1825.] REVIEW.-Dr. Parr's Letter to Dr. Milner. ing it to the publick, the Editor disclaims any secret motives to serve imaginary interests, or insinuate his own private opinions on a public question. He attacks no man, or body of men, in putting it to press. He is neither a polemic nor a politician; and as he is not excited by the zeal of the one, nor by the enthusiasm of the other, so is he not to be deterred by the dread of the hostility of either. A sacred trust has been reposed in him by the Will and last commands of his revered and venerable grandfather, and he enters upon his career of performing it by bringing out this Letter as the first fruits of the deposit, committed to his charge. "The Letter was originally written for the Gentleman's Magazine; but afterthoughts enlarged its dimensions, and other reasons, unnecessary to detail, prevented its publication in that form. The design of publishing it, however, was never abandoned, and three different copies, each left more finished than the other+, demonstrate the author's zeal and his intentions. “Inflexible in his love of truth, ardent in the pursuit of it upon all subjects, never ceasing to inculcate it upon others, and ever most scrupulously adhering to it himself, the Author could not see a statement such as Dr. Milner has sanctioned, without feeling it a duty to the characters thus aspersed, to his own high sense of justice, and to every sincere well-wisher of the Church of England, to call upon Dr. Milner for the proofs of his statements, or a retractation of his assertion. "For so great a lover of truth was Dr. Parr, that in all he has written it seemed to be his chief motive, as in all his actions it was the main spring. This fact, so well known to all those who were acquainted with him, will be clearly discerned by any one, who chooses to examine his writings with attention and with candour. "Of his devotedness to pure religion, his preaching and his writings will be everlasting monuments. Of his attachment to the Church of England in particular, the following treatise is only one out of a great number of proofs; and it will be seen hereafter, that he was not only a faithful follower of his Divine Master in his life and in his doctrines, but that he did not, as frequently has been asserted, "hide his light under a bushel, or conceal his talent in a napkin ;" nor reserve for party purposes, for dogmatical discussion, and for mere display, the inexhaustible stores of his intellect. It has "Since this was written, a Letter, of which I had not heard before, has appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine, explaining Dr. Parr's intentions to Mr. Nichols.J. L." See Part i. P. 388. + The latest date is "June 1819." GENT. MAG. September, 1825. 241 been too much the fashion to say that Dr. Parr has done little either for the cause of religion or learning, in comparison to what he might have done, had he employed his leisure in preparing materials, and occupied his mind wholly and solely on the completion of some great work on some great subject; and even some of the molles and delicatuli in the world of letters venture to exclaim, "What has he ever done?" To such he might proudly and justly say, σχεδόν τι μωροις μωρίαν ὀφλισκάνω. Amidst the drudgeries of the occupation of schoolmaster, and the sacred duties of a parish priest amidst some of the distractions of domestic, and some of the perturbations of public life, his lofty mind did find leisure to pour out a few precious drops from the copious fountain of his accomplishments. Even amidst these embarrassments, Dr. Parr has published more than many of those who have been eulogised for their diligence, and received the public reward of their learning. "But it is not only in what he has already printed, or what he has preached, or what he has written and left for publication, that he has been useful to learning and to morals; he has been the constant and diligent, though silent, friend of men of letters, even by contributions to many of their publications in all parts of this great empire. In Ireland, in Scotland, from all quarters, his literary bounty has been sought and obtained; and perhaps in no age, or in any country, has there been a scholar equally serviceable to the general cause of learning by his liberal and generous distributions of knowledge and instruction. "So much I have thought it necessary to say, both for the purpose of dissipating a prejudice and stating a fact. The works he has already published, when collected, would probably constitute two quarto volumes *; and if what he has left were to be all given to the world, I believe it would comprise a greater mass of theological, metaphysical, philological, and classical learning, than has ever yet been published by any one English scholar. "This Letter to Dr. Milner, I feel assured, will sufficiently prove, even to the incredulous, that he was not lukewarm in his zeal for Christianity, nor for the interests of that "best Establishment of Christianity," as Bishop Hurd expresses it, the Church of England; that he was not indifferent to the *Both these, and a copious Selection from his unpublished writings, it is hoped, will in due time be given to the publick; but we earnestly recommend to those concerned to begin with some ample Memoirs of the good Doctor, as a Prelude to any future publication.-EDIT. charac 242 REVIEW.-Dr. Parr's Letter to Dr. Milner. character of her prelates and her ministers; and that he has even stepped forward manfully, when the infirmities of nature were creeping upon him, to vindicate her honour, He was indeed a follower of Jesus-he knew in whom he believed. He was indeed a minister of the Church of England-he knew well that the rites and doctrines of that Pro testant Church were the best rational foundations of a Christian Establishment. For he was a Protestant after the manner of Chil lingworth, and it was his constant declaration,-THE BIBLE, THE BIBLE ONLY, IS THE RELIGION OF PROTESTANTS! Whatever else they believe beside it, and the plain, irrefragable, indubitable, consequences of it, well may they hold it as a matter of opinion. I, for my part, after a long and (as I verily believe and hope) impartial search of the true way to eternal happiness, do profess plainly, that I cannot find any rest for the sole of my foot, but upon this rock only.' Chillingworth, Part I. c. 6. P. 335. JOHN LYNES. Elmley Lovett, near Worcester, May 29th, 1825." Dr. Parr's Letter begins with the manly firmness, and at the same time with the courtesy of manners, for which that nervous writer was peculiarly distinguished: "Reverend and learned Sir," I have lately read, with the greatest attention, a very interesting and elaborate work, which bears your celebrated name, and to which you have prefixed this title: The End of religious Controversy, in a friendly Corre spondence between a religious Society of Protestants and a Roman Catholic Divine, addressed to the Right Reverend Dr. Burgess, Lord Bishop of St. David's, in answer to his Lordship's Protestant Catechism.' "The contents of that book have not lessened the high opinion which I had long entertained of your acuteness as a polemic, your various researches as a theologian, and your talent for clear and animated composition. I acknowledge, too, that in my judgment you have been successful in your endeavours to vindicate the members of the Church of Rome from the imputations of impiety, idolatry, and blasphemy, in their worship of glorified saints, and in their adoration of the sacramental elements, which they believe to have been mystically transubstantiated into the body and blood of Christ." Dr. Parr then enters minutely into the general subject of Dr. Milner's Work, quoting from it numerous passages, which he ably and successfully combats; particularly on the subject of "Miracles," from those of "the apostolic Polycarp, and his disciple Irenæus," to those of our own age, in [Sept. which, according to Dr. Milner, supernatural cures were experienced. "First, by Joseph Lamb, of Eccles, near Manchester, who, on the 12th of August, 1814, fell from a hayrick four yards and a half high, by which accident the spine of his back was supposed to be broken; but upon the 2nd of October, having gained with difficulty the permission of his father, who was a Protestant, to be carried with his wife, and two friends, in a cart to Garswood, near Wigan, got himself conveyed to the altar rails of a chapel, where the hand of who suffered death at Lancaster for the F. Arrowsmith, one of the Catholic Priests exercise of his religion in the reign of Charles I. is preserved, and has often caused wonderful cures; and having been signed in that chapel on his back with the sign of the cross by that hand, and feeling a particular sensation and total change in himself as he expressed, exclaimed to his wife, Mary, I can walk. (p. 178.) Secondly, by Winefred White, a young woman of Wolverhampton, in 1805, who, having been long afflicted with a curvature of the spine followed by hemiplegia, performed the acts of devotion which she felt herself called to undertake, and having bathed in the fountain on the 28th of June, 1805, found herself, in one instant of time, freed from all her pains and disabilities, so as to be able to walk, run, and jump, like any other young person, and to carry a greater weight with the left arm than she could with the right. Thirdly, by Mary Wood, now living at Taunton Lodge, who, in 1809, having severely wounded her left hand through a pane of glass, determined, with the approbation of her superior, to have recourse to God through the intercession of St. Winefred by a Novena, or certain prayers continued during nine days; who accordingly put a piece of moss from the saint's well on her arm on the 6th of August, and continued recollecting and praying, when, to her great surprise, the next morning, she found she could dress herself, put her arms behind her and to her head, having regained the use and full strength of it; and who, in short, was perfectly cured." We now come to the main object of this spirited Letter. "Your note, on the passage which I just now cited from your book, concludes thus: Some Bishops of the Established Church, for instance, Goodman and Cheyney of Gloucester, and Gordon of Glasgow, PROBABLY, ALSO, HALIFAX OF ST. ASAPH, died Catholics. A long list of titled or other distinguished personages, who have either returned to the Catholic faith, or for the first time embraced it on their death-beds in modern times, might be named here, if it were prudent to do so.' "I enquire not, Sir, after the illustrious per 1825.] personages, whom your prudence forbids you to name; but my own prudence does not forbid, and my own sense of justice does irresistibly lead me, to express very strong doubts upon the accuracy of your statement as it regards Bishop Halifax. It was my good fortune, Sir, to know him per-, sonally; gladly do I bear witness to his unassuming disposition and to his courteous manners. When he sat in the Professional Chair at Cambridge, the members of that learned University were much delighted with the fluency and clearness of his Latinity, and with his readiness and skill in conducting the disputes of the Law Schools. It was my own lot to keep under him two Acts for my Doctor's degree; and surely, from the preparatory labour which I employed in correcting the language of two Latin Theses, and in accumulating materials for a close logical dispute, likely to pass before a numerous, intelligent, and attentive audience, the obvious inference is, that I did not set a small value on the abilities and acquirements of the Professor. I have seen some of his annual speeches at our Cambridge Commencement, and, so far as my judgment goes, they are highly creditable to his erudition and his taste. He acquired much reputation in the University by three sermons which he first preached there, and afterwards published, during a long and important controversy, which had arisen about subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles. He gave no inconsiderable proof of his diligent researches and clear discernment, by an analysis of the Roman law, as compared with the English. He owed much of his fame, and, perhaps, preferment, to the Lectures which he delivered at Lincoln's Inn; and whether he and other eminent Protestants be or be not right in considering the Pope as Antichrist, and applying to the Church of Rome many well-known passages in the Apocalypse, no impartial judge will refuse to Bishop Halifax the tribute of praise for the skilfulness which he shows, in the choice and arrangement of his matter, and in the perspicuity and elegance of his style. He was patronized by a temperate and judicious metropolitan, Dr. Cornwallis; he stood high in the estimation of the celebrated Bishop Warburton; he lived upon terms of the most intimate and confidential friendship with the very ingenious Bishop Hurd; he was respected as a man of learning by his most learned contemporaries in the University; he frequently had access to the sagacious and contemplative recluse, Bishop Law; he, first as a companion, and afterwards as a son-in-law, was intimately connected with the quaint, pompous, but acute and truly critical scholar, Provost Cooke; he was encountered, and perhaps refuted, but not derided as a puny and elumsy antagonist, by the keen-sighted, strong-armed, high-spirited polemic, Black { REVIEW.—Dr. Parr's Letler to Dr. Milner, 243 all of Emanuel; he was opposed, but not despised, by the dauntless, stately, and fulminating dictator, Bishop Watson; he was a most amiable man in domestic life, and his general conduct as a Christian was blameless and even exemplary. Let it not be forgotten, too, that, while honoured with the acquaintance of living Worthies and living Scholars, he felt a manly and generous regard for the memory of the dead. You must yourself, Sir, have heard that he republished a Charge written by Bishop Butler, of Durham, one of the most profound Philosophers, and most enlightened Theologians, that ever adorned the Church of England. That Charge, Sir, by some accountable misconception in the hearers or readers, had for some time been considered as favourable to the Church of Rome: but the illusion vanished when Bishop Halifax republished it, and united with it, what I think a very judicious preface. Will you pardon me, Sir, for adding that, long before the republication, I had myself adopted and avowed the principles upon which Dr. Butler reasoned, and that I felt very great satisfaction from the aid of his arguments, and under the protection of his authority? "To such persons, then, as are acquainted with the events of Bishop Halifax's life, or the character of his writings, must it not be highly improbable that a Prelate, who, upon one occasion, had vindicated the fame of Bishop Butler from the imputation of Popery, and who, upon another, defended the cause of the Church of England in opposition to the Church of Rome, should in his last moments have renounced the tenets which he had so long professed, and so ably maintained? "Between you and myself, Sir, there can be no difference of opinion upon the importance of the fact, which you have deliberately proclaimed to the world. The esta blishment and the confutation of that fact are alike connected with the honour of Bp. Halifax, with the feelings of honest Protestants and honest Roman Catholics, and with the general cause both of the Church of England and the Church of Rome. As, therefore, your prudence has permitted you to tell the publick that Bishop Halifax probably died a Catholic; I trust, Sir, that your love of truth, and your sense both of decorum and justice, will induce you to declare explicitly and fully what, in your own mind, were the grounds of such probability." In the subsequent pages Dr. Parr resumes the consideration of Dr. Mil space ner's attack on Bp. Halifax, and his 47. Engraved 244 REVIEW.-Architectural Antiquities of Normandy. 47. Engraved Specimens of the Architectural Antiquities of Normandy. By John and Henry Le Keux, after Drawings by Augustus Pugin, Architect. The Literary Part by J. Britton, F.S.A. &c. 4to. MUCH has been done within these few years to illustrate the Architectural Antiquities of our native country; but of the most curious and interesting part of them our knowledge has been in some measure imperfect, from a want of acquaintance with the buildings in a similar style in other countries. It was known, indeed, that in 'France and Germany, in Spain, and even in Italy, edifices exist, exhibiting a kind of architecture approximating more or less to what has usually been termed Gothic; but very few of these structures have been accurately described; and little was published of their origin or history, so that only vague ideas existed concerning them. In consequence of this want of information, several English writers on the subject in question adopted a notion that the Gothic or Pointed style was almost peculiar to this country, or that at least here invented and brought to perfection. Such a theory has been promulgated and warmly advocated by the late John Carter, and by Dr. Milner; but the recent researches of Whittington and Dawson Turner on French Architecture; and those of Dr. Moller, architect to the Grand Duke of Hesse, on that of Germany, have led to a more cautious review of the subject, and shown the propriety of suspending any positive decision relating to it, till we possess more perfect and detailed accounts of the remains of the continental architecture of the middle ages. it was The object of "The Architectural Antiquities of Normandy*" is to supply this desideratum, to a certain extent, by furnishing such correct information relative to the general structure and minor details of the ancient edifices existing in Normandy as can be conveyed by the united aid of graphic delineation and literary description. This work will be completed in four Numbers, the first of which is just published. It contains twenty en The principal works which have been published on the Antiquities of Normandy, were enumerated in our review of Cotman's "Architectural Antiquities" of that country, vol. xc. i. 335. [Sept. gravings, consisting of plans, details, sections, and elevations of various parts of the Palais de Justice at Rouen; of the Church of St. Ouen; the Nunnery of St. Clair; the Abbaye St. Amand; the Cathedral; the Hotel de Bowitheroulde, and other buildings in the same city; of the Abbaye aux Hommes, the Abbaye aux Dames, and the Church of St. Nicholas at Caen; and representations of stringcourse mouldings chiefly from the same structures. "In the delineations of these subjects, Mr. Pugin has paid particular attention to lines of arches, as well as to the masonic construction of the various members. Hence he conceives that the engravings will be very serviceable to artists in making new designs, and to artizans in the practical execution of new buildings. In the series of subjects which will be brought into the present work, it is expected that almost every style and class of architecture will be delineated; and these rendered so scientific, and at the same time so plain and familiar, that every well-informed person may be qualified to direct his own buildings, or may at least be enabled to perceive in what respects they are conformable to or deviate from ancient examples."-Prefixed Advertisement. the true formation of the curvature in the The subjects of some of these plates are extremely beautiful. The South front of the Palais de Justice, the circular window in the West front of the Church of St. Ouen, and the front of the Hotel de Bourtheroulde, are fine examples of highly ornamented Gothic architecture; and though the other plates are not so attractive to the common observer, they cannot fail to prove interesting to the architect and amateur. No letter-press is included in the present Number of this publication; as the Editor is about to make a visit to Normandy, for the purpose of obtaining on the spot such an accurate and full acquaintance with the structures delineated, and such information relating to their history and antiquities, as cannot otherwise be satisfactorily procured. He has therefore reserved the descriptive accounts for a subsequent part of the work, with a view to render them more correctly illustrative of the engravings, and better adapted than they would otherwise be to elucidate the history of Pointed Architecture. 48. Historical Notices of the Collegiate ·Church or Royal Free Chapel and Sanetuary 1825.] REVIEW.-Kempe's St. Martin-le-Grand. tuary of St. Martin-le-Grand, London, formerly occupying the Site now appropriated to the New General Post Office; chiefly founded on authentic and hitherto inedited Manuscript Documents, connected locally with the History of the Foundation, and generally with ancient Customs and eminent Persons; also Observations on the different kinds of Sanctuary formerly recognized by the Common Law. By Alfred John Kempe. Illustrated with Engravings of the Vestiges of the Collegiate Church, the Common Seal, &c. 8vo. pp. 212. TANNER says, that King Cadwallan or some ancient Britons, about the year 677, are said to have founded a College here; and that about the year 700, Victred or Wythred, King of Kent, re-founded it. As London was under the dominion of the Kings of the East Saxons at the time of the supposed British Foundation, Mr. Kempe (p. 4) very properly rejects the statement, and supposes it some confusion with a story of Jeffrey of Monmouth, that the Britons erected a Church in memory of Cadwallo, one of his heroes, which Church, from Robert of Gloucester, Mr. Kempe conceives to have been St. Martin's, Ludgate. He adds, "That there was, however, a building appropriated to the worship of the true God on the site of St. Martin-le-Grand, by the early Christians of our Island, is rendered extremely probable, by the bull of Pope Clement, reciting the Church to be among those exempted from episcopal jurisdiction, because they were founded before Bishops were ordained in the kingdom, and episcopal jurisdiction had been usurped over them, during times of civil commotion, insurgente procella turbationis in regno.-Something also may perhaps be inferred of the high antiquity of the Church, from the saint chosen as its patron. St. Martin appears to have been a favourite with the early British Christians, many churches, considered of the highest antiquity in our island, being PP. 4, 5. dedicated to him.' This is very judicious and correct, and only requires another addition, viz. that, according to Staveley, who has an elaborate disquisition on Sanctuaries, (Churches, pp. 165-177, ed. 2d), "the King only, and not the Pope, or any other, could, might, or did grant this privilege of Sanctuary" (p. 170); and that this was the fact is evident, from the privilege still annexed to the "Verge of Court," Holyrood House, &c. Whoever, therefore, were the subsequent subjects who refounded 245 St. Martin's-le-Grand, we fully believe that it owed its distinctive privi- › lege, as a Sanctuary, to a Royal original, according to the traditions. The motive evidently was to suspend summary execution, and the reasoning in times of more power and violence, would naturally be very different from our own, because interests would be the prima mobilia of action.—It is certain that the Crypt here discovered has every Romanized form. "The vaultings were keyed with tiles, turned up at the edges, resembling the wall tiles common in Roman buildings, but broader at one end than the other; and the workmen employed in pulling down the structure, stated, that between two of these tiles, the concave sides facing each other, was invariably thrust a smaller one in the shape of a wedge.” P.7. Mr. Essex has shown, that the Saxons worked their wall tiles in the Roman manner (see the Encyclopedia of Antiquities); and that, therefore, it is by no means easy to distinguish their work from the Roman, where there is not collateral evidence. Now this does occur here; for besides a coffin of the form used by the Romans of the Lower Empire and Anglo-Saxons, a coin of Constantine was found on the spot, and the bases of the remains corresponded with the level of Roman Londinum. Pp. 7, 8. We dwell with pleasure upon this subject, because a strange idea has prevailed, that every building in this country is, without exception, of Norman origin, and all its other antiquities connected with Noah and the ark; whereas, the former opinion merely originated with Mr. King's account of Rochester Castle, and the latter with Mr. Bryant, who, says Sir William Gell, without any knowledge of Grecian antiquities, pronounced that the citadel of Tiryns was formed from the ship of Danaus, and that Troy never existed. Forgers of coins and corruptors of history, we consider as enemies to learning and improvement; in fact, as men, who disregard veracity, who make out the necessity of research to be useless, and would, if they directed their hypothetical propensities to law or medicine, be dangerous beyond description. Research In vol. LXXXVIII. ii. pp. 272, 893, will be found an account of these discoveries, with a Plan and two Views of the Crypts, Coffin, &c.-EDIT. |