Field, whom he addressed in a manner
very usual with him; he said, "Ah! my friend, my friend, may you never
be forced, as I was at Norwich, to sell that work, to me so precious,
from absolute and urgent necessity."
But we must on with the Doctor in his career. In 1785, for some reason
unknown to his biographer, Parr resigned the school at Norwich, and in
the year following went to reside at Hatton. "I have an excellent house,
(he writes to a friend,) good neighbours, and a Poor, ignorant,
dissolute, insolent, and ungrateful, beyond all example. _I like
Warwickshire very much_. I have made great regulations, viz. bells chime
three times as long; Athanasian creed; communion service at the altar;
swearing act; children catechized first Sunday in the month; private
baptisms discouraged; public performed after second lesson; recovered a
100_l_. a year left the poor, with interest amounting to 115_l_., all of
which I am to put out, and settle a trust in the spring; examining all
the charities."
Here Warwickshire pleases Parr; but Parr's taste in this, and in many
other matters, (as we shall have occasion to show by and by,) was
subject to change. He soon, therefore, becomes convinced of the superior
intellect of the men of Norfolk. He finds Warwickshire, the Boeotia of
England, two centuries behind in civilization. He is anxious, however,
to be in the commission of the peace for this ill-fated county, and
applies to Lord Hertford, then Lord Lieutenant; but the application
fails; and again, on a subsequent occasion, to Lord Warwick, and again
he is disappointed.
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