Kitabı oku: «The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 13, No. 371, May 23, 1829», sayfa 6
In the latter years of his life, Parr had been subject to erysipelas; once he had suffered by a carbuncle, and once by a mortification in the hand. Owing to this tendency to diseased action in the skin, he was easily affected by cold, and on Sunday, the 16th of January, 1825, having, in addition to the usual duties of the day, buried a corpse, he was, on the following night, seized with a long-continued rigor, attended by fever and delirium, and never effectually rallied again. There is a note, however, dated November 2, 1824, addressed by him to Archdeacon Butler, which proves that he felt his end approaching, even before this crisis.
"Dear and Learned Namesake,—This letter is important, and strictly confidential. I have given J. Lynes minute and plenary directions for my funeral. I desire you, if you can, to preach a short, unadorned funeral sermon. Rann Kennedy is to read the lesson and grave service, though I could wish you to read the grave service also. Say little of me, but you are sure to say it well."
Dr. Butler complied with his request, and amply made good the opinion here expressed. He spoke of him like a warm and stedfast friend, but not like that worst of enemies, an indiscreet one; he did not challenge a scrutiny by the extravagance of his praise, nor break, by his precious balms, the head he was most anxious to honour. Dr. Parr's death was tedious, and his faculties, except at intervals, disturbed. He took an opportunity, however, afforded him by one of these intervals, of summoning about his bed his wife, grand-children, and servants; confessed to them his weaknesses and errors, asked their forgiveness for any pain he might have caused them by petulance and haste, and professed "his trust in God, through Christ, for the pardon of his sins." One expression, which Dr. Johnstone reports him to have used on this occasion, is extraordinary—that "from the beginning of his life he was not conscious of having fallen into a crime." Far be it from us to scrutinize the words of a delirious death-bed—These must have been uttered (if, indeed, they are accurately given) either in some peculiar and very limited sense, or else at a moment when a man is no longer accountable to God for what he utters. The latter was, probably, the case: for in the same breath in which he declares "his life, even his early life, to have been pure," he sues for pardon at the hands of his Maker, and acknowledges a Redeemer, as the instrument through which he is to obtain it.
That quickness of feeling and disposition to abandon himself to its guidance, which made Parr an inconsistent man, made him also a benevolent one. Benevolence he loved as a subject for his contemplation, and the practical extension of it as a rule for his conduct. He could scarcely bear to regard the Deity under any other aspect. He would have children taught, in the first instance, to regard him under that aspect alone; simply as a being who displayed infinite goodness in the creation, in the government, and in the redemption of the world. Language itself indicates, that the whole system of moral rectitude is comprised in it—[Greek: energetein], benefacere, beneficencethe generic term being, in common parlance, emphatically restricted to works of charity. Nor was this mere theory in Parr. Most men who have been economical from necessity in their youth, continue to be so, from habit, in their age—but Parr's hand was ever open as day. Poverty had vexed, but had never contracted his spirit; money he despised, except as it gave him power—power to ride in his state coach, to throw wide his doors to hospitality, to load his table with plate, and his shelves with learning; power to adorn his church with chandeliers and painted windows; to make glad the cottages of his poor; to grant a loan, to a tottering farmer; to rescue from want a forlorn patriot, or a thriftless scholar. Whether misfortune, or mismanagement, or folly, or vice, had brought its victim low, his want was a passport to Parr's pity, and the dew of his bounty fell alike upon the evil and the good, upon the just and the unjust. It is told of Boerhaave, that, whenever he saw a criminal led out to execution, he would say, "May not this man be better than I? If otherwise, the praise is due, not to me, but to the grace of God." Parr quotes the saying with applause. Such, we doubt not, would have been his own feelings on such an occasion.
—Quarterly Review
THE GATHERER
A snapper up of unconsidered trifles.
SONG FROM THE ITALIAN OF P. ROLLI
Babbling current, would you know
Why I turn to thee again,
'Tis to find relief from woe,
Respite short from ceaseless pain.
I and Sylvio on a day
Were upon thy bank reclin'd,
When dear Sylvio swore to me,
And thus spoke in accents kind:
First this flowing tide shall turn
Backward to its fountain head,
Dearest nymph, ere thou shall mourn,
Thy too easy faith betray'd.
Babbling current, backward turn,
Hide thee in thy fountain head;
For alas, I'm left to mourn
My too easy faith betray'd.
Love and life pursu'd the swain,
Both must have the self-same date,
But mine only he could mean,
Since his love is turn'd to hate.
Sure some fairer nymph than I,
From me lures the lovely youth,
Haply she receives like me,
Vows of everlasting truth.
Babbling current should the fair
Stop to listen on thy shore,
Bid her, Sylvio, to beware,
Love and truth he oft had sworn.
T.H
THE SPRING AND THE MORNING,
A Ballad. Written by Sir Lumley Skeffington, Bart. Inscribed to Miss Foote
When the frosts of the Winter, in mildness were ending,
To April I gave half the welcome of May;
While the Spring, fresh in youth, came delightfully blending
The buds that are sweet, and the songs that are gay.
As the eyes fixed the heart on a vision so fair,
Not doubting, but trusting what magic was there;
Aloud I exclaim'd, with augmented desire,
I thought 'twas the Spring, when In truth, 'tis Maria.
When the fading of stars, in the regions of splendour,
Announc'd that the morning was young in the East,
On the upland I rov'd, admiration to render,
Where freshness, and beauty, and lustre increas'd.
Whilst the beams of the morning new pleasures bestow'd,
While fondly I gaz'd, while with rapture I glow'd;
In sweetness commanding, in elegance bright,
Maria arose! a more beautiful light!
Gentleman's Magazine
UNEXPECTED REPROOF
The celebrated scholar, Muretus, was taken ill upon the road as he was travelling from Paris to Lyons, and as his appearance was not much in his favour, he was carried to an hospital. Two physicians attended him, and his disease not being a very common one, they thought it right to try something new, and out of the usual road of practice, upon him. One of them, not knowing that their patient knew Latin, said in that language to the other, "We may surely venture to try an experiment upon the body of so mean a man as our patient is." "Mean, sir!" replied Muretus, in Latin, to their astonishment, "can you pretend to call any man so, sir, for whom the Saviour of the world did not think it beneath him to die?"
IRELAND
The following is the territorial surface of Ireland:—
3 Parliamentary Report.
ROUGE ET NOIR
When jovial Barras was the Monarch of France,
And its women all lived in the light of his glance,
One eve, when tall Tallien and plump Josephine
Were trying the question, of which should be Queen,
Dame Josephine hung on one side of his chair,
With her West Indian bosom as brown as 'twas bare;
Dame Tallien as fondly on t'other side hung,
With a blush that might burn up the spot where she clung.
Old Sieyes stalked in; saw my lord at his wine,
Now toasting the copper-skin, now the carmine;
Then starting away, cried, "Barras, le bon soir;
'Twas for business I came; I leave you Rouge et Noir."
