Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 43.djvu/371

 in the ‘Annual Register’ as having died in Skiddy's Almshouses at Cork in October 1792, aged 103.

The allegation that Parr was a great smoker appears to have no foundation; he was, however, according to Fuller, a great sleeper, and Taylor says of him: From head to heel his body hath all over A quick-set, thick-set, nat'ral hairy cover. With regard to diet, it is said that he observed no rules or regular time for eating, but ‘was ready to discuss any kind of eatable that was at hand.’ Absurd stories of Parr's interviews with Jenkins and with the Countess of Desmond, and a document described as ‘Old Parr's will,’ were invented by the writers of the chapbooks, issued from 1835 onwards, to advertise the quack nostrum known as ‘Old Parr's Life Pills.’ The receipt for the pill was purchased from T. Roberts, a Manchester druggist, by [q. v.], who employed a schoolmaster to write its history, and claimed to have obtained the secret of its preparation from one of Old Parr's descendants (see Medical Circular, 23 Feb. and 2 March 1853).

The exact age of Parr is attested by village gossip alone, and the statement that he was born in 1483 must be regarded as extremely improbable. Sir George Cornewall Lewis and W. J. Thoms discredit the story of his antediluvian age as unsupported by a jot of trustworthy evidence. The former also expressed strong doubts as to there being any properly authenticated cases of centenarians in existence. There are, however, many undoubted instances on record, notably that of Jacob William Luning, who was born in 1767, and died at Morden College, Blackheath, on 23 June 1870, and more recently that of M. Chevreul (1787–1889), the great French chemist (cf. ‘Longevity: an Answer to Sir G. C. Lewis,’ in New Wonderful Museum; Fortnightly Review, April 1869).

There are many portraits of Old Parr in existence. His portrait was painted from memory by Rubens, and this picture has been engraved by Condé for the ‘European Magazine,’ and modified by R. Page for Wilson's ‘Wonderful Characters.’ The original was sold at Christie's to a picture-dealer in Paris, on 1 June 1878, as ‘lot 94 of the Novar collection,’ being knocked down for 180 guineas. Another contemporary portrait, painted in the school of Honthorst, is preserved in the Ashmolean at Oxford, having been taken thither from John Tradescant's Museum at Lambeth. A replica is in the National Portrait Gallery, and represents Parr with a bald head, a long flowing white beard, dark brown eyes, and shaggy eyebrows. A portrait described as ‘De l'Écossais Thomas Park, peint dans sa 151me année,’ evidently indicating the ‘very old’ man, is in the Dresden Gallery; it was formerly in the collection of Charles I, and is ascribed to Vandyck. There is also a fine mezzotint entitled ‘Old Parr’ engraved by G. White; another engraving, by C. van Dalen, represents ‘the Olde, old, very Olde Man,’ in a chair with a skull-cap and a pillow. There is a French portrait of ‘Le tres vieux homme,’ by Hobart, dated 1715. Another rare print, by Glover after E. Bowers, represents him sitting in company with the dwarf, Jeffrey Hudson, and the giant porter of Oliver Cromwell (, Cat. ii. 309). A view of Old Parr's cottage at the Glyn in the parish of Alberbury, Shropshire, was engraved by Howlet after James Parker for the ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ (1814, pt. i. p. 217). Three medals relate, or have been supposed to relate, to Thomas Parr. 1. A posthumous ‘cheque’ or token, described in Hawkins's ‘Medallic History’ (i. 277), of which there are two specimens, one in copper, the other in white metal, in the British Museum. 2. A farthing token of the ‘Old Man’ inn, formerly standing in Market Place, Westminster, representing old Parr's head in profile (figured in Boyne's ‘Seventeenth-century Tokens,’ pl. xxi.). 3. A medal in the Historical Museum at Orleans, bearing the signature of Abraham Simon, with the inscription ‘Thomas Parr æt. 152,’ which is probably a cast of the obverse of an original medal of Sir Albert Joachim (1646), by Simon, the legend added with the graver (details kindly furnished by F. P. Weber, esq., M.D.)

[John Taylor's Old, Old, Very Old Man, a sixpenny pamphlet published in 1635, and frequently reprinted, constitutes the chief source of information; see also The Wonder of this Age: or the Picture of a Man living who is 152 years old and upward this 12 day Nov. 1635; Thoms's Human Longevity, pp. 85–94; Works of William Harvey, M.D. (Sydenham Soc.), 1847, pp. 587–592; Montgomeryshire Colls. (Powysland Club), xiv. 81–8; Peck's Desiderata Curiosa, lib. xiv. p. 16, and Coll. of Curious Historical Pieces, 1740, p. 51; Kirby's Wonderful Museum; Topographer and Genealogist, vol. iii.; Shropshire Gazetteer, p. 731; Salopian Shreds and Patches, i. 15, 25, 92, 154; Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. iii. 45, ix. 104, 4th ser. iii. 594, v. 500, ix. 107, xii. 186, 6th ser. iii. 188, 415, iv. 317; Granger's New Wonderful Museum, i. 79–84; Caulfield's Portraits of Remarkable Persons; Wilson's Wonderful Characters, ii. 252; Chambers's Book of Days, ii. 581–3; Timbs's Romance of London, i. 94; Gent. Mag. 1814, i. 217; Annual Register, 1792, p. 43; Macmillan's Magazine, October 1871, and