those ideas to external objects; and wherever that relation or conformity exists, the ideas belonging to either are unalterably just, and the proposition expressing those ideas, must ever be true; that therefore a proposition true in theory, must be true in practice, where the practice corresponds to the theory; and that, where they

'tim enarrare. Nimirum haud timuit ne aut nugax videretur, qui illa memoraret, aut negligens, qui hæc præteriret.' Si quis porro hoc genus ipsum vitiosum esse contendat, quod non æque pateat cum locupletiore historia, is ejusdem commoda, et duo imprimis magna, aut non videt, aut non perpendit. Cum historia tot virtutis exemplis et luminibus abundet, dolendum tamen ea propter varietatem rerum non satis eminere; cum locis, temporibus, et personis divisa rarius emergant, adeoque ictu languidiore ad animos legentium perveniant. Jam si excelsi ingenii præclare gesta in unum omnia conferantur, quis non videt animo, constipatis virtutis radiis, quanto major ejus admiratio futura sit, et acrius ad imitationem incitamentum ? Non enim ex una re aut facinore præclaro virum bonum denominamus; sed perfecta virtus ex universæ vitæ tenore actionumque omnium concentu splendidius elucet. Deinde, cum uno in argumento unaque persona mens tota versatur, studium in legendo erectius retinetur. Viri enim excellentis, (ut cum M. Tullio Ep. Fam. 5, 12. loquar,) ancipites variique casus habent admirationem; exspectationem, lætitiam, molestiam, spem, timorem; si vero exitu notabili concluduntur, expletur animus jucundissima lectionis voluptate. Quanto penitius hoc vidit orator illustrissimus, tanto impensius a Lucceio postulavit, ut rerum suarum narrationem a continentibus historiis sejungeret. Aliæ quidem Plutarchi virtutes sunt et magnæ; nulla tamen commendatior, quam hæc ratio tractandi nova et prope singularis. Neque alia mihi causa occurrit, cur in tanta veterum historiarum ruina et naufragio integer fere ad

appear to clash, we are not always to maintain that the theory is false, but that it does not apply to the particular case. Of Burke's expression, metaphysically true, and morally and politically false,' he observes that true and false' are expressions of the metaphysical, proper and improper,'' just or unjust' of the moral, and useful or pernicious' of the political properties of objects. But this rather tends to complicate than clear up the question; and a wider and deeper view of the subject, I suspect, is required to obtain a simple and satisfactory solution.*

nos pervenerit: aut cur omnium manibus, indoctorum etiam, teratur, dum cæteri ejusdem ætatis historici paucos admodum lectores inveniunt." P. vii.

I would recommend those, who are disposed to blame the minuteness of detail, which appears in the first Volume of the Parriana, to attend to the words, which I have put in italics with single inverted commas: they at once vindicate and authorise what I have done. Those, who omit such details, are rather panegyrists than biographers. No great character can be rightly estimated without such details, and I may well ask what we should know of the true character and the general conduct of Johnson, if Boswell had followed the common road of biography? E. H. B.]

* [I am rather surprised at this remark from a man of philosophical reflection like Mr. Green; for, in my opinion, nothing can be more just or more satisfactory than the distinction made by Dr. Parr, to which Mr. Green objects.

Metaphysically true," says Burke, with reference to reality, or the actual existence of things; "morally false," with reference to morality, the moral sense, or established notions of right and wrong; "politically false," with reference to understood expediency, or supposed utility to the interests of

Parr's style of composition, with all its excellencies, has one capital defect, it wants light and shade; everything is sacrificed to force; each part appears to be uniformly and intensely laboured; and nothing has the air of being the natural and spontaneous effusion of a mind seriously and earnestly engaged in communicating

any state in particular or of society in general. Burke would have been more logically correct, if he had said, 1. metaphysically true, 2. morally false, 3. politically wrong.

"Johnson thus defined the difference between physical and moral truth. Physical truth is, when you tell a thing as it actually is. Moral truth is, when you tell a thing sincerely and precisely as it appears to you. I say, such a one walked across the street; if he really did so, I told a physical truth. If I thought so, though I should have been mistaken, I told a moral truth.'' Boswell's Life of Johnson 4, 6. The annotator K. remarks that "this account of the difference between moral and physical truth, is in Locke's Essay on the Human Understanding, and many other books." In a Ms. copy of Paley's unpublished Lectures on Locke's Essay, which was lent to me by a friend, I found the following account: "Truth is the joining or separating of signs according as the things signified by them agree or disagree. Signs are of two kinds, 1. either ideas signs of things, or 2. words signs of ideas. By joining signs is meant the making them into affirmative propositions, as gold is malleable. By separating signs is meant the making them into negative propositions, as we say gold is not volatile. Truth is twofold, moral and metaphysical; moral, when we speak what we think; metaphysical, when our thoughts correspond with the real existence of things. Thus we say, the earth moves round the sun; thus we say, the earth revolves round the sun. This is a moral and metaphysical truth; but the ancients said, the sun moved round the earth, which was a VOL. II.

L

its ideas and its feelings: yet he writes, I am told, with fluency, and much in the same manner as he speaks." P. 130.

"Nov. 10, 1799. Read Dr. Combe's Statement of Facts; and Dr. Parr's Remarks upon it, in which he vigorously and successfully repels Combe's ill-advised attacks. It is impossible to read the latter pamphlet, without being struck with admiration at Parr's force of intellect, and grieving at the strange misapplication of it. His praise of Burke p. 9, is fine; and of Porson p. 13, transcendental. I am surprised that in vindicating his politics by appealing to their sources p. 71, he should have mentioned Helvetius in the list of his tutors." P. 172. "Febr. 11, 1800. Looked over Dr. Parr's strictures on Dr. Combe's Horace, in the British Critic for Jan. Febr. March, and April 1794. They evince great force of mind, and depth of erudition; but are evidently dictated by a spirit of personal and exceptious hostility, which, however, warranted by circumstances, and however becoming in a separate and specific attack, but ill accords with the air of dignified impartiality and judicial candour, which should pervade every article of a work professing to sit in judgment, indiscriminately, on all the literary productions of the day. His character of Horace at the outset p. 49, is exquisitely finished; and what he alleges p. 122, in defence of verbal criticism in general, and closes p. 423, with saying of Bentley in particular, towers into transcendental excellence." P. 199.

moral truth, because they spoke what they thought, but not a metaphysical truth, because their thoughts did not correspond with the real existence of things. The violation of moral truth is called a lie, but a metaphysical mistake." E. H. B.]

"Nov. 16, 1797. Parr, in his Preface to Bellendenus, has evidently borrowed a sentence from Quintilian 2, 12. Verum illis quidem gratulemur, sine labore, sine ratione, sine disciplina disertis, says Quintilian: Gratulemur illis quidem sine litteris et sine disciplina disertis, says Parr." P. 52. “Jan. 13, 1798. Parr, in his Preface has been busy with Quintilian 10, 1. One imitation is very strik ing. Ille se profecisse sciat, cui Cicero valde placebit, says Quintilian. In litteris ipsi se sciant plurimum profecisse, quibus Burkius valde placuerit, says Parr." P. 56. "Jan. 15. The Preface to Bellendenus, so far as it relates to Burke, (for I have attended, on a particular account, to that part alone,) is much indebted to Quintilian 12, 10. One imitated sentence is very glaring. Melius de hoc nomine sentiant credantque, Attice dicere esse optime dicere, is Quintilian's expression: Sed melius de hoc nomine sentiant- ; Burkium si quis imitetur, eum credant et Attice dicturum et optime, is Parr's. I am not aware on what principle Parr sometimes gives, and sometimes withholds, his authorities for sentences and expressions; nor am I competent to decide on the propriety of this style of composing in a dead language. The effect, which it would have upon a Roman eye or ear, might easily be tried, by forming an English composition from shreds of Addison, Johnson, Swift, Bolingbroke, and Gibbon - I suspect the texture would resemble a harlequin's jacket."* P. 57. "May 7,

*

[A distinguished scholar thus expressed himself in a Letter to me, dated June 22, 1827. : — "To the Doctor's Bellendenus I object, as I would to a gentleman's dressing himself in patchwork. He shall have much praise for his ingenuity in putting bright colours together, to make a shewy mantle, and for his selection of the colours themselves. But then this is not the