taken only a very few lessons himself, and Spanish without having enjoyed the instruction of a master for a single hour. When just twenty he went to Cam- bridge to be examined for admission to Harvard College. He was admitted; but being a non-resident, and nn- able to pay the tuition fees, he was not entitled to the degree of A.B. In 1840, however, the degree of A.M. was conferred upon him honoris causa. On IMarch 23, 1831, he went to Boston in fulfilment of an engagement to assist in the instruction of a private school. He transported thither eleven octavo volumes, his entire library, and fell to work with indomitable resolution and energy. He received fifteen dollars a montli and his board for teaching Latin, Greek, French, and Spanish, mathematics, and all branches of philosophy. He taught six hours a day, and from May to September seven hours. He remained in Boston just one year; whether the engagement was closed on his motion or not we do not know ; but this we do know, that the work proved too much for his strength. He needed air and exercise, but he needed society even more. He next opened a private school at Watertown, where he found much to encour- age liim — pleasant social relations, the friendship of the Eev. Dr. Francis, the Unitarian clergyman there, and the promise of a wife in INIiss Lydia D. Cabot, whom he married in 1837. Mr. Parker's achievements in scholar- ship during his residence in Watertown were remarka- ble. He pursued the study of Latin and Greek authors, and read the most of Cicero, Herodotus, Thucydides, Pindar, Theocritus, Bion, Moschus (the last four of which he translated), and ^Eschylus. He wrote for a Sunday- school class a historj' of the Jews ; increased his studies in metaphysics, taking up Cousin and the new school of French philosophers ; and entered upon a course of theology. Every Saturday he walked to Cambridge and to Charlestown for instruction in Hebrew. In ad- dition to this, he devoted a portion of his time to the German poets, Goethe, Schiller, and Klopstock, and the works of Coleridge engaged a share of his attention. An occasional novel by Sir Walter Scott or a poem of Byron beguiled his leisure hours. "His studies," says his biographer, Frothingham, '• ran into the early morn- ing. The landlady kept the lamps well supplied, but there was no oil in his lamp when the day broke." In 1834 Parker entered the Cambridge divinity school, where he remained two years and three months. He was still so poor that he was obliged to eke out his scanty means by taking four or five pupils, and to prac- tice the most rigid economy. In his journal he says that he did not take up the theological course without many misgivings, and that he had even taken prelim- inary studies looking towards the la\v as a profession, because he felt repelled by the doctrines which were taught in the pulpits, the notorious dulness of Sunday services, and the fact that the clergy did not lead in the intellectual, moral, or religious progress of the people. In this account of his experience as a minister, how- ever, Parker is continually substituting his later con- clusions for his early impressions. In certain cases we can detect great discrepancies between the state- ments contained in this document and the real facts. i"or example, among the "five distinct denials" of the popular theology with which he alleges that he entered upon his theological education, the first is "the ghast- ly doctrine of eternal damnation and a wrathful God." This he states that he made way with somewhere from his seventh to his tenth year. But he had forgotten the confession of his faith which he made in a letter to his nephew, Columbus Greene, on April 2, 1834 (com- pare the examination on this topic in Metk. Qu. Rev. Jan. 1873, p. 17. 18).
At the theological school Parker made a marked impression. He soon came to be regarded as a pro- digious athlete in his studies. He made daily acquaint- ance with books which were strange to many old Biblical scholars, and which the younger members of the school did not know even bv name. He would