Bennet quickly shot a-head
of poor Parr in the race of life, and rose to the Irish bench.
These three challenged one another to trials of skill in the imitation of
popular authors--they wrote and acted a play together--they got up mock
councils, and harangues, and combats, after the manner of the classical
heroes of antiquity, and under their names--till, at the age of fourteen,
Parr being now at the head of the school, was removed from it and placed
in his father's shop.
The doctor must have found in the course of his practice, that there
are some pills which will not go down--and this was one. Parr began to
criticize the Latin of his father's prescriptions, instead of "making
the mixture;" and was not prepared for that kind of Greek with which old
Fuller's doctor was imbued, who, on being asked why it was called a
_Hectic_ fever, "Because," saith he, "of an _hecking_ cough which ever
attendeth that disease." Accordingly, Parr having in vain tried to
reconcile himself to the "uttering of mortal drugs" for three years, was
at length suffered to follow his own devices, and in 1765, was admitted of
Emmanuel College, Cambridge. Dr. Farmer was at that time tutor. Of this
proficient in black letter (he was one of the earliest, and perhaps _the_
cleverest, of his tribe) we are told by Archdeacon Butler, in a note, that
he was a man of such singular indolence, as to neglect sending in the
young men's accounts, and is supposed to have burnt large sums of money,
by putting into the fire unopened letters, which contained remittances,
conveyed remonstrances, and required answers.
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