CONCLUSION OF CORRESPONDENCE. 385 trials at the Old Bailey. The Doctor dismissed me with reluctance, complained of the shortness of my visit, and insisted that, when the affair was over, or if not then, in the following summer, I should return and make up to him the injury he now sustained. In November following, the Doctor, at my particular instigation, visited Mr Gerrald in the prison of the New Compter. I repeated my visit to the Doctor in 1795, and staid sixteen days: still the same round of distinguishing kindness and panegyrical introductions. In April 1796 Dr Parr invited himself, his family, and a party of ten or twelve persons to dine with me in a little hovel which I then tenanted near London. In June 1797 I was in Warwickshire on a journey northwards. I then saw Dr Parr, who regretted to me his absence from home, but insisted I should make some stay at his house on my return. In June 1798 I had another cordial interview with him in London. "The passage in which you speak so irreverently and unjustly of the Founder, &c.' In the period of the Doctor's greatest cordiality and friendship, he was accustomed to call and believe me an atheist. This remark brings to my mind a passage in Hume's History of England, where he says: At God's altar in Canterbury, there were offered in one year £3, 2s. 6d. ; at the Virgin's, £63, 5s. 6d. ; at St. Thomas's, £832, 12s. 3d. But next year the disproportion was still greater; there was not a penny offered at God's altar; the Virgin's gained £4, 1s. 8d., but St. Thomas had got for his share £956, 6s. 3d.' "I had not then discovered,' &c. Whether any, and what meaning is to be ascribed to this mysterious and terrible sentence, Dr Parr only, I suppose, is able to explain. "Above all,' &c. Thus, by Dr Parr's own confession, the E[nquirer] and P[olitical] J[ustice] which originally induced him to seek my acquaintance, is the great and principal reason why he now desires that 'in future I will not give myself the trouble of writing any more letters, and favouring him with any more visits.' "The above remarks I have put down under the idea that Dr. Parr's letter may one day be printed. I feel the utmost delicacy in exercising any jurisdiction over the communications of private correspondence; but I do not regard the letter a man writes me, for the purpose of dismissing me from all future intercourse with him, as private correspondence. "(If Dr Parr's letter should ever be printed, mine of April 1800 should stand as a general introduction, and of January in the same year.)" From Dr Parr to William Godwin. "HATTON, Oct. 28, 1800. "For reasons which were some time ago communicated to Mr Godwin, Dr Parr takes the liberty of returning him a book which has been read by Mrs Parr, Mrs Wynne, and Catherine; and he begs leave to unite with them in thanks to the courtesy of the writer. In the sincerity of his soul, Dr Parr wishes Mr Godwin health, prosperity, and such a state of mind, united with a possible and proper use of his great talents, as may obtain for him a lasting reputation among wise and good men, and secure his happiness both here and hereafter." Unfinished draft of letter from William Godwin to Dr Parr. "SIR,-I very sincerely thank you for your letter. I feel the most pungent grief in witnessing your disgrace; but, since it must be so, I am well satisfied to possess this evidence of your disgrace, subscribed in your own hand and with your own name. "If I could ever be prevailed upon to present to the public the luxuriant but short-lived vegetation of your professions of regard, as they now lie by me in my closet, contrasted with the expressions of this letter, and the frivolous reasons by which they are attempted to be supported, your character would be placed in a light in which it was never yet the lot of a human being to be exhibited. "I rejoice that there are not many men like you. If there were, there would indeed be little inducement to the attempting public benefit by the acquisition of talents, when the very production which first obtained for its author the attention of one who was a stranger to him, is afterwards unblushingly assigned as the CONCLUSION OF CORRESPONDENCE. 387 ground, and, above all,' the ground of alienation and a tone of reproach that I think it would rather unmanly to apply to the most atrocious criminal that ever held up his hand at the bar of Old Bailey. "My 'unwarranted misrepresentation' of Mackintosh's lectures, stated in my own terms, I am ready to support, if necessary, with a body of evidence as complete as ever obtained the attention of a court of justice in a public trial." |