1755.] PARR'S LONG VERNACULAR SERMON. 469 Another cause of offence, which may indeed have been one of the greatest, is said to have been Hurd's wellknown sneer at Parr's grand sermon on Education. Being asked by somebody how he liked it, Hurd replied he did not much like 'Dr. Parr's long vernacular sermon.' He prints a sermon; Hurd, with judging eye, That there was some foundation for this story is plain from a passage in the Dedication: Knowing, my lord, the rooted antipathy which you bear to long epistolary introductions in classical writers, to long vernacular sermons from Dr. Parr, and to long Latin annotations from Philip D'Orville, I will take care, in the language of the Warburtonian school, not to stray beyond the limits of a just and legitimate Dedication.'† 'Parr,' observes Disraeli, has furnished posterity with a specimen of the force of his own vernacular style, giving a lesson to the wary bishop, who had scarcely wanted one all his life, of the dangers of an unlucky epithet.' Hurd seems to have had some special reason for fixing on the word vernacular, but I know not what it was. I can discover none in the sermon. Some weight may also be due to the fact that Parr was patronised by Lowth, to whom Warburton and his followers were outrageously hostile. Whatever was the true cause, or whatever were the concurring causes, of Parr's displeasure, he certainly applied himself to the display of it with a hearty good will. We have paid almost attention enough, perhaps, to the Doctor's Preface and Dedication, but another specimen or two of their spirit may possibly be allowable. The pieces, like most of Parr's writings, consist of imperfectly connected remarks, and Pursuits of Literature, Dial. iii. ver. 187; Disraeli's Quarrels of Authors, Quarrels from Personal Motives.' Barker's Parriana, vol. ii. p. 333. Tracts by Warb. and a Warburtonian, p. 170, had assisted to become Member of Parliament for Bath, and that of Pitt with the Duke of Newcastle, he was promoted to the Deanery of Bristol, an elevation of which he affected to speak with the same indifference as he had previously spoken of his appointment to a prebend. As far back as 1753 the Duke of Newcastle had signified to Allen that he thought of asking the King for the Deanery of Bristol for Warburton, supposing it would be acceptable to both on account of its nearness to Prior Park. But ‘if it comes,' said Warburton, as Falstaff says of honour, it comes unlooked for, and there's an end.'* · 'Last Friday,' he writes to Hurd from Weymouth, September 19, 1757,+ I came to this place with a purpose to stay a week. The next day an express came to me from Bath, acquainting me with the death of the Dean of Bristol. You know I had a kind of promise of it some time ago from the Duke of Newcastle. What alterations some late transactions, or rather what revolutions they have made, in his Grace's promissory system, I can't tell. But I am very indifferent of obligations from that quarter; so I stay here with much tranquillity and unconcern, instead of posting to his levee.' But nine days afterwards he had the pleasure of hearing that Pitt had procured his nomination to the Deanery. When he went to read himself in, as it is called, at Bristol, he fixed upon a saint's day for the ceremony; a day on which the rubric orders the Athanasian creed to be read. But this creed, perhaps from inadvertence, he omitted. At this omission some of the leading members of the congregation expressed discontent, and would not be satisfied unless he should go through the ceremony again, including the Athanasian creed, on the following Sunday. With this condition he complied. But, in consequence of this irregularity, it has been questioned * Letters from an Eminent Prelate, p. 154. † Ib. p. 255. 6 1757.] HUME'S NATURAL HISTORY OF RELIGION.' 477 whether he ever was, in legal strictness, Dean of Bristol. He omitted the creed when it was appointed to be read, and read it at a time when it was not appointed, complying with the directions of the rubric in neither of the services. However, the Bristolians were satisfied, and no one took advantage of the breach of rule to annoy Warburton.* In the same year was published 'Remarks on Hume's "Natural History of Religion," a joint production of Hurd and Warburton, of the rise and progress of which we learn the following particulars from Hurd: 'In 1749,' says Hurd, ‘Hume gave the public a hash of his stale notions, served up in the taking form and name of "Essays." These Essays came under Warburton's notice about the time that he was sending "Julian" to the press; and he soon after wrote to a friend at Cambridge, saying, "I am tempted to have a stroke at Hume in parting. He is the author of a little book called "Philosophical Essays," in one part of which he argues against the being of a God, and in another (very needlessly you will say) against the possibility of miracles. He has crowned the liberty of the press. And yet he has a very considerable post under the government. I have a great mind to do justice on his arguments against miracles, which I think might be done in a few words. But does he deserve this notice? Is he known amongst you? Pray answer me these questions; for if his own weight keeps him down, I should be sorry to contribute to his advancement to any place but the pillory. '+ What reply was returned to this application is not known; but Warburton left Hume at that time unmolested. Early in 1757, however, came forth his Natural History of Religion,' on which Warburton, as he read it, MSS. of the Rev. J. Jones, cited in Nichols's Lit. Anec. vol. v. p. 609. Hurd's Life of Warburton, p. 66. made various remarks in the margin, or, when the margin was too narrow, on scraps of paper which he stuck between the leaves. In this condition the book was shown to Hurd, who chanced, at the time, to meet Warburton in London. Hurd, commending the remarks, advised Warburton to prepare them for publication, a suggestion which he at first affected to slight, but afterwards returned to the subject in a letter:* 'As to Hume, I had laid it aside ever since you were here. I will now, however, finish my skeleton. It will be hardly that. If then you think anything can be made of it, and will give yourself the trouble, we may perhaps between us do a little good, which I dare say we shall both think will be worth a little pains. If I have any force in the first rude beating out the mass, you are best able to give it the elegance of form and splendour of polish. This will answer my purpose, to labour together in a joint work to do a little good. I will tell you fairly, it is no more the thing it should be, than the Dantzic iron at the forge is the gilt and painted ware at Birmingham. It will make no more than a pamphlet ; but you shall take your own time, and make it your summer's amusement, if you will. I propose it bear something like this title: "Remarks on Mr. Hume's late Essay called 'The Natural History of Religion,' by a Gentleman of Cambridge, in a Letter to the Rev. Dr. Warburton." I propose the address should be with the dryness and reserve of a stranger, who likes the method of the Letters on Bolingbroke's Philosophy, and follows it here against the same sort of writer, inculcating the same impiety, Naturalism, and employing the same kind of arguments. The address will remove it from me; the author, a gentleman of Cambridge, from you; and the secrecy of printing from us both.' * Letters from an Eminent Prelate, p. 240. 1757.] ATTACK ON HUME. 479 Seeing Warburton in this disposition about the remarks, Hurd transcribed and put them in order, and, adding the Address and a short Conclusion, sent them to the press. Warburton, when he saw the pamphlet, told Hurd that he should have worked up the portions more into a whole, and expressed his fears that the real author would be suspected. But his apprehensions proved groundless, for the disguise, though very slight, served to keep Warburton's share in the performance concealed. Hume tried to discover the writer, and concluded that it was Hurd; for, happening to employ the same bookseller as Hurd, he learned from him, as Hurd supposes, from whom the manuscript had come. 'He was much hurt,' says Hurd,* and no wonder, by so lively an attack upon him, and could not help confessing it in what he calls his "Own Life;" in which he has thought fit to honour me with greater marks of his resentment than any other of the writers against him; nay, the spiteful man goes so far as to upbraid me with being a follower (indeed a closer, in this instance, than he apprehended) of the Warburtonian school.' Hurd reprinted the 'Remarks' in his edition of Warburton's Works, but without the 'Address.' The passage in which Hume, the spiteful man,' complains of the attack on his book, is this: Dr. Hurd wrote a pamphlet against it, with all the illiberal petulance, arrogance, and scurrility, which distinguish the Warburtonian school.' Hume had, indeed, just cause for thus characterising the pamphlet. It may seem strange that Warburton, when he might have adopted a calm gentlemanly tone towards his adversaries, or those whom he chose to regard as adversaries, should have assailed them all alike, the higher and the lower, the more and the less educated, the liberal philosopher and the narrow-minded bigot, *Life of Warburton, p. 68. |