as bright as thine,

And lips as fresh as young roses are,

Just pluck'd from love's own shrine.

"I sue, who might command,

Fair lady, bare thy brow,

For the dance is o'er: in all Scotland

Sure none is coy as thou!"

He felt the hand he held

In his grow deadly chill,

And his blood, that before like a river roll'd,

Shrink back, and then be still.

A hollow voice, yet low,

Mutter'd in fleshless tone;

"O monarch, I have no beauty now

For thee to gaze upon.

"I come whence dance and song

Break not the dread repose,

Where strength parts not the weak and strong,
Nor hate the direst foes-

"From the spirits' land of shade,
To bid thee ready be,

When the sum of thy rule and hours is made
With thy deeds of sovereignty."

Aside her veil she cast

What gazed that king upon!

An orbless skull whence the life had past,
A wither'd skeleton! *

ANECDOTICAL RECOLLECTIONS.

I THINK it is Walpole who has said, in substance, that if any private individual were to commit to writing the scenes and events of his life, so pleasing is biographical detail, that even such a memoir would be replete with interest. When we consider how much the life of one man is the life of another, this is not surprising. We are fond of perusing that which, even to a limited extent, is a record of our common feelings, a history of human nature in general. The study of man is not now confined to a few philosophers. We have an innate curiosity to know all which the experience of our fellow men can develope. In this respect we are none of us anti-social, none of us are man-haters. The anchorite or Trappist, who lived in solitude, disgusted with mankind, or pretended to live so, who had flown into retirement from the ill usage of the world, or abandoned it with ruined fortunes, if a volume of biography, or of auto-biography, the most attractive of the two kinds, were placed before him, would peruse it with eagerness. We cannot wonder, when luxury is so far spread abroad as in the present day, if the agreeable be preferred generally to the useful, if works of anecdote and fancy supersede all others, and that which amuses be foremost in attraction. This vogue or fashion, moreover, is not without its utility. Family hoards and dark repositories are explored, the contents of worm-eaten papers are examined with a view to publication; and, among much which is frivolous, works are discovered worthy of preservation, historically useful and sufficiently solid to descend to posterity; witness the manuscripts of Evelyn and Pepys.

Musing on the foregoing subject the other day, during a morning walk in Hyde Park, it struck me, that if an individual, who had mingled but a little in general society, were, instead of writing his own private history (which a man, not a sexagenarian, might be wanting in modesty to publish), to enumerate such anecdotes, traits of character, or sayings of remarkable men, as had come under his notice, and to which the world was a stranger, matters not unentertaining to the reader might be elicited. For this he would tax his recollection of past years, and here and there bring up something from which the memoir-writer might make an addition to his compilations. The writer of this paper is well aware how circumscribed his own capacity of doing this is, compared with that of many others; but the example may operate upon those better qualified for the task-upon such as have had opportunities of penetrating deeper into the recesses of social

This incident tradition affirms to have happened to Alexander III. of Scotland.

life, and mingling in the society of distinguished men, with which chance never favoured him. The present article, therefore, is but an avantcourier for others better qualified to follow with a stock of more sterling value; it is a medley written down as it recurs, a sort of washingday meal, to use the house-wife's phrase, consisting of homely scraps laid in disorder upon the board.

On this 29th of September, then, I find myself at my writing-table, with my chin resting upon my hand, calling upon memory for what it may be able to afford me of the nature which I have mentioned. The traces of many things I would record, time has utterly obliterated. Johnson's Dictionary is upon the table: it reminds me of something I have been told respecting the ponderous lexicographer, which, in my belief, has never yet been Boswellized. The writer of the life of Young, in Johnson's "Lives of the Poets," who died about ten years ago, told me that the Doctor was always willing to listen to the literary compositions of his friends, and afford his advice in correcting them. Many requests of this nature were made to him; if they were made from persons whom he knew, and of whose talents he had the smallest opinion, he never slighted them; but he would crush with scorn the selfopinionated Tyro. This gentleman was one day reading to Johnson an article he had penned for publication: it was in the year 1779. Johnson suddenly stopped him at a passage he came to, in which the word "with" was repeated too often; and, looking at him in his severe way, said," Sir, I know not how you will manage to finish your paper; for I tell you without with,' though with 'without' or with 'with,' if you prefer it, that I shall withstand your using 'with' or 'without' more than five times in any other sentence."

The gentleman from whom I had the foregoing anecdote, also said, that drinking tea with Johnson, at the house of the blind poetess, Mrs. Williams, on the 31st of December, 1779, the Doctor got up after finishing his twelfth cup of tea, and addressed him-" Well, Sir, good night; and a happy new year to us all to-morrow! Poor Garrick's curtain is dropped, and the learned Bishop Warburton's pen is at rest. Where shall we all be in another twelvemonth? There's another worn out year added to the cast-off wardrobe of old Time, or rather to the rich stores of some present Tacitus or future Herodotus! As to you, my young friend, while you are walking home, sum up all that you or others have done, right or wrong, in the course of the past year, rub out the old score, and to-morrow morning begin a wiser one."

66

I remember one day asking Wolcot if he had known Johnson. He told me he had been in his company, I think at Plymouth. Every body," said Wolcot," was in awe of him; and I confess I felt some awe too, yet I determined to say something; and recollecting to have heard that he was fond of contradicting the opinions of others, even when he thought as they did, I laid a trap to discover whether this rumour about him was right. Watching my time, I said," I think, Dr. Johnson, that picture of Reynolds is one of the best he ever painted."

"Sir, I differ from you in opinion: I think it is one of his worst, Sir!" Wolcot was silent. With the shrewdness of his own character, Wolcot observed to me, on relating this anecdote-" Traps are good things to prove a man's character; lay them well, and they will always