those of his poetry, of which a short time has withered the beauties. It would now be esteemed no honour, by a contributor to the monthly bundles of verses, to be told, that, in strains either familiar or folemn, he fings like Montague. PARNEL L. PARNEL L. THE HE Life of Dr. PARNELL is a task which I fhould very willingly decline, fince it has been lately written by Goldsmith, a man of fuch variety of pow ers, and fuch felicity of performance, that he always feemed to do best that which he was doing; a man who had the art of being minute without tediousness, and general without confufion; whose language was copious without exuberance, exact without conftraint, and easy without weakness. What fuch an author has told, who would tell again? I have made an abstract from his larger narrative; and have this gratification from my attempt, that it gives me an opportunity of paying due tribute to the memory of Goldsmith. Τὸ γὰρ γέρας ἔσι θανόντων. THOMAS PARNELL was the son of a commonwealthfman of the fame name, who at the Restoration left Congleton in Cheshire, where the family had been established for feveral centuries, and, fettling in Ireland, purchased an eftate, which, with his lands in Chefhire, defcended to the poet, who was born at Dublin in 1679: and, after the ufual education at a grammar-fchool, was at the age of thirteen admitted into the College, where, in 1700, he became mafter of arts; and was the fame year ordained a deacon, though under the canonical age, by a difpenfation from the bishop of Derry. About three years afterwards he was made a priest; and in 1705 Dr. Ashe, the bishop of Clogher, conferred upon him the archdeaconry of Clogher. About the fame time he married Mrs. Anne Minchin, an amiable lady, by whom he had two fons, who died young, and a daughter who long furvived him. At the ejection of the Whigs, in the end of Queen Anne's reign, Parnell was perfuaded to change his party, not without much cenfure from thofe whom he for fook, fook, and was received by the new ministry as a valuable reinforcement. When the earl of Oxford was told that Dr. Parnell waited among the crowd in the outer room, he went by the perfuafion of Swift, with his treasurer's staff in his hand, to enquire for him, and to bid him welcome; and, as may be inferred from Pope's dedication, admitted him as a favourite companion to his convivial hours, but, as it seems often to have happened in those times to the favourites of the great, without attention to his fortune, which, however, was in no great need of improve ment. Parnell, who did not want ambition or vanity, was defirous to make himself confpicuous, and to shew how worthy he was of high preferment. As he thought himfelf qualified to become a popular preacher, he displayed his elocution with great fuccefs in the pulpits of London; but the queen's death putting an end to his expectations, abated his diligence; and Pope represents him as falling from that time into intemperance of wine. That in his latter life he was too much a lover of the bottle, is not denied; but I have heard it imputed to a cause more likely to obtain forgiveness from mankind, the untimely death of a darling fon; or, as others tell, the lofs of his wife, who died (1712) in the midst of his expectations. He was now to derive every future addition to his preferments from his perfonal intereft with his private friends, and he was not long unregarded. He was warmly recommended by Swift to archbishop King, who gave him a prebend in 1713; and in May 1716 prefented him to the vicarage of Finglas in the diocefe of Dublin, worth four hundred pounds a year. Such notice from fuch a man inclines me to believe that the vice of which he has been accused was not gross, or not notorious. But his profperity did not last long. His end, whatever was its caufe, was now approaching. He enjoyed his preferment little more than a year; for in July 1717, in his thirty-eighth year, he died at Chefter on his way to Ireland. He feems to have been one of those poets who take delight in writing. He contributed to the papers of that time, and probably |