wealth was inaugurated (January 1901), the invaluable life-work of Sir Henry Parkes was specially marked at the state banquet in Sydney by the entire company rising and drinking to his honoured memory in solemn silence.
In 1895, at the time of his second wife's death, Parkes opposed Mr. G. H. Reid, who had succeeded him as the free-trade leader, but was defeated for the King division of Sydney. This was the end of his political career. Towards the close of his life, and partly as the result of a severe accident, Parkes suffered great pain: while despite, or perhaps in consequence of, his long life of devotion to the public interest, he was left in most straitened circumstances. He died on 27 April 1896. Of all contemporary public men, except perhaps Gladstone, Sir Henry Parkes was the most frequently photographed and caricatured. A fine marble bust was executed of him by his friend Thomas Woolner, R.A., as well as many portraits by local artists.
Parkes was thrice married. After the death in 1888 of his first wife, he married successively Mrs. Dixon in 1889 (who died in 1895), and almost on his deathbed he married his servant. His eldest son, Mr. Varney Parkes, is a well-known public man in the colony.
Outside politics, which was the business of Parkes's life, his restless energies were much engrossed with literary subjects, and his most cherished friendships were among men of letters. In Australia, almost alone among prominent public men, he generously befriended struggling authors; while the list of his own published works is by no means unimportant or scanty.
He published:
- 'Stolen Moments,' 1842.
- 'Murmurs of the Streamlet' (volumes of early poems).
- 'Australian Views of England,' London, 1869, 8vo (a selection of letters by Parkes written to the 'Sydney Morning Herald' in 1861 and 1862).
- 'Speeches of Henry Parkes, collected and edited by David Blair,' Melbourne, 1876, 8vo.
- 'The Beauteous Terrorist and other Poems. By a Wanderer,' Melbourne, 1885, 8vo.
- 'Fragmentary Thoughts' (poems dedicated to Alfred, Lord Tennyson), Sydney, 1889, 8vo.
- 'Federal Government of Australia;' speeches delivered 1889-90, Sydney, 1890, 8vo.
- 'Fifty Years in the making of Australian History' (Parkes's autobiography), London, 1892, 8vo.
- 'Sonnets and other Verse' (dedicated to Hallam, Lord Tennyson), London, 1895, 8vo.
- 'An Emigrant's Home Letters,' English edit. London, 1897, 8vo.
[Parkes's published works; Lyne's Life of Sir Henry Parkes, 1897; Dilke's Problems of Greater Britain; Patchett Martin's Life and Letters of Lord Sherbrooke, and Australia and the Empire; Gilbert Parker's Round the Compass in Australia; Froude's Oceana, p. 195; Mennell's Dict. of Australasian Biogr.; Heaton's Australian Diet, of Dates; Melbourne Review; Atlas; Empire; and Sydney Morning Herald; personal knowledge.]
PARR, HARRIET (1828–1900), novelist, who wrote under the pseudonym of Holme Lee, was born at York on 31 Jan. 1828. Her father, William Parr, was a traveller in silks, satins, and coloured kids, and her mother was Mary Grandage of Halifax, Yorkshire. Miss Parr was educated at York, and early in life devoted herself to literature as a profession. In 1854 she published, under the pseudonym Holme Lee, her first novel, 'Maud Talbot.' It did not attract much attention, but she sent her second novel, 'Gilbert Massinger,' to Charles Dickens, who was much impressed by it (Forster, Life of Dickens, ii. 474-5). Its length prevented its appearance in 'Household Words,' and in 1855 it was separately published. Even in this form it had a considerable sale, which was much increased when it was reissued in a cheap single volume in 1862. It was translated into Italian in 1869. Another novel, published in 1855, 'Thorney Hall,' reached a second edition in 1862, and was translated into French in 1860. Between 1854 and 1882 Miss Parr published some thirty novels, all of them refined in tone, somewhat sentimental, and written in an easy, unaffected stvle (cf. Athenæum, 1862 i. 186, 1871 ii. 79, 367, 1872 i. 687). These merits, supplemented by the enthusiastic support of Charles Edward Mudie [q. v.], secured Miss Parr considerable popularity as a writer of fiction virginibus puerisque. Her more serious work consisted of three books published under her own name:
- 'The Life and Death of Jeanne d'Arc,' 2 vols. 1866;
- 'Maurice and Eugenie de Guerin,' 1870; and
- Echoes of a Famous Year,' 1872. The first of these was a solid and creditable performance (cf. Athenæum, 1866 ii. 9, 1870 i. 386).
Miss Parr passed her later years at Shanklin, Isle of Wight, where she died on 18 Feb. 1900. An oil portrait of her, painted about 1848 by George Lance [q. v.], belongs to her brother, Mr. George Parr, of 31 Canonbury Park.
[Private information; Brit. Mus. Cat.; Lit. Year Book, 1901, pp. 101-2; authorities cited.]
