cessary expense would have been all the evil; for, if those courts were either found to do harm, or at least to do no good, Parliament, after a few years' experience, could have repealed the act, abolished the courts and the law, and the country would have fallen back exactly into the state it was in before it was passed, under its old jurisdictions of Circuit Courts and Quarter Sessions.

"Lord Brougham, however, did not proceed in this wholesale waybut, with the most statesmanlike caution and prudence, (greater, perhaps, than was to have been expected from his ardent and sanguine mind,) Lord Brougham in his bill, proposes at first to establish these courts only in two counties-Kent, at one end of the island, and Northumberland at the other. By this means the experiment would be fairly tried on a small scale, and, if the experiment succeeded, and those local courts were found to act beneficially in the administration of justice, then they could, by a subsequent act, be extended to the whole kingdom. On the other hand, if the experiment did not succeed, the evil is only local and partial, the expense trifling, and the act could be and would be, of course, repealed.

"Not so proceeds my Lord Grey. He does not cautiously feel his way -he does not apply the principle or the details of his bill, or any one point, on a small scale at first, in such a manner, that, if the measure was found either not to produce the good he predicted, or positively to lead to some or all of the evils predicted by others, it could be amended or repealed.

"No-but with true epic frenzy, he dashes into the midst of things at once-extends his experiment over the whole system--and this, although he must be conscious, that, if he is mistaken in his hopes and expectations, if the experiment fails, and either produces no good, or positive evil, it can never be altered, amended, or recalled. You may withhold a privilege from the people, if you believe that it would prove hurtful even to themselves; but once give them a privilege, and nothing but military force can ever deprive them of it. On the contrary, they will use VOL. XXIX. NO. CLXXXI.

what they have got to acquire greater power in the first instance, blind to the ultimate evils which it may bring on themselves.

"Could not Lord Grey, imitating the prudence of Lord Brougham, have granted members to some great towns-on any principle of elective franchise he pleased, even universal suffrage and vote by ballot? The advantages or disadvantages of such a mode of election could thus have been tried upon a small scale, which, if beneficial or harmless, might have been extended, but which, if found to be hurtful, Parliament would have had, not only the will, but the power to repeal, and vest the right of election in those towns in some other body of voters.

"In the same way, he might have selected one or two counties, and in them have given the right of voting to copyholders, tenants, ten pound gentlemen, or any others he thought best, and have tried for some years how this system worked, and then have extended or repealed it, according to the experience of its effects.

"This is the manner in which any man with common pretensions to be a statesman would have acted. This is the manner in which Lord Brougham set him the example of acting. This is the manner in which even the most rigid anti-reformer would have given him credit for acting, and probably would never have opposed him-for an anti-reformer, sincere in his opinions, would have been glad of a safe opportunity of seeing the evils he predicted verified in practice.

"What should we say of a farmer, who, hearing of a new species of grain, of which he had no experience, should sow at once his whole disposable ground with it, at the risk of losing all, instead of trying it at first on one or two acres? Or what should we say of a physician, who, hearing of a new medicine, of which he had no experience, as a cure for fever, should at once give it to the whole fever patients in an hospital, instead of cautiously trying it on one or two?

"Yet this is just what Earl Grey has done. He has entered on a path where there is no receding-vestigia nulla retrorsum-facilis descensus Averni-sed revocare gradus, hic labor, hoc opus est. It is easy for a

3 N

ABOUT the year 1789, Dr Parr was involved in two literary broils-the one purely offensive, the other nearly so-though, as usual, the doctor coloured them to his own mind, as measures of just retaliation. The first was his republication of a forgotten pamphlet, written by Bishop Warburton, and afterwards anxiously suppressed by his orders; and to this he united another, "by a Warburtonian," viz. Bishop Hurd; prefixing to the whole a preface, and a most rhetorical dedication, from his own pen, in which he la bours to characterise both the bishops, but especially the living one, in terms that, whilst wearing some shew of justice, should also be as sarcastic and as injurious as possible. The mere act of reviving what the authors themselves had been zealous to suppress, is already sufficiently offensive, and expressive of a spiteful mind, had the preface even been spared. What are we to consider the provocation to a piece of mischief so puerile, and apparently so wanton? Listen to the doctor, and you will suppose that no motive but the purest and most philanthropic had governed him: Leland had been "most petulantly insulted, and Jortin most inhumanly vilified." Welland what then? Better men than ever stood upon their pins have been insulted and vilified, nay, hustled, floored, smashed, and robbed of gold watches and seals. Besides, hard words break no bones. And why could not the two dissenters have settled their own quarrels with the two bishops? In effect, they had done so. Why must Dr Parr intrude his person into the row, long after it was extinct, and when three out of four parties interested were in their graves? Oh, but, says Dr Parr, the example was the thing: neither of the offenders had been punished; and their impunity, if tolerated, would encourage future bishops to the same species of offence. He was resolved to deter others from supposing" that what has been repeatedly and deliberately done in secret, will not, sooner or later, be

punished openly." Finally, coming nearer to the true purpose of the whole, he avows that it was intended to lessen the number of those who speak too well of Bishop Hurd."

Vain and tortuous disguises of malice self-betrayed! Now, let us hear the true lurking motives to this almost unprincipled attack, which Dr Parr so studiously masked under pretexts of public purposes. One writer tells us, that Parr, on a visit to Hartlebury, (the Bishop of Worcester's residence,) had been dismissed with little ceremony, and with hospitable attentions either none at all, or so chilling as to pique his pride. This anecdote, however, we have reason to think, refers to a period subsequent to the original offence. Perhaps this might first arise, as a mutual offence, in a case where the bishop drew upon himself the ferocious resentment of Parr, by his hesitation in passing one of Parr's friends, then a candidate for holy orders. Even this resentment, however, was possibly no more than the first expression of Parr's secret mortification at the bishop's private opinion of his sermon on education. Nothing travels faster in this world than the ill-natured critiques of literary men upon each other; and Parr probably heard from a thousand quarters that Hurd had expressed his dislike to the style, or the preposterous length of this "vernacular sermon.' That this anecdote is true, nobody doubts who remembers the pointed manner in which Parr himself alludes, in his dedication, to Bishop Hurd's " rooted antipathy to long vernacular sermons from Dr Parr."

Such are often the true motives even of good men, when their personal feelings are roused. The whole pretence of Parr was a fiction. Jortin and Leland were already avenged: both had retaliated upon Hurd, and, as Parr fancied, with success: the one, he said, had "chastised" Hurd with "wit"-the other had "baffled" him with "argument." So many cudgellings for one crime were out of all rule. "These two excel

lent men," says Parr, "were not to be annoyed again and again by the poisonous arrows of slander." Neither was this excellent bishop to be "again and again" pulled up to the public bar, and annoyed for having annoyed them. "Tit for tat" all the world over; and if a man, "being fap," as Pistol observes, and also too lively with young blood, will "try conclusions," and perhaps "assault and batter" a leash of worthy men, he must pay. But having paid—(as, suppose, five pounds)-then, at Bowstreet or anywhere else, he is held entitled to his five pounds worth of battery. He has bought it, settled the bill, and got a stamped receipt. For them to claim further payment -entitles him to further battery.

But one argument shall put down Dr Parr's pretences. Were Jortin and Leland the only parties to whom Hurd or Warburton had furnished actionable matter? Not by a hundred. They had run a muck at all the men who lay in their path. To go no farther than one of Parr's friends: Bishop Lowth and Hume had been assaulted with more injustice than either of those for whom Parr stood forward. Hurd had called Hume " a puny dialectician." Now this was insolence. Hume, even as a litterator, was every way superior to the bishop; but, as a dialectician, Hume to Hurd was a Titan to a pigmy. The Essay on Necessary Connexion, which was the seed that has since germinated into the mighty forest of German philosophy, was hardly in one sentence within Hurd's comprehension. As to Lowth, we would not quarrel with those who should fasten a quarrel upon him.

But, if that is our way of thinking, it was not Parr's. He was incensed at Hurd for his depreciation of Lowth. He was incensed with him, and justly, for his affected con

Le

tempt of Hume. He was incensed with another worthy bishop for insidiously calling Lardner "industrious," as though, in raising such a pile as the Credibility of Gospel History, (a work which, to our knowledge, once broke a man's spinal bone, so many and so stout are its volumes!) he had no other merit than that of supporting his "wife and family." Why, then, my Sam, did you not visit for these offences? This question, so far as it regards Hume, Sam answers himself. land and Jortin," says he, "had a right to expect from their clerical opponent a milder and more respectful treatment than that given to a sceptic who scoffed at all the principles of religion.” "By no means, doctor; we beg your pardon. Leland and Jortin had a right to fair play; and to so much, every man, Tros Tyriusve, has the same right. But, once for all, let us hear an answer to this: If Leland and Jortin had a privileged case by comparison with Hume, and a claim upon Hurd's forbearance, much more had Lowth a privileged case as regarded Parr, and a claim, if any man could have, upon his vindictive friendship. For Lowth had been Parr's earliest patron. How comes it, then, that he left Lowth to the protection of Providence? Lowth, it will be said, redressed his own wrongs. True. He did so; but so did all of themHume, Jortin, Leland, and the "tottle of the whole." Supposing, therefore, Dr Parr sought a case for his Quixotism, in which he might avenge a man that was past avenging himself, why did he not swinge his patron, Lowth, for taking liberties with Richard Bentley? This case was a very bad one; the "petulance" of Hurd could not be worse than the petulance of Lowth; and what a difference in the objects of their attack!

Finally, let us remember this: Milner, the papist of Winchester, had the audacity publicly to denounce Porteous, bishop of London, as a bigot and a falsifier of facts; Bishop Hoadly and Bishop Shipley, as Socinians; Hallifax, bishop of Durham, as a papist, (thus literally applying to Dr Hallifax the very identical aspersion which he had himself wiped off from Bishop Butler, in his edition of that prelate's works); Dr Rennell as a knave; and the Bishops Barrington, Watson, Benson, and Sparke, as insincere believers in the Protestant faith. This ruffian, for such he really was, Dr Parr addressed in a long letter meant for the press. But he never printed his letter; and, now that it is printed, what do we find? An expostulation running over with courtesy, forbearance, and unreasonable concessions; no sneering; no threats. So mild was Dr Parr in defending outraged truth -so furious in avenging his wounded self-love!

Such was the famous attack on Hurd, in its moving impulse. As to its literary merit, doubtless that is very considerable. Perhaps the author of the Pursuits of Literature, went too far in styling it “astonishing and splendid." Assuredly it is in bad taste-not so much for its excess of antithesis, simply considered; that is rightly defended by Mr Field, as a legitimate engine of rhetorical effects; but for the effort and visible straining which are often too palpably put forth, in finding matter suitable for loading the opposite scales of the antithetic balance. However, it is a jeu d'esprit of great ability, and may give to an English reader some notion of the Bellenden Preface.*

The other feud of this period forms a singular chapter in the se

cret history of books. Dr White, the Oxford Professor of Arabic, had preached and published the Bampton lectures. They were much admired. All at once a discovery was made, that a part of these lectures had been written by a Mr Badcock, a dissenting minister, recently dead, who latterly conformed to the Church of England. This discovery was made through a bond for L.500 given by Dr White to Mr Badcock, which his sister endeavoured to recover, and which the Professor was weak enough to resist. The ground which he took was plausible-that the bond had been given, not for work done, but for work to be done. At the very time when this affair broke out, Dr Parr happened to arrive at Oxford. White was his intimate friend. But it is difficult to imagine a sort of conduct less reconcilable with the obligations of friendship, than that which he adopted. Without delay, or consultation with Professor White, he avowed his peremptory disbelief in Badcock's claim, on the ground that be was himself the contributor of a very considerable share to these lectures. Never did man do a more critical injury to a friend; and were it not that the irritations of jealous vanity, with constitutional incontinency of secrets, seem to have overpowered and surprised his better resolutions, we should be compelled to pronounce it perfidy. Whatsoever help of this nature one literary man gives to another, carries with it an implied obligation to secrecy; otherwise, what else results than that, under the mask of giving a partial assistance to a friend's literary fame, the writer has, in fact, been furnishing himself with the means of crushing it entirely. He has given a trifle that he might take away the whole; for, after such an exposure,

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