with the bag-makers of the other." If the latter consideration weighed
with him, it was the first and last time that any such consideration
did, Parr being apparently of the opinion of John Wesley, that there
could be no fitter subject for a Christian man's prayers, than that he
might be delivered from what the world calls "prudence." However it
happened, the pamphlet was withheld, and Parr was elected to the school
at Norwich.

At Norwich, Parr ventured on his first publications, and obtained his
first preferment. The publications consisted of a sermon on "The Truth
of Christianity," "A Discourse on Education," and "A Discourse on the
Late Fast;" the last of which opens with a mistake singular in Parr,
who confounds the sedition of Judas Gaulonitis, mentioned in Josephus,
(_Antiq_. xviii. 1. 1.) with that under Pilate, mentioned in St. Luke,
(xiii. 1, 2, 3.); whereas the former probably preceded the latter by
twenty years, or nearly. The preferment which he gained was the living
of Asterby, presented to him by Lady Jane Trafford, the mother of one of
his pupils; which, in 1783, he exchanged for the perpetual curacy of
Hatton, in Warwickshire, the same lady being still his patron neither
was of much value. Lord Dartmouth, whose sons had also been under his
care, endeavoured to procure something for him from Lord Thurlow, but
the chancellor is reported to have said "No," with an oath. The great
and good Bishop Lowth, however, at the request of the same nobleman,
gave him a prebend in St. Paul's, which, though a trifle at the time,
eventually became, on the expiration of leases, a source of affluence to
Parr in his old age. How far he was from such a condition at this period
of his life, is seen by the following incident given by Mr. Field. The
doctor was one day in this gentleman's library, when his eye was caught
by the title of "Stephens' Greek Thesaurus." Suddenly turning about and
striking vehemently the arm of Mr. Field, whom he addressed in a manner