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Dr Parr to Bentham. - Jeremy Bentham, The Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 10 (Memoirs Part I and Correspondence) [1843]

Edition used:

The Works of Jeremy Bentham, published under the Superintendence of his Executor, John Bowring (Edinburgh: William Tait, 1838-1843). 11 vols. Vol. 10.

Part of: The Works of Jeremy Bentham, 11 vols.

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Dr Parr to Bentham.

“December 23, 1804.

“I do hereby promise, in my own name, and in the name of our holy mother the Church, to return faithfully into the hands of Jeremiah Bentham, Esq., a certain red tea-canister, with the key appertaining thereunto, which he left at Hatton parsonage, ad 1803—as witnesseth my hand this 20th day of December, 1804.

“S. Parr.

“And now, dear Sir, you may confidently summon Mr Koe, and pronounce exultingly, populus quod clamat Osiri invento, Ἑυϱήϰαμεν, συγχαίϱωμεν; with all due attention to your taste as a tea-drinker, and your whims as an old bachelor, Mrs Parr seized and preserved the precious relique. Accept my best thanks for the valuable present of wine, and the wily manner in which you assign your reasons for giving it to me.

“ ‘Porcis hodie comedenda relinques,’ was the common language of a donor in old Horace. But you are more courteous, more friendly; and you give what is more acceptable to an orthodox divine. I shall never forget the age, and raciness, and transparency, of the delicious beverage—and I fortify myself with Pindar’s authority.

  • Αἴνει δὲ παλαιὸν
  • Μὲν οἶνον, ἄνθεα δ’ύμνων
  • Νεωτίϱων.*

“—Your wine makes me obedient to the first part of the precept, and I wish our contemporary poets would give me an opportunity to comply with the second. Your present comes, too, auspiciously and seasonably, for my ζεὺς ϰτήσιος, has lately been on the point of slumbering. Yesterday morning I dismissed three of my servants for naughty attempts to break open the cellar-door; and surely they were induced with what Cicero calls the robustior improbitas, in practising their tricks on a spot which, in particular, has long been watched by the angry ghost of my reverend predecessor, Parson Nelson. The culprits acknowledged their belief in the spectre, but denied their guilt. In vain did I threaten to employ all the powers of ancient divination:—νεϰϱομανσεια, ἀξινομαντεια, ἀλεϰτϱυομαντεια ϰεφαλονομαντεια ϰ. τ. λ. And luckily I could have used the last-mentioned spell with peculiar force; for I lately bought a jackass, and had only to cut off his head, and broil it on the coals, and observe whether the teeth chattered, or the jaws moved, while I called over the names of the suspected. I shall welcome your caskets; and I applaud you for shunning the ill-omened dozen. I meant to be in London by the 20th December, in order to attend a meeting for the relief of decayed schoolmasters, where the Bishop of Gloucester, the Dean of Westminster, and I, are stewards for this year. But I, last Monday, sent an apology; and you will not see me before May—and in May, I must say a few words on the question of utility. I shall mention you in the pulpit by name—nothing shall protect you—fear nothing, for you will find me not very distant from you in principle; and I shall have occasion to commend the correct and logical way in which you state your opinions. Not so doth Godwin and his French followers.

“You have used, and I have used after you, the word religionist, as opposed to the mere moralist. I am censured for innovation,—and the censure equally falls upon you. As the habits of thinking and writing, in our day, require the word, in the sense we assign to it, I see no reason why we should be ashamed of supplying it. But I think that I have seen it so used elsewhere; and if you have any [English] example, pray tell me. Smith, and Brown in his answer to Shaftesbury, use it in the opprobrious sense of religious warmth. I will give orders at the Black Swan, and when the wine arrives I will tell you. I have lately been visited by a learned bishop; and as he is a very inobtrusive, enlightened, tolerant prelate, I wish you had been here, and you should have had his benediction, and you could not have incurred my anathemas. I shall set a mark on all the corks, that my friends and I may drink to your health. I have been revising some epitaphs, intended for a tablet, which the Birmingham Dissenters are going to put up, in memory of Dr Priestley. I was pleased with three, but have written a fourth, and I believe that my clerical brethren will not be very much dissatisfied. My great object was, to avoid all Sectarian, Unitarian, Democratical jargon. Pray desire Koe to get me a copy of the inscription upon Lord Mansfield, from Westminster Abbey, and I will send you, as soon as I can, the epitaph on Dr Warton—it will soon be transmitted to me. Now, friend Jeremiah, what bribe would you offer me for my Latin inscription upon Burke? It is the best I ever wrote; and, one or other of these days, Mr Koe will filch it from my lips. I have been reading old Latin writers on metre, and puzzling my pate with bad readings and lame verses in Terentianus Maurus, but not to the neglect of better things—ethical and ontological. Well, is there a king?—is there a parliament?—is there a ministry?—is there a war?—take away taxes, and I shall be a sceptic upon all these points.

“Remember me kindly to Mr Koe, and believe me, with very great and very sincere respect and regard, dear Sir, your friend and obedient servant.”

A friend and favourite of Bentham, writes to him:—

“February 17, 1805.

“To speak again of my far less worthy self, I am come over to turn dealer in human flesh—in other words, recruiting officer; and my business is to raise fifteen men for the —, in consideration of which, I am to be transferred to that regiment from the Infantry. By this, I gain nothing in rank, but my then commission will be double the value of my present one. Would Panopticon were established—the wish is both patriotic and selfish; for then I would endeavour to coax you out of that number of your incorrigibles, who might do well enough for soldiers, though mere drones in your industrious hive;—so far selfish—now for patriotic: Let all who have compared it with the present system of transportation and dock-yard labour, decide—I am now, then, stationed at —, with a small party of dragoons, for the purpose of persuading honest labourers and mechanics, to sell their liberty for thirteen pounds eight shillings, and quit their ploughs, their looms, and their anvils, for the sword and musket. Much to the credit of their intellects, though sorely to my own mortification, I have not yet had eloquence enough to induce any one to make the exchange—in vain my men are dressed out in all their military finery—in vain bunches of different coloured ribbons are fixed around their helmets—in vain my printed bills invite them to fight for their king, and live the life of heroes; the villagers seem invincibly attached to their rags, their hobnails, and their obscurity. They have not a spark of ambition in their souls; and, if I must speak my real sentiments, they are in the right. What would they gain?—not honour—that is monopolized by the General in a larger proportion even than the prize-money. Wounds then—and an old age of poverty and distress; for, as to Chelsea Hospital, I should suppose it cannot by any means provide for all the claimants on the gratitude of the country.”

[* ] Pind., Ol. ix.