28 FEBRUARY 1857, Page 26

LIFE OF SIR EDWARD PARRY. * IF the reader looks at

a map expressly marked to show the Arctic discoveries of Sir Ed.ward. Parry, he -will have conclusive evidence of the great contributions Parry made to our knowledge of the Polar regions, and how much he conduced towards the final completion of the North-west Passage. In the sketch prefixed to the volume before us, some things, indeed, are set down that scarcely belong to him. In the survey of the Western coast of Baffin's Bay, he merely confirmed with greater minuteness the account of the old navigator: if Parry was the first to sail through Frozen Strait, Middleton had discovered it, though he was deterred from attempting the channel ; Parry's survey established the propriety of the name that had been given to Repulse Bay, but he cannot be said to have been the first to visit it. Still enough remains. A large part of Lancaster Sound, Barrow Strait, Prince Regent's Inlet, Wellington Channel, and the celebrated Winter Harbour on Melville Island, were all his discoveries ; "Parry's farthest" of the maps remained almost to the last the extreme point reached by any navigator sailing from the East. It is worth noting that he expected no success to an expedition starting from Belning's Strait, and opposed the attempt. When he advanced this opinion, however, little was known of the Northern coast of America, and consequently of the character of that part of the Polar Ocean. The distinctive life of Parry was really contained in his Arctic expeditions. In the rest of his career he exhibited nothing generically different from that of hundreds or thousands of other active naval officers, or men devoted to public business.

Edward Parry was born in 1790, at Bath, where his father attained eminence as a physician. In 1803 he entered the Navy, and served with much credit throughout the war, but without being engaged in any great action. In 1810-'12 Lieutenant Parry was employed in the Alexandria to protect the Spitsbergen whalefishery, and was one year despatched to fetch home the last ships. In those days Northern voyages were not so common as in our time, and the experience Parry attained during his three-years service, coupled with his reputation for steadiness, seamanship, and general acquirement, probably recommended him to Barrow for second in the expedition fitting out under Ross in 1817, chiefly through Barrow's exertions.

On the unaccountable return of Ross in 1818, when Lancaster Strait was open before him, Parry, still a Lieutenant, was appointed chief of another expedition. It turned out the most successful one of the four he made. On his return from his second voyage he was appointed hydrographer to the Admiralty ; the office being kept open for him while he made his third voyage1824-'25, and when in 1827 he attempted to reach the Pole over the frozen sea North of Spitsbergen. The confinement of the office of hydrogiapher was not agreeable to him, and he thought it injured hishealth. Captain Sir Edward Parry therefore accepted the post of Superintendent of the Australian Agricultural Company ; a half-philanthropic or public-spirited body, established to promote the growth of merino wool and other improvements, stimulated thereto by the grant of a million of acres and some convict labour. Through laxity the settlement had got into a bad state, and it was thought Parry might restore matters ; which he did, by his habits of discipline and the mingled firmness and kindness of his nature. In 1834 he returned to England, and obtained the appointment of Assistant Poor-law Commissioner ; but was soon compelled to give it up, his health not being equal to the labour. In 1837 the Admiralty established a new department connected with steam navigation, and Parry was placed at its head. After eight years' service, the increasing demands of the post became too much for him, and he resigned the office for that of Superintendent of Hasler Naval Hospital. In 1853 Lord Aberdeen appointed him to the Lieutenant-Governorship of Greenwich Hospital.

He did not hold this appropriate appointment long, dying in July 1855. He could not be called young, for he had reached his

• Memoirs of Rear-Admiral Si, W. Edward Parry, Et., P.R.S., 4c., late Lieut.Governor of Greenwich Hospital. By his Son, the Reverend Edward Parry, M.A., of Balliol College, Oxford, and late Tutor in the University of Durham. Published by Longmans. sixty-fifth year ; but he was probably worn out by the ten years' exposure, fatigues, and anxieties of his Arctic expeditions; for his health began to fail soon after forty ; and he was ever after "unequal to offices which though laborious can be discharged by many men' who would have broken down in command of the Heck and Griper, or of the Fury and the Heck. He was twice married.

The events of Sir Edward Parry's life receive little colouring or character from the method of their exhibition. We have seldom read a biography, strictly confined as this is to the true subject, with so little of anecdote, or what may be called portraiture. Part of this may arise from the position of the biographer; a son being naturally unacquainted with the early years of his father's life, and not well capable at any time of surveying him with an artistlike or critical eye. This reason, however, does not apply to Parry's own letters or the letters of his friends. We believe much of the want of interest to arise from the religious east of the whole. From his boyhood Parry was seriously inclined. On his return from his third voyage he became strongly Evangelical. This threw his thoughts, or at least his writings' into the regular serious stereotype rut, where matter, individuality, and variety, are sacrificed to an outpouring of formal phraseology. The friends whose letters appear have more or less traits of a similar kind ; and Parry's speeches at Bible Society,_ Missionary meetings, and the like, were also devoid of attraction unless when he was lecturing sailors. He then seems to have abounded in minute facts, though the mode of statement was not striking. He had naturallya taste for music, and both sang and played on the violin. During his Arctic voyages he was not opposed to theatricals, as we all knew, for they formed one of his modes of exciting interest and amusing his crews during their dreary detention. At Hasler he is described as disapproving of public balls and theatrical exhibitions ; "not that I mind the plays or dancing," he would say, "but because of the moral evils attendant on the one, and the habits of dissipation and craving for excitement produced by the other." There was not much fear of either in the Arctic circle ; but when he uttered this opinion we suspect it would have been difficult to have got him to figure at a private masquerade, as he did in Prince Regent's Inlet in 1824-'25.

"Before the first entertainment, which was to be held on board the Fury, the chief topic among the men was, as to what part 'the captain' would take. They knew him well enough to expect something worth seeing, and at the same time to be sure that they should feel at ease in his presence. Conjectures grew more rife as the festive day approached. He was well scanned by ninny curious eyes as he emerged from his cabin and went down the ship's aide; but he was well wrapped up in a large boat-cloak, and all that could be seen was his violin, which he held under his arm ; so curiosity had to wait till all arrived at the masquerade hall on the Fury's lower deck. And now the fun commenced in good earnest ; the captain himself, for some time at least, attracting the attention of all. The cloak had been thrown aside, and there stood the fac-simile of an old marine with a -wooden leg, well known to all, who used to sit with a fiddle, begging for halfpence, on a road near Chatham. The part was admirably sustained. Give a copper to poor Joe, your honour, who's lost his timbers in defence of his king and country !' and then would come a scrape on the fiddle, and a stave dolefully drawled in a cracked voice. The appeal was not in vain, and the coppers fell fast into his hat. In another part of the deck stood a neat public-house bar, at which a steady seaman acted as John Barleycorn and supplied liquor in moderation to those who presented tickets, with which they had been provided for the purpose. Mine host had a ready tongue, and it may be supposed there was no lack of customers at the sign of the 'Fury, No. 1 Arctic Street.' The affair ended with a dance, in which the whole of the motley assemblage joined with right good will ; Turks, sweeps, Quakers, and old-clothes men, footing it as merrily as though the scene of the festival were Portsmouth instead of Port Bowen ; and presenting a strange contrast to the dreary waste without, where an Arctic winter still held undisputed reign over the desolate shore and frozen waste of waters. At length, four bells (ten o'clock) is struck' the boatswain's chirp is heard above the din, Away. there Hulas !' and in another hour not a sound is heard on board either ship to break the stillness of the long Polar night."

This picture from a visit to Prince Leopold, thirty years ago, has an interest for its subject.

"Claremont is a charming place and I enjoyed myself extremely. . . . I must not forget the little Princess Victoria. She is what you would call a very dear and loveable child, with manners so ladylike and superior that you would know her at once to be something more than an ordinary girl, and yet possessing all the innocent playfulness and simplicity of a child. She and her mother sat down quietly to the piano yesterday, after breakfast, and sang, with remarkable sweetness and taste, some beautiful German duets, and some Tyrolese airs, which I had not heard before."