Field, asserts) from Sir W. Parr,
who lived in the reign of Edward IV., and whose granddaughter was Queen
Catharine Parr, of famous memory. It does not appear from Parr's writings
(as far as we remember) that he laid claim to this high ancestry; yet the
name of Catharine, which he gave to one of his daughters, may be imagined
to imply as much. His mother, whose maiden name was Mignard, was of the
family of the celebrated painter. It was the accident of Parr's birthplace
that, probably, laid the foundation of his fame, for to the school of his
native village, then one of the most flourishing in England, he was sent
in his sixth year; whilst, under other circumstances, it is likely that
he would have been condemned to an ordinary education and his father's
business. So many seeds is Nature constantly and secretly scattering, in
order that one may fall upon a spot that shall foster it into a a plant.
In his boyhood, he is described by his sister, Mrs. Bowyear, as studious
after his kind, delighting in Mother Goose and the Seven Champions, and
not partaking much in the sports usual to such an age. He had a very
early inclination for the church, and the elements of that taste for
ecclesiastical pomp, which distinguished him in after life, appeared when
he was not more than nine or ten years old. He would put on one of his
father's shirts for a surplice, (till Mr. Sanders, the vicar, supplied
him, as Hannah did his namesake, with a little gown and cassock;) he would
then read the church service to his sister and cousins, after they had
been duly summoned by a bell tied to the banisters; preach them a sermon,
which his congregation was apt to think, in those days, somewhat of the
longest; and even, in spite of his father's remonstrances, would bury a
bird or a kitten (Parr had always a great fondness for animals) with the
rites of Christian burial.
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