Daniel Parken

Daniel Parken (d. 1812), often attended Baptist congregations but whether he was a member of any one congregation is not known; it seems likely, however, that he was a Baptist or an Independent.  He was the primary editor of the Eclectic Review (founded in 1805) from 1806 to 1812, the year of his early death. In 1813 it was purchased by Josiah Conder. The Eclectic Review would continue until 1868, with later editors including Josiah Conder and J. E. Ryland. Parken appears to have worshiped at Eagle Street under Ivimey. He was also a good friend of Crabb Robinson and appears frequently in the early volumes of Robinson’s diary. In Life and Letters of Christopher Anderson, he says that on a visit to London in July 1806 he preached at Eagle Street for Ivimey and that Daniel Parken talked to him that night about the Eclectic Review.  He preached at Carter Lane on 1 July 1806 and supped with Robert Westley of Cullom Street (p. 58). Duncan Wu writes of Parken, that he was a Baptist originally from Luton, and was admitted to Lincoln's Inn on 5 September 1811, a barrister-at-law. He was a friend of Henry Crabb Robinson, who took him to the last of Hazlitt's lectures on 14 April 1812: 'Parken to whom I gave a ticket was much pleased with the lecture.' The following month Robinson took him to some of Coleridge's lectures. Parken died young after a freak accident, as reported by the Monthly Magazine, 34 (September 1812), p. 171, 'while stepping out of a gig, in the momentary danger of being overthrown, by which he sprained his ancle, and injured his foot. [. . .] The shock had produced an effect of the membranes of the brain, which terminated in a brain fever, and ultimately in death. This young man was some time editor of the Eclectic Review, a work as devoid of honesty as of ability, and in many respects a disgrace to the periodical press'. It is unlikely that Hazlitt remained unaware of Parken's demise. He is bound to have seen Barron Field's elegiac 'Inscription' to Parken, which appeared in The Examiner for 8 November 1812 (p. 715). See Anderson, Letters of Christopher Anderson, 58.