CHAPTER VII.

Sequel-Letter to Irenopolis.

But the test, and all party discussions, were shortly after swallowed up in another vortex; in attacks and defences, in Burke, Paine, Rous, Mackintosh, and a variety of other writers, the approvers or disapprovers of the Revolutionary system. The first act of that terrible drama, the French Revolution, was now over, and the curtain had fallen upon the ruins of the chief distinctions of the privileged orders, titles, and feudalities. More awful scenes and events were preparing; and all men in all nations, capable of ratiocination, sympathized or participated in the gathering interest.

The hosts of civilized men were arrayed against each other in two mighty phalanxes; and expectation stood breathless awaiting the stormy fury, and the hideous shock of battle. In the beginning the battle in this country raged only in words and menaces; in the din and clamour of dispute, in reproaches and insults; and the actions and words of men were watched, and noted so jealously, that it was not easy for the most innocent and unassuming

to pass without calumny. At this crisis Parr, who had separated himself from the high church party, and became intimately connected with Mr. Fox and the Whigs, stood eminent as a butt for the shafts of faction to aim at. In consequence, he was assailed by all the warfare of petty malignity; some of his parishioners were insulted as disaffected, and he himself was privately traduced as a Jacobin. At length he was exhibited publicly as disloyal in the newspapers of the Government; and thus, from an anonymous letter, was induced to vent his feelings on the subject of politics, and the French Revolution, in a work intitled, "A Sequel to the printed Paper lately circulated in Warwickshire, by the Rev. Charles Curtis, brother of Alderman Curtis, a Birmingham Rector; London, for Charles Dilly, 1792." The Preface to "The Sequel" is one of the most finished morsels of Parr's pen. It is a little cabinet memorial of his literary powers, and one of the best patterns of his laboured style. It is, moreover, full of fine sentiments on the evanescent nature and the small interest of personal quarrels. Yet this gem is not unsullied and of the purest water; it is too much bespotted with imagery, and there is surely no propriety in the expression "noise of a bubble," or in the sentiment that opposition is likely to bestow "a rich plumage upon noisy flutter and unavailing struggles." Surely it is much more likely to snatch it away.

As to the controversy introduced and carried on in "The Sequel," I fear few persons at the time deemed it of much importance; most men, indeed,

thought the solemn asseveration of a gentleman should have been admitted; and, after all, there was not much dignity in drawing together this artillery of learning and argument, if there were no solidity to be crushed, and only feebleness to be annoyed. And, let me add, that, in the introduction of the name of Alderman Curtis, and of the subsequent remark in the note,* about his personal appearance, there was not only no dignity, but there was great indecorum and petulance. As a party man, Sir William Curtis had risen to eminence among his fellow-citizens, and to high reputation as an Englishman. By a popular election, in the most populous and most commercial city of the most enlightened country in the civilized world, he was chosen to represent the freemen of London in Parliament; and for thirty-six years, with the exception of one Parliament only, he continued their representative. By his activity in business, his deep-searching sagacity, and his native powers of intellect, he gained their confidence, and deserved it. With manly boldness he avowed his opinions, and his constituents were never deluded by false colours, or hypocritical pretences. During the whole of his political life he was a Tory in principle and in practice; and with a firm step, and unalterable steadiness, he supported the measures of the Government during the perilous times of the French war. I hope he will long enjoy, in health and peace, the honours and the fortune he has acquired

* Sequel, p. 33.

by consistency and integrity; and if this page should ever meet his eye, that he will consider it as a tribute of affection, as well as a declaration of the truth.

The political part of the Sequel, divested of the personal matter, will alone be re-published; and it treats of a subject so momentous that it redeems, in great measure, this miserable squabble from the imputation of unnecessary and venomous aggression. For if Parr deemed that these anonymous letters were only a portion of the attack upon his character, encouraged by a faction, and circulated as a slow poison through society, he was justified in vindicating himself.

I know it was the fashion to brand him as a Jacobin; because he advocated the cause of freedom, and enlisted himself under the political banner of Mr. Fox. Yet how little his sentiments favoured democracy, and how averse he was to the excesses of the French revolutionary party, he here shews; and in reviewing some of his other works, we shall find that true Whig principles, the real English Constitution in Church and State, were solidly and immoveably engrafted in his mind.

DEAR SIR,

Copy of a letter from Dr. Farmer to Dr. Parr. Amen Corner, June 15, 1792. At my last return to Cambridge I found you had honoured the College with your portrait, and I am happy to thank you in the name of ourselves and our successors. Since I have been in town I have seen a portrait of your mind, in which I (an old Tory) can scarcely wish for an alteration of a feature. I am dear Sir, yours, &c. &c. R. FARMER.

The question of prerogative, discussed by him in the Sequel, had been discussed by him before, when he was about to re-publish, with notes, the Dissertation on Whigs and Tories, by Rapin; and his remarks on the subject will be found notes which are now re-printed.

among those

The Sequel touches upon another subject of great interest; and that subject it was, probably, which roused Parr's resentment, and led the way to this attack. His house was threatened by the Birmingham incendiaries at the time of the riots in 1791, and his library* was removed from his house in his absence, to secure it from the fancied danger, by Mrs. Parr. Considerable expense was incurred, and much injury done to the books; so that Parr could not but feel some bitterness on account of that which he had suffered. Of the Birmingham riots the Sequel contains an everlasting memorial.

Of the seeming regularity of contrivance, the strange chaos of levity and ferocity, the temporary extinction of common prudence, common justice, and common humanity in private companies, the most shameless language of triumph in some diurnal and monthly publications, the vestiges of such remorseless and ill disguised approbation in certain well educated men, as in times past would have steeled the heart, for participation in the Massacre of St. Bartholomew.

By remonstrance in conversation, and sometimes

* The books were at first hastily huddled together in a barn near Hatton, and afterwards sent to Magdalen College, Oxford, when the packages were piled up under the principal, but disused, gateway of the College, by permission of the President, Dr. Routh, and the expense of near £100 was incurred.