Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/322

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300 PARKER public administration of common prayers and using the holy sacraments, and for the apparel of all persons eccle siastical." Notwithstanding that they related mainly to questions of detail and ceremonial, these new regulations excited strenuous opposition from the Puritan party, owing to the fact that, although they enjoined the discontinuance of " gorgeous vestments" and the cope, they prescribed the use of the surplice. It is asserted that they were promul gated by the command of Elizabeth, who subsequently with held her formal sanction, and permitted the obloquy they evoked to fall on Parker. It is certain that they added materially to the embarrassment of his position. The revised translation of the Scriptures known as the Bishops Bible (1568 and 1572) owed its origin to Parker, and is regarded by English Churchmen as a valuable service to their communion, from the fact that it served to prevent the adoption of the Geneva Bible until superseded by the authorized version. The determination which Parker showed to withstand, and if possible repress, the growing boldness of the Puritan party, involved him during the latter years of his primacy in a struggle which was detrimental to his health, his temper, and his reputation. In August 1570 his wife died, and the blow was severely felt. He was still able, however, to discharge with efficiency the duties of his office; and in. 1573 he entertained Elizabeth with great splendour and sumptuousness in the grand hall of his palace at Canterbury. Among his last measures of reform are to be noted his personal visitation of the church and chapter at Canterbury, and the drawing up of a series of injunctions for their more efficient regulation, the issuing of a commission for the visitation of his diocese, and the publication of new constitutions for the Court of Arches. In 1575 his health began rapidly to give way, and he died on the 17th May in that year, giving evidence almost to the last of that vigorous intellect and strong will by which he was distinguished throughout life. As an author, Parker cannot be held entitled to any high place. He compiled a Latin treatise, De Antiquitate Bvilannicae, Ecdcsise, ct Privilcgils Ecdcsise, Cantuuricnsis, printed by John Day in 1572, which shows considerable research in connexion with the circum stances under which Christianity was introduced into Britain. In this, however, as in most of his more learned work?, he was probably largely assisted by his secretary, Josselin. His letters, which have been published under the title of the Parker Correspondence (Parker Society, 1853), are marked throughout by his usual natural good sense and sobriety of judgment, but are characterized neither by originality nor brilliancy of thought. His other writings are chiefly statutes for various ecclesiastical or collegiate foundations, sermons, forms of prayer, and ordinances for the church. As an editor, while his industry must be admitted by all, he had but an imperfect sense of the responsibilities attaching to such a function and of the limits to be observed in its exercise. He edited vElfric s Anglo-Saxon Homily, a treatise much valued by religious controversialists as exhibiting the theory of the early English Church in relation to the doctrine of transubstantiation. The treatise of Gildas, De Excblio Britannia, next appeared ; but this was mainly, if not entirely, the work of Josselin. The Florcs Historiarum (probably the work of Roger of Wendover) was edited by Parker under the belief that it wt^s the work of an unknown "Matthew of Westminster." The other chronicles which he pub lished were the Historia Major of Matthew Paris, the Hlstoria Anglicana of Walshigham, the life of Alfred (Gcsta ^Hfredi) of Asser, and the Itincrarium of Giraldus Cambrensis. The extreme licence in which he indulged in altering the texts of these writers, and especially that of Matthew Paris, renders his editions, how ever, almost worthless, and has met with the severest censures from succeeding historical scholars. But, notwithstanding these errors and defects, Parker s memory must ever be venerated by Englishmen and by scholars ; and his country, his university, and his college were alike laid by him under no ordinary debt of gratitude. He revived the stiidy of Saxon literature and of the origines of our national history ; and the scriptorium which he maintained at Lambeth (after the fashion of the mediieval monasteries) was a busy scene where the transcriber, the illuminator, the engraver, and the bookbinder each plied his craft, to the no small after advantage of letters and of art. Among the printers whom he patronized were Richard Jugge, John Day, ! and Richard Grafton. As a collector of books and manuscripts he was indefatigable ; and one of his numerous agents, named Batman, is stated to have collected in four years no less than 6700 volumes, chiolly works which had been scattered on the dissolution of the monasteries. The greater part of this, splendid collection, styled by Fuller "the sun of English antiquity," Parker bequeathed to Corpus Christ! College. His interest in his university at large did not diminish after his elevation to the archbishopric, and the Regent Walk (an improved approach to the public schools) and the university library were long-standing memorials of his muniiicence. He also founded a grammar school at Rochdale, and numerous scholarships and annual charities elsewhere. That he died rich cannot be denied ; and his enemies have asserted that he was far from scrupulous in the means which he employed in acquiring wealth, especially in "admitting children to cures." On the other hand, it must be allowed that he made a good and generous use of his wealth, and his contemporary biographer claims for him the rare merit of combining strict economy with liberality. Parker had five children. Of these the eldest, John, who was knighted by King James in 1603, alone survived him ; he died at Cambridge in 1620, in great want, the cost of his funeral bei_ng defrayed by Corpus Christi College. The best source of information in all that relates to Parker is his Life and Acts, by Strype (3 vols., Oxford, 1824), a performance on which that distinguished antiquary bestowed even more than his usual amount of painstaking research. A copy of the folio edition (1711), preserved in the library of St John s College, Cambridge, is enriched with numerous and valuable MS. notes by the donor, the eminent Thomas Baker. The titles of the books which he presented to his own college will be found in Xasmith s Cat. of the C.C. AISS. (1777). (J. B. M ) PARKER, THEODORE (1810-1860), a distinguished American rationalistic preacher and social reformer, born at Lexington, Massachusetts, August 24, 1810, was the youngest of eleven children. His father, John Parker, a small farmer and skilful mechanic, was a typical New England yeoman, a man of sterling moral worth, of strong intellect, meditative, and fond of reading, a strict dis ciplinarian in his house, a Unitarian in his theology before Unitarianism was known in New England as a system, and a Federalist in his politics when there were but four Federalists in Lexington. His mother, "an imaginative, delicate-minded, poetic, yet very practical woman," took great pains with the religious education of her children, " caring, however, but little for doctrines," and making religion to consist of love and good works. Theodore s paternal grandfather, Captain John Parker, fired the first shot upon the British at the battle of Lexington, com manding on that occasion a troop of seventy men. The historic musket from which that shot was fired became one of the most valued ornaments of the grandson s study, His mother taught him to listen to the monitions of con science as the voice of God, and from his infancy his life was dominated by moral and religious emotions and ideas of overpowering force. The boy was richly endowed intellectually and physically. His memory was marvel lously retentive. The acquisition of languages was a delight and recreation to him. He obtained the elements of knowledge in the schools of the district, which were open during the winter months only. During the rest of the year he worked on his father s farm. He was all the time an immense and omnivorous reader, and his powerful memory enabled him to remember all that he read. At the age of seventeen he became himself a winter school master, and in his twentieth year he entered himself at Harvard, working on the farm as usual while he followed his studies, and going over to Cambridge for the examina tion only. For the theological course he took up in 1834 his residence in the college, meeting his expenses by a small sum amassed by school-keeping and by help from a poor students fund. He studied fourteen hours a day, not only following the usual course of the college, but plunging deep into German theology and Biblical criticism, and especially the history of non-Christian religions. At the close of his college career he began his translation of De Wette s Introduction to the Old Testament. His journal and letters show that he had made acquaintance with a large number of languages, including Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, Arabic, Coptic, Ethiopic, as well as the classical and the