On October 18, 1822, Francis Rivington, the senior partner, died, earning a character for high probity and sincere and unaffected piety. Like his father he had been a governor in many charitable institutions. “Such a man,” says the author of his obituary notice, “cannot go unwept to the grave; and the writer of this article, after a friendly intercourse of sixty years, is not ashamed to say that at this moment his eyes are moister than his pen”--a quaint but sincere tribute. He had married Miss M. Elhill, sister of an eminent lead merchant, and four of his sons survived him. In 1827 George and Francis, sons of Charles, joined the firm; and in 1831, Charles, the younger of the two original brothers, was found dead on the floor of his dressing-room. In social life he was distinguished by the mildness and complacence of his temper; and his conversation was invariably enlivened with anecdotes and memories of the literary men and clergymen with whom he had come in contact. The firm now, therefore, consisted of John, the son of the elder, and Francis and George, two sons of the younger brother. We shall see, in the following memoirs of the Parkers, how marvellously religious life was quickened at Oxford by the publication of Keble’s “Christian Year.” This feeling, intense in its inner nature as any of the revivals, culminated or fulminated in the publication of the “Tracts for the Times”--the most important work, perhaps, with which the Rivingtons have ever been connected; and worthy, therefore, of the scanty notice for which we can afford space here. The “Tracts for the Times” were commenced in 1833, at a time, according to the writers, “when irreligious principles and false doctrines had just been admitted into public measures on a large scale ... when the Irish sees had been suppressed by the state against the Church’s wish.... They were written with the hope of rousing members of the Church to comprehend her alarming position--of helping them to realize the fact of the gradual growth, allowance, and establishment of unsound principles in her internal concerns; and, having this object, they used spontaneously the language of alarm and complaint. They were written as a man might give notice of a fire or inundation, so as to startle all who heard him” (vol. iii. p. 3). As far as fulfilment of intention went in startling, the writers were perfectly successful. Exhibiting great talents, depth of thought, logical power, acuteness of reasoning, and an undoubted religious feeling, their effect was spontaneous. By one party, and an increasing one, the writers were welcomed with a reverend love that almost forbade criticism, and by the other with the greatest uneasiness and suspicion. The chief writers in the series, for the “Tracts” continued to appear during the space of several years, were Newman, Pusey, Keble, and Williams. In Ireland the clergy were anxious to come over in a body, and greet them collectively.