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Subject Area: Political Theory
Subject Area: Law

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.

Dear and excellent Mr Bentham,

I never can write legibly. I am no scribe. I am hardly able to pen. I am wholly unfit for business, or correspondence, from the sudden death of my dearest and most conscientious friend. If I were summoned before a Parliamentary Committee, or standing in the witness-box of a court of justice, or conversing in a private room, I should readily answer any questions about my Prebend. No crime has been perpetrated by the petitioner himself—no injury is done to individuals—no plunder is committed on public property. I do not know precisely the bearing of Mr Hume’s intended motion: it probably will not be pleasing to the generality of Churchmen. But if I understood and approved of it, yet, as an ecclesiastic, I should be unwilling to take any part. I am quite sure, that in the tenure of my Prebend property, he would find little to censure. You cannot, yourself, be a more warm, or a more grateful admirer of Mr Hume, than I am. His diligence, firmness, exactness, and integrity, are most praiseworthy. He truly stands aloof from party connexions. What is it to him, whether he be or be not slighted by the Outs, or slandered by the Ins. He draws after him public esteem, and public praise. But you should advise him to be more correct in detailing minor circumstances. But what right has Brougham to warm him? Have we forgotten his rudeness, when he was concocting such a meritorious plan for the regulation of abuses in schools? Mr Hume is a great public benefactor; and to me it is wonderful, that, with so little help from the Whigs, and so much insult from the Tories, he never gives utterance to contemptuous or virulent language.—I am truly your admirer, and afflicted friend,” &c.