# The Poetical Works of Thomas Parnell/Life

THE LIFE OF PARNELL,
BY THE REVEREND JOHN MITFORD.
I am sorry, that it is not in my power to spread before the admirers of Parnell, some richer stores of biographical anecdote: nor do I know where I could refer them to more copious sources of information. I am not aware that any materials were collected by his friends or contemporaries, certainly no life of him was composed. For the little knowledge of the poet which we possess, we are indebted to Goldsmith; the elegance of whose narrative, and the justice of whose criticisms has been long acknowledged; but the facts which he collected were so few, that Dr. Johnson, who went to Goldsmith's life for information, has included his account of the poet, both personal and literary, in the narrow space of four pages. Perhaps it would have been as well, in the absence of fresh information, to have republished the life written by Goldsmith, but as that was not consistent with the plan of the present work, and as I have picked up a few gleanings relating to Parnell's domestic history unnoticed by others, I shall endeavour to lay before my readers as full an ​account as I can give of the circumstances in his life which have come down to us, adding a few observations on the poems which he has left. I am afraid that it is now too late to supply by any diligence of inquiry, what the negligence of his contemporaries omitted to record. Had we been permitted to know more, we should certainly not have contemplated a life chequered by vicissitude, or variegated by incident; but we might have derived some information from tracing the line of his studies, and observing the progress of his knowledge; nor would it have been uninteresting to have watched the gradual refinement of his taste, and taken a nearer survey of those social virtues and captivating qualities of mind, which rendered his acquaintance desirable, and secured to him the cordial friendship of Harley and Pope. As it is, we must be content to know that Parnell added the pleasing qualities of a companion, to the elegant invention of the poet.
"When the poet's fame, as Goldsmith says, is increased by time, it is then too late to investigate the peculiarities of his disposition; the dews of the morning are past, and we vainly try to continue the chase by the meridian splendour."
Thomas Parnell was descended from an ancient family that for some centuries had been settled at ​Congleton, in Cheshire. His father, Thomas Parnell, was attached to the Commonwealth party, and at the restoration went over to Ireland, where he purchased a considerable estate, which, with his property in Cheshire, descended to our poet.
Parnell was born in Dublin, in 1679, and was educated at the school of Dr. Jones in that city; he is said to have distinguished himself by an extraordinary quickness of memory, which enabled him in one night to complete a task that was intended to confine him many days, and it is said that he could repeat forty lines of any book after the first reading. It is probable that this account, ​though overcharged, may be in the main true; a ready memory is not always retentive; and the system pursued in the education of schools has of necessity a greater tendency to sharpen the faculty of seizing and collecting facts, than to bestow that generalizing and philosophical power by which they are arranged and preserved. The verses which he learned with so much facility were probably as quickly forgotten. The almost instantaneous rapidity with which some actors on the stage have been known to remember and repeat passages of great length, is hardly more astonishing, than the shortness of the time during which the fleeting impressions remained upon their mind.
Goldsmith says, that his admission at the age of thirteen into the college at Dublin is a proof of the early maturity of his understanding. His compositions shew the extent and solidity of his classical knowledge. He took the degree of Master of Arts on the 9th July, 1700, in the same year he was ordained a deacon by William, Bishop of Deny, having a dispensation, by reason of his being under the canonical age. About three years after he was ordained priest, and in ​1705, Sir George Ashe, Bishop of Clogher, conferred on him the Archdeaconry of Clogher. At this time he married Miss Ann Minchin, a young lady of more than usual beauty, and of great merit, by whom he had two sons, who died young, and a daughter who long survived him.
Being the son of a Commonwealth's man, it might naturally be expected that Parnell would have embraced the principles and politics of the Whigs; but he was persuaded, by motives with which we are not acquainted, to change his party; and in the end of Queen Anne's reign, when the Whigs went out of office, Parnell was received by the new ministry 'as a valuable reinforcement.'
When Lord Oxford was told that Parnell waited among the crowd in the outer room, he went, by the persuasion of Swift, with his treasurer's staff in his hand to inquire for him; the dedication ​of Pope seems to prove that he was admitted as a favourite companion to the convivial hours of the minister; and that even the business of office was delayed, when the treasurer wished to indulge in the delight of the poet's conversation.
"For him thou oft hast bid the world attend, Pleased to forget the statesman in the friend."
While Parnell remained in London, he often preached in the different churches of the metropolis; Johnson speaks of this as arising from his vanity or ambition; did he, a sincere and zealous churchman, forget that preaching was one of the chief duties of Parnell's profession; and that he imparted moral advice and religious instruction, through the only channel which was open to one who possessed no parish of his own. Parnell preached to attentive audiences chiefly in the city and about Southwark, and his eloquence and knowledge made him popular. The queen's death however precluded any hopes of preferment from the interest of his Tory friends; and Johnson ​more than hints, that his religious zeal cooled, in proportion as his prospects of advancement closed. I do not, however, think that we have a right to adopt an opinion, perhaps hastily advanced, and which leads to so unfavorable a construction of our poet's conduct.
About this time he had the misfortune to lose his wife; and in the great disappointment of his hopes, and dejection of spirits which followed, Pope represents him as having fallen into some intemperance of wine. Pope and Swift were not ​lovers of the bottle, though the former did not dislike the delicacies of a luxurious table; perhaps he has mentioned a little too strongly this weakness of his friend; certain it is, that Parnell did not lose the respect of society, or the attachment of his patrons; for Archbishop King, at the request of Swift, gave him a prebendal stall in 1713, and in May, 1716, presented him with the vicarage of Finglass, in the diocess of Dublin, worth about four hundred pounds a year. He did not, however, long live to enjoy his preferment and prosperity; and died at Chester in July, 1717, in his thirty-eighth year, while on his way to Ireland, and was buried at Trinity Church in that town.
His estate devolved on his only nephew, Sir John Parnell, whose father was younger brother to the ​Archdeacon, and one of the Justices of the King's Bench in Ireland. No monument marked his grave; but his epitaph has been written by Johnson.
Hic requiescit Thomas Parnell, S.T.P. Qui Sacerdos pariter et Poeta Utrasque partes ita implevit, Ut neque Sacerdoti Suavitas poetæ Nec Poetæ Sacerdotis Sanctitas deesset.
Such is the small amount of facts which has been preserved relating to the poet. I must now borrow from Goldsmith's narrative some account of his mental qualities and habits, for which the biographer was indebted to the information of his father and uncle: while I just mention, that if the account given is correct, the poems of Parnell do not form a clear transcript of his mind; nor could we, through the veil of their light and graceful gaiety, discern the feelings of a person whose passions were so strong, and whose life was an unfortunate alternation of rapture and agony. I shall leave to others to explain how far such violent and unrestrained habits were compatible with his delightful qualities as a companion;
'With sweetest manners gentlest arts adorn'd.'
but it is said, that he knew the ridicule which his strongly contrasted character excited; though he ​could not soften or subdue the impetuous feelings that formed it.
"Parnell," says his biographer, " by what I have been able to collect from my father and uncle, who knew him, was the most capable man in the world to make the happiness of those he conversed with, and the least able to secure his own. He wanted that evenness of disposition which bears disappointment with phlegm, and joy with indifference. He was ever much elated or depressed, and his whole life spent in agony or rapture. But the turbulence of these passions only affected himself, and never those about him; he knew the ridicule of his own character, and very effectually raised the mirth of his companions as well at his vexations as his triumphs.
"How much his company was desired, appears from the extensiveness of his connexions and the number of his friends. Even before he made any figure in the literary world, his friendship was sought by persons of every rank and party. The wits at that time differed a good deal from those who are most eminent for their understanding at present. It would now be thought a very indifferent sign of a writer's good sense, to disclaim his ​private friends for happening to be of a different party in politics, but it was then otherwise. The Whig wits held the Tory wits in great contempt, and those retaliated in their turn. At the head of one party were Addison, Steele, and Congreve; at that of the other, Pope, Swift, and Arbuthnot. Parnell was a friend to both sides, and with a liberality becoming a scholar, scorned all those trifling distinctions that are noisy for the time and ridiculous to posterity. Nor did he emancipate himself from these without some opposition from home. Having been the son of a commonwealth's man, his Tory connexions on this side of the water gave his friends in Ireland great offence; they were much enraged to see him keep company with Pope, Swift, and Gay; they blamed his undistinguishing taste, and wondered what pleasure he could find in the conversation of men who approved the treaty of Utrecht, and disliked the Duke of Marlborough."
His conversation is said to have been extremely pleasing. The letters which were written to him by his friends are full of compliments upon his ​talents as a companion, and his good nature as a man. Pope was particularly fond of his company, and seems to regret his absence more than the rest. The letters which he addressed to Parnell will be read with interest; they bear ample testimony of his affection, and show that Pope knew and respected Parnell's acquirements as a scholar. From one of the letters it appears, that Parnell assisted him in the translation of the Scholiasts and Commentators on Homer, a task afterwards more fully performed by Jortin. Pope's scanty and superficial knowledge of Greek must have made this assistance of great value; nor am I aware that the translator of Homer numbered among his friends, another scholar of equal acquirements. Gay, as Goldsmith observes, was obliged to him on another account; for being always poor, he was not above receiving from Parnell the copy-money which the latter got for his writings.
Mr. Pope to Dr. Parnell.
Dear Sir, London, July 29.
I wish it were not as ungenerous as vain, to complain too much of a man that forgets me, hut I could expostulate with you a whole day, upon your inhuman silence—I call it inhuman, nor would you think it less, if you were truly sensible of the uneasiness it gives me. Did I know you so ill, as to think you proud, I would be much less concerned than I am able to be, when I know one of the best natured men alive neglects me. Or if you know me so ill as to think amiss of me with regard to my friendship for you, you really do not deserve half the trouble you occasion me. I need not tell you that both Mr. Gay and myself have written several letters in vain; that we are constantly enquiring of all who have seen Ireland, if they saw you, and that (forgotten as we are) we are every day remembering you in our most agreeable hours. All this is true, as that we are sincerely lovers of you, and deplorers of your absence, and that we form no wish more ardently than that which brings you over to us. We have lately had some distant hopes of the dean's design to revisit England. Will not you accompany him? or is England to lose every thing that has any charm for us, and must we pray for banishment as a benediction.
I have once been witness of some, I hope all of your splenetic hours; come, and be a comforter ​in your turn to me in mine. I am in such an unsettled state, that I can't tell if I shall ever see you, unless it be this year. Whether I do or not, be ever assured, you have as large a share of my thoughts and good wishes as any man, and as great a portion of gratitude in my heart, as would enrich a monarch could he know where to find it. I shall not die without testifying something of this nature, and leaving to the world a memorial of the friendship that has been so great a pleasure and pride to me. It would be like writing my own epitaph, to acquaint you with what I have lost since I saw you, what I have done, what I have thought, where I have lived, and where I now repose in obscurity. My friend Jervas, the bearer of this, will inform you of all particulars concerning me; and Mr. Ford is charged with a thousand loves, and a thousand complaints, and a thousand commissions, to you on my .part. They will both tax you with the neglect of some promises which were too agreeable to us all to be forgot. If you care for any of us, tell them so, and write so to me. I can say no more, but that I love you, and am, in spite of the longest neglect or absence,
Dear sir, yours, &c.
to the same.
Binfield, near Oakingham. Tuesday.
Dear Sir,
I believe the hurry you were in hindered your giving me a word by the last post, so that I am yet to learn whether you got well to town, or continue so there. I very much fear both for your health, and your quiet, and no man living can be more truly concerned in any thing that touches either, than myself. I would comfort myself, however, with hoping that your business may not be unsuccessful for your sake, and that at least, it may soon be put into other proper hands. For my own, I beg earnestly of you to return to us as soon as possible. You know how very much I want you, and that however your business may depend upon another, my business depends entirely on you, and yet still I hope you will find your man, even though I lose you the mean while. At this time the more I love, the worse I can spare you, which alone will, I dare say, be a reason to you, to let me have you back the sooner. The minute I lost you; Eustathius, with nine hundred pages, and nine thousand contractions of the Greek character, arose to my view. Spondanus with all his auxiliaries, in number a thousand pages (value three shillings), and Dacier's three volumes, Barnes' two, Voltaire's three, Cuperus, half in Greek, Leo Allatius three parts in Greek, Scaliger, Macrobius, and (worse than them all) Aulus Gellius; all these ​rushed upon my soul at once, and whelmed me under a fit of the head ache. Dear sir, not only as you are a friend, and a good natured man, but as you are a Christian and a Divine, come back speedily and prevent the increase of my sins; for at the rate I have began to rave, I shall not only damn all the poets and commentators who have gone before me, but be damned myself by all who come after me. To be serious, you have not only left me to the last degree impatient for your return, who at all times should have been so; (though never so much as since I knew you in best health here,) but you have wrought several miracles upon our family; you have made old people fond of a young and gay person, and inveterate papists of a clergyman of the church of England. Even nurse herself is in danger of being in love in her old age; and for ought I know, would even marry Dennis for your sake, because he is your man and loves his master. In short, come down forthwith, or give me good reasons for delaying, though but for a day or two, by the next post. If I find them just, I will come up to you, though you must know how precious my time is at present, my hours were never worth so much money before; but perhaps you are not sensible of this, who give away your own works. You are a generous author, I a hackney scribbler, you are a Grecian and bred at a university; I, a poor Englishman, of my own educating. You are a reverend ​parson, I a wag; in short, you are Doctor Parnelle (with an e at the end of your name), and I your most obliged and affectionate friend and faithful servant. My hearty service to the Dean, Dr. Arbuthnot, Mr. Ford, and the true genuine shepherd, Gay of Devon, I expect him down with you.
TO THE SAME.
Dear Sir,
I write to you with the same warmth, the same zeal of good will and friendship, with which I used to converse with you two years ago, and cannot think myself absent when I feel you so much at my heart. The picture of you which Jervas brought me over, is infinitely less lively a representation than that I carry about with me, and which rises to my mind whenever I think of you. I have many an agreeable reverie through those woods and downs where we once rambled together. My head is sometimes at the Bath, and sometimes at Litcomb, where the Dean makes a great part of my imaginary entertainment, this being the cheapest way of treating me. I hope he will not be displeased at this manner of paying my respects to him, instead of following my friend Jervas's example, which, to say the truth, I have as much inclination to do, as I want ability. I have been ever since December last in greater variety of business than any such men as you (that is divines and philosophers) can possibly imagine a ​reasonable creature capable of. Gay's play among the rest has cost much time and long-suffering, to stem a tide of malice and party, that authors have raised against it. The best revenge against such fellows is now in my hands: I mean your Zoilus, which really transcends the expectation I had conceived of it. I have put it into the press, beginning with the poem Batrachom: for you seem by the first paragraph of the dedication to it, to design to prefix the name of some particular person. I beg therefore to know for whom you intend it, that the publication may not be delayed on this account; and this as soon as possible. Inform me also on what terms I am to deal with the bookseller, and whether you design the copy money for Gay, as you formerly talked: what number of books you would have yourself, &c. I scarce see any thing to be altered in this whole piece; in the poems you sent, I will take the liberty you allow me. The story of Pandora, and the Eclogue upon Health, are two of the most beautiful things I ever read. I don't say this to the prejudice of the rest: but as I have read these oftener. Let me know how far my commission is to extend, and be confident of my punctual performance of whatever you enjoin. I must add a paragraph on this occasion, in regard to Mr. Ward, whose verses have been a great pleasure to me; I will contrive they shall be so to the world, wherever I can find a proper opportunity of publishing them.
​I shall very soon print an entire collection of my own Madrigals, which I look upon as making my last will and testament, since in it I shall give all I ever intend to give (which I'll beg your's and the Dean's acceptance of): you must look on me no more as a poet; but a plain commoner who lives upon his own, and fears and natters no man. I hope before I die to discharge the debt I owe to Homer, and get upon the whole just fame enough to serve for an annuity for my own time, though I leave nothing to posterity.
I beg our correspondence may be more frequent than it has been of late. I am sure my esteem and love for you never more deserved it from you, or more prompted it from you. I desired our friend Jervas, (in the greatest hurry of my business) to say a great deal in my name, both to yourself and the Dean, and must once more repeat the assurances to you both, of an unchanging friendship and unalterable esteem, I am, dear sir, most entirely,
Your, &c.
TO THE SAME.
My dear Sir,
I was last summer in Devonshire, and am this winter at Mrs. Bonyer's. In the summer I wrote a poem, and in the winter I have published it; which I sent to you by Dr. Elwood. In the summer I eat two dishes of toad-stools of my own ​gathering, instead of mushrooms; and in the winter I have been sick with wine, as I am at this time, blessed be God for it, as I must bless God for all things. In the summer I spoke truth to damsels; in the winter I told lies to ladies: now you know where I have been, and what I have done. I shall tell you what I intend to do the ensuing summer; I propose to do the same thing I did last, which was to meet you in any part of England you would appoint; don't let me have two disappointments. I have longed to hear from you, and to that intent teased you with three or four letters, but having no answer, I feared both yours and my letters might have miscarried. I hope my performance will please the Dean, whom I often wish for, and to whom I would have often wrote; but for the same reasons I neglected writing to you. I hope I need not tell you how I love you, and how glad I shall be to hear from you; which next to seeing you, would be the greatest satisfaction to your most affectionate friend and humble servant,
J. G.
TO THE SAME.
Dear Mr. Archdeacon,
Though my proportion of this epistle should be but a sketch in miniature, yet I take up half this page, having paid my club with the good company ​both for our dinner of chops, and for this paper. The poets will give you lively descriptions in their way: I shall only acquaint you with that which is directly my province. I have just set the last hand to a couplet, for so I may call two nymphs in one piece. They are Pope's favorites; and though few, you will guess must have cost me more pains than any nymphs can be worth. He is so unreasonable as to expect that I should have made them as beautiful upon canvass as he has done upon paper. If this same Mr. P——— should omit to write for the dear frogs, and the Pervigilium, I must entreat you not to let me languish for them, as I have done ever since they crossed the seas. Remember by what neglects, &c. we missed them when we lost you, and therefore I have not yet forgiven any of those triflers that let them escape and run those hazards. I am going on at the old rate, and want you and the Dean prodigiously, and am in hopes of making you a visit this summer, and of hearing from you both now you are together. Fortescue, I am sure, will be concerned that he is not in Cornhill, to set his hand to these presents, not only as a witness, but as a
Serviteur très-humble,
C. Jervas.
It is so great an honour to a poor Scotchman to be remembered at this time of day, especially by ​an inhabitant of the Glacialis Ierne, that I take it very thankfully, and have with my good friends remembered you at our table, in the chophouse in Exchange Alley. There wanted nothing to complete our happiness but your company, and our dear friend the Dean's: I am sure the whole entertainment would have been to his relish. Gay has got so much money by walking the streets, that he is ready to set up his equipage: he is just going to the Bank to negotiate some exchange bills. Mr. Pope delays his second volume of his Homer till the martial spirit of the rebels is quite quelled, it being judged that the first part did some harm that way. Our love again and again to the dear Dean; fuimus Tories; I can say no more.
Arbuthnot.
When a man is conscious that he does no good himself, the next thing is to cause others to do some. I may claim some merit this way, in hastening this testimonial from your friends above writing: their love to you indeed wants no spur, their ink wants no pen, their pen wants no hand, their hand wants no heart, and so forth (after the manner of Rabelais, which is betwixt some meaning and no meaning); and yet it may be said, when present thought and opportunity is wanting, their pens want ink, their hands want pens, their hearts want hands, &c. till time, place, and ​conveniency concur to set them a writing, as at present, a sociable meeting, a good dinner, warm fire, and an easy situation do, to the joint labour and pleasure of this epistle.
Wherein if I should say nothing I should say much (much being included in my love, though my love be such, that if I should say much, I should say nothing, it being (as Cowley says) equally possible either to conceal or to express it.
If I were to tell you the thing I wish above all things, it is to see you again; the next is, to see here your treatise of Zoilus, with the Batrachomuomachia, and the Pervigilium Veneris, both which poems are master-pieces in several kinds; and I question not the prose is as excellent in its sort, as the Essay on Homer. Nothing can be more glorious to that great author, than that the same hand which raised his best statue, and decked it with its old laurels, should also hang up the scare-crow of his miserable critic, and gibbet up the carcass of Zoilus, to the terror of the writings of posterity. More, and much more, upon this and a thousand other subjects will be the matter of my next letter, wherein I must open all the friend to you. At this time I must be content with telling you, I am, faithfully, your most affectionate and humble servant,
A. Pope.
TO THE SAME,
Dear Sir,
I must own I have long owed you a letter, but you must own you have owed me one a good deal longer. Besides I have but two people in the whole kingdom of Ireland to take care of, the Dean and you: but you have several who complain of your neglect in England. Mr. Gay complains, Mr. Harcourt complains, Mr. Jervas complains, Mr. Arbuthnot complains, my Lord complains; I complain. (Take notice of this figure of iteration, when you make your next sermon.) Some say, you are in deep discontent at the new turn of affairs; others, that you are so much in the Archbishop's good graces, that you will not correspond with any that have seen the last ministry. Some affirm, you have quarrelled with Pope (whose friends they observe daily fall from him, on account of his satirical and comical disposition); others, that you are insinuating yourself into the opinions of the ingenious Mr. What-do-ye-call-him. Some think you are preparing your sermons for the press, and others, that you will transform them into essays, and moral discourses. But the only excuse that I will allow you is, your attention to the life of Zoilus. The frogs already seem to croak for their transportation to England, and are sensible how much that Doctor is cursed and ​hated, who introduced their species into your nation; therefore, as you dread the wrath of St. Patrick, send them hither, and rid your kingdom of those pernicious and loquacious animals.
I have at length received your poem out of Mr. Addison's hands, which shall be sent as soon as you order it, and in what manner you shall appoint. I shall, in the mean time, give Mr. Tooke a packet for you, consisting of divers merry pieces; Mr. Gay's new farce; Mr. Burnett's letter to Mr. Pope; Mr. Pope's Temple of Fame; Mr. Thomas Burnet's Grumbler on Mr. Gay; and the Bishop of Salisbury's Elegy, written either by Mr. Cary or some other hand. Mr. Pope is reading a letter, and in the mean time I make use of the pen, to testify my uneasiness in not hearing from you. I find success, even in the most trivial things, raises the indignation of a scribbler; for I, for my what-d'-ye-call-it, could neither escape the fury of Mr. Burnet or the German Doctor; then where will rage end, when Homer is to be translated? Let Zoilus hasten to your friend's assistance, and envious criticism shall be no more. I am in hopes that we order our affairs so, as to meet this summer at the Bath; for Mr. Pope and myself have thoughts of taking a trip thither. You shall preach, and we will write lampoons, for it is esteemed as great an honour to leave the Bath for fear of a broken head, as for a terrae filius of Oxford to be expelled. I have no ​place at court, therefore, that I may not entirely be without one every where, show that I have a place in your remembrance.
Your most affectionate faithful servants,
A. Pope and J. Gay.
Homer will be published in three weeks.
DR. PARNELL TO MR. POPE.
I am writing to you a long letter, but all the tediousness I feel in it is, that it makes me during the time think more intently of my being far from you. I fancy, if I were with you, I could remove some of the uneasiness which you may have felt from the opposition of the world; and which you should be ashamed to feel, since it is but the testimony which one part of it gives you, that your merit is unquestionable. What would you have otherwise, from ignorance, envy, or those tempers which vie with you in your own way? I know this in mankind, that when our ambition is unable to attain its end, it is not only wearied, but exasperated too at the vanity of its labours; then we speak ill of happier studies, and sighing, condemn the excellence which we find above our reach.
My Zoilus, which you used to write about, I finished last spring, and left in town. I waited till I came up to send it you, but not arriving here ​before your book was out, imagined it a lost piece of labour. If you will still have it, you need only write me word.
I have here seen the first book of Homer, which came out at a time when it could not but appear as a kind of setting up against you. My opinion is, that you may, if you please, give them thanks who writ it. Neither the numbers nor the spirit have an equal mastery with yours; but what surprises me more is, that, a scholar being concerned, there should happen to be some mistakes in the author's sense; such as putting the light of Pallas's eyes into the eyes of Achilles, making the taunt of Achilles to Agamemnon (that he should have spoils when Troy should be taken), to be a cool and serious proposal; the translating what you call ablutions by the word offals, and so leaving water out of the rite of lustration, &c. but you must have taken notice of all this before. I write not to inform you, but to show I always have you at heart.
I am, &c.
POPE TO LORD OXFORD.
My Lord, Oct. 21, 1721.
Your lordship may be surprised at the liberty I take in writing to you, though you will allow me always to remember, that you once permitted me ​that honour, in conjunction with some others who better 'deserved it. I hope you will not wonder, I am still desirous to have you think me your grateful and faithful servant; but I own, I have an ambition still farther, to have others think me so, which is the occasion I give your lordship the trouble of this. Poor Parnelle, before he died, left me the charge of publishing the few remains of his. I have a strong desire to make them, their author and their publisher, more considerable, by addressing and dedicating them all to you. There is a pleasure in bearing testimony to truth, and a vanity perhaps, which is at least as excusable as any vanity can be. I beg you, my lord, to allow me to gratify it in prefixing this paper of honest verses to the book. I send the book itself, which I dare say you'll receive more satisfaction in perusing, than you can from any thing written upon the subject of yourself. Therefore I am a good deal in doubt whether you will care for any such addition to it. All I shall say for it is, that it is the only dedication I ever writ, and shall be the only one, whether you accept of it or not, for I will not bow the knee to a less man than my Lord Oxford, and I expect to see no greater in my time. After all, if your lordship will tell my Lord Harley that I must not do this, you may depend upon a ​suppression of these verses, (the only copy whereof I send you) but you never shall suppress that great, sincere, and entire respect with which I am always,
My Lord, your, &c.
THE EARL OF OXFORD TO MR. POPE.
Sir, Brampton Castle, Nov. 6, 1721.
I received your packet, which could not but give me great pleasure, to see you preserve an old friend in your memory, for it must needs be very agreeable to be remembered by those we highly value. But then, how much shame did it cause me when I read your very fine verses enclosed? My mind reproached me how far short I came of what your great friendship, and delicate pen would partially describe me; you ask my consent to publish it; to what straits doth this reduce me? I look back indeed to those evenings I have usefully and pleasantly spent with Mr. Pope, Dr. Parnell, Dean Swift, the Doctor, &c. I should be glad the world knew you admitted me to your friendship, and since your affection is too hard for your judgment, I am contented to let the world know how well Mr. Pope can write upon a barren subject. I return you an exact copy of the verses, that I may keep the original, as a testimony of the ​only error you have been guilty of. I hope very speedily to embrace you in London, and to assure you of the particular esteem and friendship wherewith I am your, &c.
From these letters, says Goldsmith, we may conclude, as far as their testimony can go, that Parnell was an agreeable, a generous, and sincere man, indeed, he took care that his friends should always see him to the best advantage, for when he found his fits of spleen and uneasiness, which sometimes lasted for weeks together, returning, he retreated with all expedition to the remote parts of Ireland, and there made out a gloomy kind of satisfaction in giving hideous descriptions of the solitude to which he retired,—from many of his unpublished pieces which I have seen, and from others which have appeared, it would seem that scarce a bog in his neighbourhood was left without reproach, and scarce a mountain round his head unsung. " I can easily, (says Pope, in one of his letters, in answer to a dreary description of Parnell's) I can easily image ​to my thoughts the solitary hours of your eremetical life in the mountains, from something parellel to it in my own retirement at Binfield!" and in another place "We are both miserably enough situated, God knows, but of the two evils, I think the solitudes of the south are to be preferred to the desarts of the west." In this manner Pope answered him in the tone of his own complaints, and these descriptions of the imagined distresses of his situation, served to give him a temporary relief; they threw off the blame from himself, and laid upon fortune and accident, a wretchedness of his own creating."
Parnell's situation was rendered more irksome by some mortifications which he might have avoided; he could not live without company when in Ireland; and yet he despised or neglected a society so inferior in cultivation of mind and polish of manners to his English friends. Those whom he met at Lord Oxford's table, and Pope's library made him fastidious of humbler connexions; he did not exercise his arts of pleasing; the complaints he uttered against his situation were not relished by persons who lived contentedly around him; and who considered his reproaches as reminding them of an ​inferiority which they were not willing to confess, nor perhaps able to appreciate; in fact, as his biographer observes, "he sacrificed for a week or two in England a whole year's happiness, by his country fireside at home." Yet who ever exchanged the fascinations of a society in which the polished graces and gentle benevolence of manner were united with refined learning, and the various acquirements of a cultivated taste-, for a lower grade of life, without feeling how much easier it would be to pass at once into perfect solitude; and how sensitive in that delightful and artificial atmosphere the mind becomes to the slightest shock, or ruder breath that it meets with in its altered intercourse with the world.
As his fortune was handsome, and his disposition liberal, his manner of life was elegant and even splendid. He had no great value for money, and indeed he so far exceeded his income, as to leave his estate somewhat impaired at his death. As soon as he collected his rents, he went over to England, where the friendship of Pope always received him with open arms; and where the wit and good humour of Gay and Arbuthnot, and the fascination of Bolingbroke's society, repaid him ​for his weary months of solitude at Clogher or Finglas.
About this time Pope and his friends had formed themselves into a society which they called the Scriblerus Club, of which Parnell was a member. It appears from some MS. anecdotes left by Pope, that Parnell had a principal share ' in the origin of the sciences from the monkies in Ethiopia.' The life of Zoilus was intended as a satire on Dennis and Theobald, with whom the club waged eternal war.
The life of Homer prefixed to the translation of the Iliad was written by Parnell, and corrected by Pope, who assures us, that this correction was not effected without great labour. "It is still stiff, (he says) and was written still stiffer; as it is, I verily think it cost me more pains in the correcting, than the writing it would have done." That Parnell's prose, as Goldsmith says, is awkward and inharmonious, and that Pope would have written in a style more elegant and polished, may be well believed; but I question whether Pope ​with his imperfect learning would have ventured on an' original life of Homer, and whether it was not safer to leave it in Parnell's hands. Every page of Pope's Homer shows equally his poetical genius, and his want of scholarship. I have no doubt that he set a high value on Parnell's assistance, and that it was of essential service to him in understanding his author; but no assistance of friends, learned enough and anxious to assist him, could supply his own deficiencies in classical taste and knowledge; Pope was never wanting in vigilance and industry; he consulted the commentators as to what was difficult or doubtful, and he borrowed from the former translators when they were happy and successful in their expression; but he never caught the manner, or imbibed the spirit of his original; for he had never studied the language in which it was written. I consider Pope's ​general alteration of Horner's style to be a much greater fault, than the mistakes which he made in the meaning" of particular passages. If I may so express myself, he was attempting to follow and imitate the flight of the Grecian poet, without possessing the same variety of movement, or equal flexibility of wing. 'Perhaps the greatest charm, (says a critic of much taste and knowledge) of the most sublime of all the ancient poets, is a variety and discrimination of manner and character in which Shakespeare is his only rival.' The friends of Pope were men of wit and humour, of admirable genius, and extensive information; but with the exception of Parnell and of Arbuthnot, he had no one to whom he could apply for information on subjects of Greek literature: and they were all so dazzled with the splendour of his ​translation, and so delighted with its many acknowledged beauties; that they were more willing to expatiate on its merits, and unfold its charms, than compare it with an original which they themselves imperfectly understood. In addition to this, and speaking without any affectation of pedantry, a classical simplicity of taste was no more the characteristic excellence of that time, than solid and extensive learning. Amidst the general shout of approbation, old Bentley's sarcastic growl was heard with indifference or contempt; but Bentley was the only one among them who had studied or understood the subject of dispute; what he said was strictly true; it was not the effusion of envy or mean detraction: the bard of Twickenham was no rival of his; nor was Bentley ever unjust, where solid attainments or splendid talents could claim respect. He did not detract from the merits of Pope's translation as a poem; he did not enter into the subject of its original beauties; but he said it was not Homer, and he was right.
To return to Parnell, Goldsmith mentions that the Scriblerus Club, when the members were all in ​town, were seldom asunder, and often made excursions on foot, into the country. Swift was usually the butt of the company, and if a trick was played he was always the sufferer. The whole party once agreed to walk down to the house of Lord B———, who is still living, and whose seat is about twelve miles from town. As every one agreed to make the best of his way, Swift, who was remarkable for walking, soon left all the rest behind him, fully resolved upon his arrival to choose the very best bed for himself, for that was his custom. In the mean time Parnell was determined to prevent his intentions, and taking horse arrived at Lord B———'s by another way, long before him. Having apprized his lordship of Swift's design, it was resolved at any rate to keep him out of the house, but how to effect this was the question. Swift never had the small-pox, and was very much afraid of catching it. As soon therefore as he appeared striding along at some distance from the house, one of his lordship's servants was dispatched ​to inform him that the small-pox was then making great ravages in the family, but that there was a summer-house with a field bed at his service at the end of the garden. There the disappointed Dean was obliged to retire, and take a cold supper that was sent out to him, while the rest was feasting within. However, at last they took compassion on him, and upon his promising never to choose the best bed again, they permitted him to make one of the company.
Goldsmith considers that the Scriblerus Club began with Parnell, and that his death ended the connexion; if so, it was not of very long continuance, for Parnell's first excursion to England began about the year 1706, and he died in 1718.
From his long residence in Ireland, and from little of his correspondence having been preserved, Parnell has not been known as he deserves, nor is his name so familiar to us as that of many others of the friends of Pope, but he seems to have yielded to few of them in talent or acquirement; to none ​in the more valuable virtues of the heart. It is said, that the festivity of his conversation, the benevolence of his heart, and the generosity of his temper, were qualities that might serve to cement any society, and that could hardly be replaced when he was taken away. In his later years, domestic sorrows so preyed on a nervous and excited mind, as to drive him from solitude, and he sought even in common and promiscuous company a temporary oblivion of his affliction. That he fondly cherished the remembrance of the estimable partner of his life whom he so early lost, seems to be a fact known to his friends and acknowledged by his biographers; but that he fell a martyr to conjugal fidelity (as Goldsmith asserts), may be received with some moderate limitation. Our materials are too scanty and imperfect to enable us to determine what was the exact cause of Parnell's death, which took place before his fortieth year; but from the passages in Swift's Journal, I should think it not improbable that he died of a slow nervous decline.
Perhaps it would be as well to insert, in this part of the narrative, the mention made of him by Swift while both were resident in London, and when the ​latter zealously introduced him to the notice of the ministry. Parnell, however, gained nothing by his powerful connexions, but a few dinners and compliments from Lord Oxford, and some poetical criticisms from Mr. Secretary St. John; his preferment he owed entirely to the faithful and persevering friendship of the Dean.
Swift, in his Journal to Stella, July 1, 1712, writes—'On Sunday Archdeacon Parnell came here to see me. It seems he has been ill for grief of his wife's death, and has been two months at Bath. He has a mind to go to Dunkirk with Jack Hill, and I persuaded him to it, and have spoke to Hill to receive him, but I doubt he won't have spirit to go.'
On the 22d December, of the same year, he says—'I gave Lord Bolingbroke a poem of Parnell's. I made Parnell insert some compliments in it to his lordship. He is extremely pleased with it, and read some parts of it to-day to Lord Treasurer, who liked it as much. And indeed he outdoes all our poets here a bar's length. Lord Bolingbroke has ordered me to bring him to dinner on Christmas day, and I made Lord Treasurer promise to see him, and it may one day do Parnell a kindness. You know Parnell, I believe I have told you of that poem.'
Dec. 25. I carried Parnell to dine at Lord Bolingbroke's, and he behaved himself very well, and Lord Bolingbroke is mightily pleased with him. ​Dec. 30. He (Lord Oxford) cannot dine with Parnell and me, at Lord Bolingbroke's to-morrow, but says he will see Parnell some other time. I praise up Parnell partly to spite the envious Irish folks here, particularly Tom Leigh.
Dec. 31. To-day Parnell and I dined with Lord Bolingbroke, to correct Parnell's poem. I made him shew all the places he disliked, and when Parnell has corrected it fully, he shall print it.
Jan. 6, 1713. Lord Bolingbroke, and Parnell, and I, dined by invitation with my friend Dartineuf, whom you have heard me talk of. Lord Bolingbroke likes Parnell mightily, and it is pleasant to see that one who hardly passed for any thing in Ireland, makes his way here with a little friendly persuading.
Jan. 31. I contrived it so, that Lord Treasurer came to me and asked (I had Parnell by me) whether that was Dr. Parnell, and came up and spoke to him with great kindness, and invited him to his house. I value myself on making the Ministry desire to be acquainted with Parnell, and not Parnell with the Ministry. His poem is almost fully corrected, and shall be out soon.
Feb. 14. I took Parnell this morning, and we walked to see poor Harrison. I told Parnell I was afraid to knock at the door, my heart misgave me.
Feb. 19. I was at court to-day, to speak to Lord Bolingbroke to look over Parnell's poem since it ​is corrected, and Parnell and I dined with him, and he has * shewn him three or four more places to alter a little. Lady Bolingbroke came down to us while we were at dinner, and Parnell stared at her as if she were a goddess. I thought she was like Parnell's wife, and he thought so too.
Parnell is much pleased with Lord Bolingbroke's favour to him, and I hope it may one day turn to to his advantage. His poem will be printed in a few days.
March 6. I thought to have made Parnell dine with him (Lord Treasurer) but he was ill; his head is out of order like mine, but more constant, poor boy.
March 9. I dined with my friend Lewis, and the Provost, and Parnell and Ford were with us.
March 20. ParnelFs poem will be published on Monday, and to-morrow I design he shall present it to Lord Treasurer and Lord Bolingbroke, at court. The poor lad is almost always out of order with his head. Burke's wife is his sister. She has a little of the pert Irish way.
March 27. Parnell's poem is mightily esteemed, but poetry sells ill.
April 1. Parnell and I dined with Dartineuf today, after dinner we all went to Lord Bolingbroke's, who had desired me to dine with him, but I would not, because I heard it was to look over a dull poem of one Parson Trapp's, upon the peace.
April 21. I dined at an ale-house with Parnell ​and Berkeley, for I am not in humour to go among the ministers.
Swift's Letters, vol. xi. p. 259.
April 30, 1713.
I suppose your Grace has heard that the Queen has made Dr. Stone Bishop of Dromore, and that I am to succeed him in his Deanery. Dr. Parnell, who is now in town, writ last post to your grace, to desire the favour of you that he may have my small prebend. He thinks it will be of some advantage to come into the chapter, where it may possibly be in my power to serve him in a way agreeable to him, although in no degree equal to his merits, by which he has distinguished himself so much, that he is in great esteem with the ministry, and others of the most valuable persons in this town. He has been many years under your grace's direction, and has a very good title to your favour, so that I believe it will be unnecessary to add how much I should be obliged to your grace's compliance in this matter: and I flatter myself that his being agreeable to me will be no disadvantage to him in your grace's opinion.
May 23, 1713. You will find a letter there (at Bath) as old as that, with a requisition in favour of Dr. Parnell, who, by his own merit, is in the esteem of the ministers here.
From Gay.June 8, 1714.
I am, this evening, to be at Mr. Lewis's with the Provost, Mr. Ford, Parnell, and Pope.
From Dr. Arbuthnot.June 12, 1714.
I remember the first part of the Dragon's verses was complaining of ill usage, and at last he concludes,
He that comes not to rule, will be sure to obey, When summoned by Arbuthnot, Pope, Parnell, and Gay.
Parnell has been thinking of going chaplain to my Lord Clarendon, but they will not say whether he should or not.
From Dr. Arbuthnot.June 26, 1714.
I have solicited both Lord Treasurer and Lord Bolingbroke strongly for the Parnelian, and gave them a memorial the other day. Lord Treasurer speaks mightily affectionately of him, which you know is an ill sign in ecclesiastical preferments.
From Lord Bolingbroke.July 13, 1714.
Indeed I wish I had been with you, with Pope, and Parnell, quibus neque animi candidiores, in a little time perhaps I may have leisure to be happy.
From Dr. Arbuthnot.July 17, 1714.
I was going to make an epigram upon the ​z imagination of your burning your own history with a burning glass. I wish Pope or Parnell would put it into rhyme.
From Charles Ford.July 20, 1714.
Pope and Parnell tell me you design them a visit. When do you go? If you are with them in the middle of the week, I should be glad to meet you there.
From Dr. Arbuthnot.
The Parnelian who was to have carried this letter, seems to have changed his mind by some sudden turn in his affairs; but I wish his hopes may not be the effect of some accidental thing working upon his spirits, rather than any well grounded project.
From Swift.December 2, 1736.
You began to distinguish so confounded early, that your acquaintance with distinguished men of all kinds was almost as ancient as mine, I mean Wycherley, Rowe, Prior, Congreve, Addison, Parnell, &c.
From Sir Charles Wogan to Swift.1732.
Let not the English wits, and particularly my friend Mr. Pope (whom I had the honour to bring up to London from our retreat in the forest of Windsor, to dress à la mode, and introduce at Wills's Coffee House) run down a country as ​the haunt of dulness, to whose geniuses he owns himself so much indebted. What encomiums does he not lay out upon Roscommon and Walsh in the close of his excellent Essay on Criticism? How gratefully does he express his thanks to Dr. Swift, Sir Samuel Garth, Mr. Congreve, and my poor friend and neighbour Dr. Parnell, in the preface to his admirable translation of the Iliad, in return for the many lights and lessons they administered to him, both in the opening and the prosecution of that great undertaking?
Pope to Gay.1714.
Dr. Parnelle and I have been inseparable ever since you went. We are now at the Bath, where (if you are not, as I heartily hope, better engaged), your coming would be the greatest pleasure to us in the world. Talk not of expenses. Homer shall support his children. I beg a line of you, directed to the Post House in Bath. Poor Parnelle is in an ill state of health.
From Pope to Gay (without date).
The ill effects of contention and squabbling, so lively described in the first Iliad, make Dr. Parnelle and myself continue in the most exemplary union in every thing. We deserve to be worshiped by all the poor, divided, factious, interested poets of this world. As we rise in our speculations daily, we are grown so grave, that we have not ​condescended to laugh at any of the idle things about us this week. I have contracted a severity of aspect from deep meditation on high subjects, equal to the formidable front of black-brow'd Jupiter, and become an awful nod as well, when I assent to some grave and weighty proposition of the Doctor, or enforce a criticism of mine own. In a word, Young himself has not acquired more tragic majesty in his aspect by reading his own verses, than I by Homer's. In this state I cannot consent to your publication of that ludicrous, trifling, burlesque you write about. Dr. Parnelle joins also in my opinion, that it will by no means be well to print it.
From Pope to Gay.
Dr. Parnelle will honour Tonson's Miscellany with some very beautiful copies at my request. He enters heartily into our design. I only fear his stay in town may chance to be but short.
Pope to Jervas.1716.
Poor poetry! the little that is left of it here, longs to cross the seas, and leave Eusden in full possession of the British laurel. And we begin to wish you had the singing of our poets as well as the croaking of our frogs to yourselves, in sæcula sæculorum. It would be well in exchange, if Parnelle, and two or three more of your swans would come hither, especially that swan, who like a true modern one, does not sing at all, Dr. Swift.
Pope to Jervas.November 1716.
The best amends you can make for' saying nothing to me, is, by saying all the good you can of me, which is, that I heartily love and esteem the Dean and Dr. Parnelle. Gay is yours and theirs. His spirit is awakened very much in the cause of the Dean, which has broke forth in a courageous couplet or two upon Sir Richard Blackmore. He has printed it with his name to it, and bravely assigns no other reason than that the said Sir Richard has abused Dr. Swift. I have also suffered in the like cause, and shall suffer more, unless Parnelle sends me his Zoilus and Bookworm (which the Bishop of Clogher, I hear, greatly extols), &c.
Pope to Jervas.
Having named the latter piece (The Batrachom of Homer), give me leave to ask what has become of Dr. Parnelle and his Frogs? 'Oblitusque meorum, obliviscendus et illis,' might be Horace's wish, but will never be mine, while I have such meorums as Dr. Parnelle and Dr. Swift. If you have begun to be historical, I recommend to your hand the story which every pious Irishman ought to begin with, that of St. Patrick; to the end you may be obliged (as Dr. Parnelle was when he translated the Batrachomuomachia) to come into ​England to espy the frogs, and such other vermin, as were never seen in that land since the time of that confessor.'
Pope to * * *.1718.
This awakens the memory of some of those who have made a part in all these. Poor Parnelle! Garth, Rowe! you justly reprove me for not speaking of the death of the last. Parnelle was too much in my mind, to whose memory I am erecting the best monument I can. What he gave me to publish was but a small part of what he left behind him; but it was the best, and I will not make it worse by enlarging it. I'd fain know if he be buried at Chester or Dublin, and what care has been, or is to be taken for his monument, &c.
From Dr. Arbuthnot.1714.
Martin's (i.e. Martinus Scriblerus) office is now the second door on the left hand in Dove Street, where he will be glad to see Dr. Parnelle, Mr. Pope and his old friends, to whom he can still afford half a pint of claret.
Having now mentioned the facts which have come down to us, relating to Parnell's life, and which were chiefly obtained by the inquiries and researches of Goldsmith; I shall pass on to a short consideration of his poems. His biographer, whose ​opinion on subjects connected with poetry, must be received with the attention due to so great an authority, gives the following favourable character of Parnell's talents; it is written with discrimination and truth; but that the allusions which he makes in strong disparagement of those who adopted a different style, of more elaborate structure, and more ornamental language, appear to me to derive their severity from something that acts more strongly on the mind than a mere difference of taste. This is not the place to enter into the consideration of the question; but while I am persuaded that the expression 'tawdry things,' cannot with any propriety be applied to the poetry of Gray or Collins (the persons whom Goldsmith had in his mind); I believe that their rich and ornamented style, their selected phraseology, their profuse imagery, and metaphorical splendour to be the proper and essential constituents of the lyrical style in which they wrote; and that there are grounds sufficient, as respects either poet, to assure us, that they were not ignorant of the manner of expression that was required by the subject on which it was employed. The criticism of Goldsmith seems also to press too strongly into an opinion which cannot be received, that there is only one style of superior and undisputed excellence; and that others are faulty in proportion as they depart from it. I know of no poet of any eminence contemporary with him to whom the biographer can allude, but those I mentioned; except ​that the younger Warton may, perhaps, be added to the number; and though I am aware of the difference that exists between these writers in the respective conceptions of their subjects, in their taste and genius; still in its application to any of them, I consider Goldsmith's criticism to be pushed far beyond the bounds of truth, and, in some parts of it, to be entirely erroneous.
'Parnell (he says) is only to be considered as a poet, and the universal esteem in which his poems are held, and the reiterated pleasure they give in the perusal, are a sufficient test of their merit. He appears to me to be the last of that great school, that had modelled itself on the ancients, and taught English poetry to resemble what the generality of mankind have allowed to excel. A studious and correct observer of antiquity, he set himself to consider nature with the lights it lent him, and he found the more aid he borrowed from the one, the more delightfully he resembled the other. To copy nature is a task the most bungling workman is able to execute: to select such parts as contribute to delight, is reserved only for those whom accident has blessed with uncommon talents, or such as have read the ancients with indefatigable industry. Parnell is ever happy in the selection of his images, and scrupulously careful in the choice of his subjects. His productions bear no resemblance to those tawdry things which it has for some time been the fashion to admire; in ​writing which, the poet sits down without any plan, and heaps up splendid images without any selection; when the reader grows dizzy with praise and admiration, and yet soon grows weary, he can scarcely tell why. Our poet on the contrary gives out his beauties with a more sparing hand. He is still carrying his reader forward, and just gives him refreshment sufficient to support him to his journey's end. At the end of his course, the reader regrets that his way has been so short, he wonders that it gave him so little trouble, and so resolves to go the journey over again.
His poetical language is not less correct than his couplets are pleasing. He found it at that period at which it was brought to its highest pitch of refinement, and ever since his time it has been gradually debasing. It is indeed amazing, after what has been done by Dryden, Addison, and Pope, to improve and harmonize our native tongue, that their successors should have taken so much pains to involve it in pristine barbarity. These misguided innovators have not been content with restoring antiquated words and phrases, but have indulged themselves in the most licentious transpositions and the harshest constructions, vainly imagining that the more their writings were unlike prose, the more they resemble poetry. They have adopted a language of their own, and call upon mankind for admiration. All those who do not understand them are silent, and those who make out their meaning, are willing to praise, to show they ​understand. From these follies and affectations, the poems of Parnell are entirely free; he has considered the language of poetry as the language of life, and conveys the warmest thoughts in the simplest expression.' Such are the observations of Goldsmith; I shall now proceed to a more particular enumeration of our Poet's productions.
"Hesiod, or the Rise of Woman."—It would be difficult to praise too highly the ease, the sprightliness, and the fine poetical taste of this poem; the subject is treated in a manner the most lively and agreeable; the versification is polished and musical; the images delicate and well selected; a vein of humour at once elegant and rich pervades the whole. It approaches more closely to the manner of Pope's Rape of the Lock than any poem with which I am acquainted. It has the same cadences, the same structure of lines, even the same expressions; and I consider it to have been much indebted to him for the high finish of its colours, and the exquisite beauties of its diction. This is not said in any disparagement of Parnell's powers, but I believe it to be acknowledged, that Pope took infinite pains in the revision and alteration of Parnell's poems. In speaking of the Hermit, Goldsmith says,—"It seems to have cost great labour ​both to Mr. Pope and Mr. Parnell himself to bring it to this perfection." Upon the whole, this poem will fully justify the assertion of Hume, at least that part of it that regards our poet. "It is sufficient to run over Cowley once; but Parnell, after the fiftieth reading, is as fresh as the first."
Of the three songs which follow, Goldsmith says that two of them were written upon the Lady whom he afterwards married. There appears some reason to suppose that the first, "When thy beauty appears," was composed by Pope; for it is mentioned as his by Lord Peterborough, in a letter to Mrs. Howard.
The Anacreontic, "When Spring came on with fresh delight," is said to be a translation from the French. Goldsmith thinks that it is better than the original. The well known song that follows it, "Gay Bacchus liking Estcourt's wine," is a translation of a poem by Augurellus.
Invitat olim Bacchus cœnam suos, Comum, Jocum, Cupidinem, &c.
Parnell, in his translation, applied the characters to some of his friends; no mention is made in Pope's edition, of its being a translation: indeed the latter part is entirely Parnell's.
The "Fairy Tale" must rank among the most successful of our poet's productions; the language ​is simple and clear, the verse easy and natural, and the story appropriate to the style. Goldsmith says "it is incontestably one of the finest pieces in any language."
The "Pervigilium Veneris" is translated in easy and flowing versification, though too paraphrastical; yet few persons perhaps would have transferred its beauties more successfully; for the delicacy, and select brevity of its expression, would baffle any attempt to exactness of imitation. In one or two places, Parnell appears to me to have missed the meaning, as
Quando faciam, ut Chelidon, ut tacere desinam?
When shall I sing, as the swallow is now singing? When will my spring arrive, 'quando ver veniet meum!' Parnell however writes thus,
How long in coming is my lovely spring, And when shall I, and when the swallow sing?
In the Batrachomuomachia, Parnell has preserved the mock dignity of the original; without ever stepping beyond the limits of a just propriety. The great defect of his version arises from his not having translated the Greek names of the combatants, which are formed with considerable humour, and this omission renders the English poem comparatively flat.
I am not sure whether the critics have decided as to the time in which this burlesque poem was. written; or how they have accounted for its having ​borrowed the venerable name of the father of poetry; but I will just mention that there is one passage in it, which at once precludes it from being the production of the author of the Iliad and Odyssey, unless an interpolation by a later hand should be suspected.
"Devoid of rest, with aching brows I lay, Till cocks proclaim'd the crimson dawn of day."
There is no mention of this bird in Homer; probably it was not known till the return of the army of Alexander, who brought the Indian Jungle fowl home with them from the East, and domesticated them in Europe.
The Epistle to Pope, Goldsmith says, is one of the finest compliments that was ever paid to any poet, he hints at Parnell's description of his residence in Ireland being splenetic and untrue: and says that this poem gave much offence to his neighbours, who considered that they could supply him with learning and poetry, without an importation from Twickenham.
The translation of some lines in the Rape of the Lock into rhyming Latin verse, was owing to the following circumstance. Before the Rape of the Lock was finished, Pope was reading it to Swift, ​who listened attentively, while Parnell went in and out of the room appearing to take no notice of it. However, by dint of his good memory, he brought away the description of the toilet pretty exactly. This he versified, and on the next day, when Pope was reading the poem to some friends, he insisted that part of the description was stolen from an old monkish manuscript. Goldsmith says he was assured of the truth of this account; he adds, that it was not till after some time that Pope was delivered from the confusion which it at first produced.
The Eclogue on Health has the general merit of Parnell's poetry; musical versification and poetical language: yet we occasionally meet with that which I suppose, it took Pope so much labour to improve, flat and prosaic expressions.
The Elegy to an "Old Beauty," has much of that sprightliness and graceful ease which Pope possessed, and which gave a lustre and worth to trifles. There is, however, a couplet in it, that seems to me to be defective, and wanting in ​construction, but I do not know how to rectify it, while the metre and rhyme are preserved,
" But beauty gone, 'tis easier to be wise, As harpers better, by the loss of eyes."
though it might be restored to its meaning, under the following alteration,
"As harpers better play, by loss of eyes."
The "Book Worm", is a translation from Beza, with modern applications.
In "The Imitation of some French verses," I am rather surprised that Pope's accuracy of ear, and correct taste, should permit such an imperfect rhyme to pass, as, "bliss and wish," especially in those light pieces whose perfect finishing forms half their merit.
The "Night Piece on Death" Goldsmith much admires; and endeavours, yet apparently against his real conviction, to prefer to Gray's immortal Elegy. His praise is pared away by his caution, for he is
"Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike;"
and "he supposes that, with very little amendment, it might be made to surpass all those night pieces and churchyard scenes that have since appeared."
Johnson's love of truth, not his partiality for Gray, ​forced him into the confession, that Gray's poem has the advantage in dignity, variety, and originality of sentiments. In another of his books, Goldsmith mentions this poem of Parnell with similar praise, but considers the versification unsuitable to the subject. There is, in truth, nothing which could entitle it to be raised into comparison with Gray's Elegy; but if Goldsmith had pointed out the inferiority of the third stanza in Gray's poem to the rest, and if he had even recommended its omission, I should have considered his criticism as formed ​upon juster grounds, and at least worthy of respectful attention.
The hint for the Hymn to Contentment, Johnson suspects to be borrowed from Cleveland. The Poem to which he alludes is that beginning,
"Fair stranger! winged maid! where dost thou rest Thy snowy locks at noon! or on what breast Of spices slumber o'er the sullen night, Or waking whither dost thou take thy flight?"
it is impossible to say how ready Parnell's habits of poetical association may have been to receive new impressions, or how quickly they may have kindled at the smallest spark, furnished by another's genius; but I can perceive here no marks of imitation. Cleveland's poem is not without its occasional beauties, but, as is common with that writer, they are strangely mixed up with unnatural conceits, harsh phrases, and low unpoetical allusions.
The poem by which Parnell is best known, and which indeed is one of the most popular in our language, is the Hermit. Pope speaking of it, says, "The poem is very good. The story was written originally in Spanish, whence probably Howell had translated it into prose, and inserted it in one of his letters." Goldsmith adds, that Henry More has the very same story, and that he has been informed by some, that it is of Arabian invention; I ​have added, in a note, the works of different authors, where, in my own very contracted line of reading, I have accidentally met with this fiction, and which shows it to have been more generally known, than Goldsmith or probably Parnell were aware. Johnson thinks that there is more elaboration in the Hermit than in the other poems of Parnell, which renders it less airy and pleasing. ​I hardly know whether this can be discovered, or if it is, whether it does not arise from the graver and more important subject of the narrative.
"The compass of Parnell's poetry (says a critic of genius and taste) is not extensive, but its tone is peculiarly delightful; not from mere correctness of expression, to which some critics have stinted its praises, but from the graceful and reserved sensibility that accompanied his polished phraseology. The curiosa felicitas, the studied happiness of his diction does not spoil its simplicity. His poetry is like a flower that has been trained and planted by the skill of the gardener, but which preserves in its cultured state the natural fragrance of its wilder air."
In the observations which have been made on the poetry of Parnell, I have confined myself to those productions which were first published by Pope, and subsequently reprinted by Goldsmith; ​but in the year 1788, a large addition was made to our poet's works, in a volume called, "The Posthumous Works of Dr. T. Parnell, containing Poems Moral and Divine, and on various other subjects."
They are described by the editor, as having been given by the author to the late Benjamin Everard, and since his death, found by his son among other manuscripts. The receipt annexed in Swift's handwriting, shows that they are certainly genuine.
Dec. 5, 1723.
I have received from Benjamin Everard, Esq. the above writings of the late Doctor Parnell, in four stitched volumes of manuscript, which I promise to restore to him on demand.
Jonathan Swift.
Although these volumes were communicated to him by Swift, Pope with admirable taste and judgment contented himself with revising and ​polishing the few pieces which Parnell had selected, for publication. Spence says, "In the list of papers ordered to be burnt, were the pieces for carrying on the Memoirs of Scriblerus, and several copies of verses by Dean Parnell. I interceded in vain for both. As to the latter, he said, that they would not add any thing to the Dean's character." These might have been duplicates, or perhaps transcripts made by Pope from the manuscripts mentioned above. Johnson says, "of the large appendages which I find in the last edition, I can only say, that I know not whence they came, nor have ever inquired whither they are going. They stood upon the faith of the compilers." Of their authenticity, after what I have observed, no reasonable doubt can be entertained; but of the prudence of publishing what Pope, and indeed previously Parnell himself, had rejected from their acknowledged inferiority, an estimate can easily be formed; when we consider that probably no one has ever heard a passage or line quoted from the volume; or has deposited a single image or sentiment from it in his memory; while the former poems of Parnell are familiar to old and young, the delight of the general reader, and approved by the most refined judges of poetical merit. Few men have the power of arriving at excellence, but by assiduous toil, and after repeated failures. He who has attained the art of writing well, has ​previously written much that he would not willingly own; it is no disgrace to Parnell, to allow that these poems are the genuine production of his muse; they are not without some harmonious lines, and poetical passages; but there is nothing in them that can add a single leaf of laurel to his brow, who in his Hesiod, his Hermit, and his Fairy Tale, has given us poems that, in their kind, it would be very difficult to surpass in excellence. While some passages show marks of a mind habituated to poetical conceptions, while the ideas are well selected, and the expressions proper; others abound in flat prosaic lines, alike devoid of dignity of thought, or harmony bf language. Sometimes there is considerable harshness in the phrase, and obscurity in the meaning, an inability of seizing the proper word, and a want of skill in the management of the metre. The general character of these poems is a mediocrity that is never sharpened into energy, nor exalted into excellence. They show no vigorous application of thought, boast no refined variety of metre, and exhibit no skilful combination of musical numbers. They are not enriched with metaphorical figures, strengthened by antient idioms, nor spangled with brilliant and curious expressions. Nor do they possess that select and simple elegance, that happiness of language, expressing its thought, without weakening or encumbering it, which he subsequently attained. They are such as a well educated person could write ​without difficulty; and such as the authority of Horace has condemned without appeal.
It would be invidious any longer to dwell on the defects of poems for which the author is not answerable, as he did not publish them; and it would be unwise to expect that the mere sweepings of the poet's study should be polished and elaborated ​with the same care as his avowed and finished productions; it only remains to speak of the few works in prose, which he committed to the press. The Memoirs of Scriblerus have been already mentioned. His Life of Zoilus was written at the request of his friends, and designed as a satire upon Dennis and Theobald, the ever unfortunate foes of the Scriblerus Club.
The Life of Homer, notwithstanding the careful revision by Pope, and the subsequent correction of Warburton, is written in a style inelegant, and sometimes incorrect. The reflections are not interesting from their appositeness, or striking from their novelty; the learning displayed is such as might easily be collected for the subject. Parnell has endeavoured to spin out his scanty materials to too great a length, and has enlarged with too much earnestness on facts doubtful or obscure. Assumptions are made to rest on very slender foundations, and inferences are drawn that it would be difficult to support. That Parnell was a better scholar than his brother-poets of his time, no one would be inclined to doubt; but it is equally clear, ​that he did not possess that extensive acquaintance with ancient literature; that he had not explored its intimate recesses, and that he was not master of that critical learning", without which, it could not be expected that the work which he undertook, would either delight us by the sagacity of its conclusions, or instruct us by the arrangement of its facts. The Homer of Parnell is an imaginary being, formed out of all the conjectures and contradiction of antiquity. Having composed his image of these broken fragments and relics, the biographer attempts to invest it with vitality and intelligence. Perhaps it would have been better to have contented himself with simply arranging the different narratives, or scattered anecdotes as they have come down to us. It is not very profitable to read an account of the conversations that might have taken place between Homer and Lycurgus, or to exhaust pages in conjectures on the character, manners, and pursuits of a person who may never have existed; or if he did, who probably bore but little resemblance to the portraits whose features have, from time to time, been put together from the conjectures of fanciful theorists, or the fragments of obsolete traditions. As it is, the plan of his life is defective; it is not instructive enough for a history, or entertaining enough for a romance. The style in which it is written ​forms a strong contrast with that of Pope's preface, that precedes it. It is singular, that the use of 'shall' for 'will,' that occurs repeatedly in it, should have been overlooked by Pope. Goldsmith says, the language is shamefully incorrect; though Swift, who set a very high value on correctness of style, appeared satisfied with it; for, in a letter to Pope, he says, "your notes are perfectly good, and so are your preface and Essays." There are a few papers by Parnell in the Spectator, called Visions, which do not require any particular notice; as a prose writer, there is a stiffness, a want of neatness and arrangement, and an inaccuracy in his style: his merits as a poet are thus summed up by Goldsmith in the following elegant epitaph, with which I shall conclude the Memoir.
This tomb inscrib'd to gentle Parnell's name, May speak our gratitude, but not his fame. What heart but feels his sweetly moral lay, That leads to truth through pleasure's flowery way.
Celestial themes confess'd his tuneful aid,
And Heaven, that lent him genius, was repaid;
Needless to him the tribute we bestow,
The transitory breath of fame below.
More lasting rapture from his works shall rise,
While converts thank their Poet in the skies.
$^*$$_*$$^*$ There is a small oval portrait of Parnell, J. Basire fec. prefixed to the Dublin edition of his works, 4to. also Thomas Parnell, D.D. mez. T. H. Dixon, sc. See Granger's Biogr. History of England, vol. i. p. 259.
* ↑ For the following pedigree of our poet, I am indebted to the kindness of Sir Harris Nicolas, who refers me to Playfair's British Family Antiquity, vol. ix. p. cxvii. in the absence of better authority, and who observes that of Irish baronets very little is known. Thomas Parnell, member of a family long resident at Congleton, county Chester, purchased an estate in Ireland, temp. Charles II. and settled in that kingdom. Thomas Parnell, Clerk, son and heir, Archdeacon of Clogher, 1705, &c. The Poet ob. 1717.Ann, daughter of Thomas Minchin, esq.John Parnell, Judge, K.B. in Ireland, 1722. Two sons and one daughter. Died before their father.Sir John Parnell, 1st bart, ob. 1782. Sir John Parnell, 2nd bart. ob. 1801. Sir John Augustus Parnell, 3rd bart. ob. 1812.Right Hon. Sir Henry Parnell, 4th and present bart. N.B. Nothing is said of the family in Ormerod's Cheshire.
* ↑ See a remarkable instance of this power of rapidly seizing long passages, in the anecdotes of La Mothe's life. Voltaire was reading a tragedy to him,—La Mothe accused him of plagiarism, and instantly repeated the whole of the second scene of the fourth act, which he had just heard, to confirm the accusation. See Galerie de l'ancienne Cour, &c. vol. ii. p. 223.
* ↑ Dr. Johnson calls her Mrs. Anne Minchin,—at what time did the title 'Miss' supersede 'Mrs.' for young unmarried females? the young ladies of the Lizard family (see the Guardian, 1713) are called Mrs. Mary, Mrs. Betty, &c. yet 'Miss' is sometimes used; Perhaps, the play-bills would give the period of change with the most exactness. Would it not be as well to revert to the old custom, and confine the use of 'Miss' to ladies of a certain character; giving to chastity and virtue a graver and weightier title.—'Hæ nugæ in seria ducunt.'
* ↑ See Johnson's life, p. 50.
* ↑ "Have you nothing new to day, From Pope, from Parnell, or from Gay," is a couplet put by Swift into Lord Oxford's mouth (Hor. lib. ii. s. 6. imitated). See Parnell's Posth. Poem on Queen Anne's Peace, p. 202. for the highest Eulogy on Lord Oxford.
* ↑ In Swift's letter to Lord Oxford for correcting, &c. the English Tongue, he says, 'All your other virtues, my lord, will be defective without this your affability, candour, and good nature. That perpetual agreeableness of conversation so disengaged in the midst of such a weight of business and opposition,' &c. Miscellanies, 1. p. 224.
* ↑ Swift, in his journal to Stella, Aug. 24, 1712, says, 'I am heartily sorry for poor Mrs. Parnell's death; she seemed to be an excellent good natured young woman, and, I believe, the poor lad is much afflicted; they appeared to live perfectly well together.'
* ↑ In the first MS. Memoranda of Pope's conversation, as preserved in Spence's Anecdotes, Pope is made to say,-'that Parnell is a great follower of drams, and strangely open and scandalous in his debaucheries,'—this was omitted in the transcript; Spence probably thought it not correct. It is somewhat singular, as the Editor of Spence observes, that the same charge of dram-drinking has been brought against Pope himself, in King's Anecdotes of his Own Time, p. 12, 'Pope hastened his death by feeding much on high seasoned dishes, and drinking spirits.' See Spence's Anecdotes, p. 139. Ruffhead, on the authority of Warburton, has given a different account of the cause which led to Parnell's intemperance. When Parnell had been introduced by Swift to Lord Treasurer Oxford, and had been established in his favour by the assistance of Pope, he soon began to entertain ambitious views. The walk he chose to shine in was popular preaching; he had talents for it, and began to be distinguished in the mob-places of Southwark and London, when the Queen's sudden death destroyed all his prospects, and at a juncture when he found preaching to be the readiest road to preferment. This fatal stroke broke his spirits; he took to drinking, became a sot, and soon finished his course.' See Ruffhead's Life of Pope, p. 492, who says that Pope gave the above account to Warburton; much difference exists between Pope's own account of his friends, and the characters of them, which Warburton subsequently gave as Pope's; see an instance of this in Johnson's Life of Rowe.
* ↑ There seems to be some error in the value which the biographers of Parnell have placed on this living; for Swift in his 'Vindication of his Excellency Lord Carteret,' speaks of him as bestowing on Mr. James Stafford the Vicarage of Finglass, worth about one hundred pounds a year. This was written in the year 1730. I have no doubt but that Goldsmith's valuation is erroneous; for Swift seems to doubt whether his own Deanery was worth more than four hundred pounds a year.
* ↑ Boswell's Johnson, vol. iv. p. 54.
* ↑ In his preface to Homer, p. xxxviii. Pope says, 'I must add the names of Mr. Rowe and Dr. Parnell, though I shall take a farther opportunity of doing justice to the last, whose good nature (to give it a great panegyrick), is no less extensive than his learning.'
* ↑ Parnell was well acquainted with Bolingbroke; see the poem called Queen Anne's Peace, 1713 (Posth. Poems, p. 248). '——— I fly with speed, To sing such lines as Bolingbroke may read.' And see p. 253. 'These toils the graceful Bolingbroke attends, A genius fashion'd for the greatest ends,' &c. And the poem on the different styles of poetry is dedicated to him, and also contains high praise of him: 'Oh! Bolingbroke! O favourite of the skies,' &c. See also the extracts from Swift's Journal, when the acquaintance had ripened into intimacy.
* ↑ Warton, vol. viii. p. 301–313, vii. 299.
* ↑ See Pope's Letters (Warton's ed.), vol. viii. p. 276, Let. lxxxviii. 'The first gentleman who undertook the task of making extracts from Eustathius, and who grew weary.' Was this person Parnell, or some one else, whose name has not reached us?
* ↑ In the Posthumous Poems (Elysium) he gives a wrong quantity to Laodamia, p. 268, Fair Laodamia mourns her nuptial right,' &c. which perhaps he took from Dryden's Ovid, who uses the word Deidamia, with the penultimate syllable short.
* ↑ Lintot paid to Pope the sum of fifteen pounds for Parnell's Poems, 13th of December, 1721. See Nicholl's Liter. Anec. vol. viii. p. 300.
* ↑ Arbuthnot.
* ↑ This fragment of a letter is not to be found in Pope's correspondence as published in Dr. Warton's edition. I should therefore suppose that Goldsmith possessed the MS. which has not been preserved. I may here remark, that Pope's correspondence is not published in Warton's edition with the correctness or completeness that could be desired. How far the late editors may have supplied his deficiences, I am not able to say, but a new and more perfect edition of Pope's works is much to be desired. Who so able to give one, as the Athenaeus of the present age, the accomplished author of the Curiosities of literature, &c.
* ↑ Goldsmith's Life, p. xv.
* ↑ In addition to Lord Oxford;—Pope, Swift, Arbuthnot, Gay, and Jervas, were the persons to whom Parnell was more particularly attached; his general society I presume to have been much the same as Swift's, and what that was, may be seen in the Journal to Stella.
* ↑ The origin of the sciences from the monkies of Ethiopia was written by me, Dean Parnell and Dr. Arbuthnot. Spence's Anecdotes, p. 201.
* ↑ Dennis's self-conceit, vanity, and envy, certainly deserved a heavy castigation: his preface to his Comical Gallants is a most extraordinary production of egotism and impudence; while the play itself is a mass of dulness and stupidity. The learning of Theobald might have shielded him from contempt.
* ↑ The difficulties attending a translation of Homer exist, though in a graduated scale, in the attempts to reflect in our language the style and character of the other Grecian poets. These principally arise from the different structure, and great inferiority of our language, by which a translator is placed between two difficulties. He must either endeavour to raise his poetical language to the power of the original, and emulate through the dull and horny medium of the Gothic, the transparent and crystal beauty of the Greek, which will lead him, as it did Pope, to superfluous and perhaps cumbrous embellishment; or if he attempts, like Cowper, to give a fac-simile of his original, he will find his own inferior language unable to support him,—what was plain, with him will become flat, the simple will be naked and bald, and the venerable and patriarchal majesty of the Grecian bard will descend from its illustrious elevation, to sit on the steps of the throne which it had once dignified and adorned. Pope's Homer, like Dryden's translation of Virgil, is exceedingly valuable as an English poem; in them united, is to be found, every curious modulation of rhythm, and every beautiful variety of expression that our heroic metre admits. Pope somewhere mentions that injudicious friends, for ten years, persecuted him with the most importunate persuasion to give a new translation of Virgil. What accurate estimation of his own powers, and what respect for Dryden, was included in the silent and steady refusal.
* ↑ See Mr. Uvedale Price's essay on the Mod. Pronun. of the Anc. Languages, p. 186.
* ↑ The memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus rose from a happy thought, and were happily executed. They were the flower of that wit, and humour, and sagacity, of which the Dunciad was the strong and bitter root. In the editions of Pope, this part of his works does not seem to me to be faithfully edited. There is a chapter called "Annus Mirabilis," which should precede 'Stradling versus Styles,' that is omitted. The chapter called The Double Mistress has been translated, altered, and enlarged, the humour destroyed, and much gross ribaldry and vulgar indecency introduced by Pigault Le Brun, in his Mélanges Littéraires et Critiques, vol. ii. p. 73—144, called Cause Célébre; he has cantharadized the story; Warton is not consistent in his omissions, if they were regulated by an attention to decency and propriety.
* ↑ By Lord B———, I presume, is meant Lord Bathurst. He had at that time a seat, or villa, somewhere beyond Twickenham, which he subsequently relinquished, v. Pope's Lett, to Swift, liv.
* ↑ I suppose it to be generally known, that the name "Martinus Scriblerus" took its rise from a joke of Lord Oxford's, who used to call Swift, Dr. Martin. The poem of the Dunciad was suggested to Pope by Swift. See Swift's Letters, vol. xii. p. 440. "The taste of England is infamously corrupted by shoals of wretches who write for their bread, and therefore I had reason to put Mr. Pope on writing the poem called the Dunciad; and to hale those scoundrels out of their obscurity, by telling their names at length," &c.
* ↑ Johnson is reported to have said "Goldsmith's Life of Parnell is poor, not that it is poorly written, but that he had poor materials; for nobody can write the life of a man, but those who have eat and drank, and lived in social intercourse with him." Boswell's Life of Johnson, ii. p. 163.
* ↑ See Pope's Tra. of Hor. Lib. ii. S. 2. ver. 87.
* ↑ i.e. Lord Oxford's.
* ↑ Goldsmith was indebted for his information to Sir Joh. Parnell, the nephew of the poet, to Mr. and Mrs. Rogers his relations, and to his good friend, Mr. George Steevens.
* ↑ This Poem was first published in a Miscellany of Tonson's, which I do not happen to possess.
* ↑ See Goldsmith's Beauties of Eng. Poetry, 1. p. 29, and Swift's Journal to Stella, Dec. 23, 25, 1712: Jan. 6, 1731, Feb. 19, 1712-3; where it appears that Swift gave Parnell hints and corrections for his poems.
* ↑ See Hume's Essay on Simplicity and Refinement.
* ↑ See Suffolk's Letters, vol. i. p. 161.
* ↑ Johnson says, "that the verses on Barrenness, in the poem to Pope, are borrowed from Secundus, but he could not find the passage.
* ↑ I rose from a late perusal of the Lutrin of Boileau. with a strong and pleasing conviction, not only of Pope's immeasurable superiority over the French poet, in poetical conception of his subject, in brilliant fancy, variety of character, elegance of allusion; but also in good sense, and truth, and adherence to nature; Boileau's ground-plot is mean, his sentiments strained, and his picture overcharged; he is struggling for an effect that his subject does not admit, nor his poetical powers enable him to supply.
* ↑ In the eighth chapter of the Vicar of Wakefield, Goldsmith considers Gay as having corrupted the purity of English poetry, and introducing a false taste by loading his lines with epithets. English poetry, he says, like that in the latter empire of Rome, is nothing at present but a combination of luxuriant images, without plot or connexion; a string of epithets that improve the sound, without carrying on the sense. As a model of simplicity, he then proposes his Hermit. Would Gray or Gay have written the following stanza? 'Far in a wilderness obscure, The lonely mansion lay, A refuge to the neighbouring poor, And strangers led astray." Are there no epithets worse than useless here?
* ↑ There seems to be an oversight in not correcting the repetition of the word 'glad' in the concluding lines: "See the glad scene unfolding wide, Clap the glad wing and tower away, And mingle with the blaze of day."
* ↑ The great fault of the Night Piece on Death is, that it is in eight syllable lines, very improper for the solemnity of the subject. Otherwise the poem is natural, and the reflections just. In his Fairy Tale never was the old manner of speaking more happily applied, or a tale better told than this. Goldsmith on English Poetry, p. 418.
* ↑ See Drake's Essays on the Spectator, vol. iii. p. 191.
* ↑ This poem of Parnell's, with his three songs, were inserted by Steele into his Poetical Miscellanies for Tonson, 1614.
* ↑ 1. Herolt Sermones de Tempore et Sanctis, fol. Nuremb. 1496 (Serm. liii).2. Gesta Romanorum, c. lxxx.3. Sir Percy Herbert's Conceptions to his Son, 4to. 1652.4. H. More's Divine Dialogues, p. 256, ed. 1743.5. Howell's Letters, iv. 4.6. Lutherana (Eng. Trans.) vol. ii. p. 127.7. Voltaire's Zadig. vol. i. chap. xx. p. 125; and see Beloe's Anecdotes, vol. vi. p. 324; and Warton's Eng. Poetry, vol, i. p. cciv. cclxvi.; vol. iii. p. 41. See also Br. Mus. MS. Harl. 463. fol.8. Epitres de Madam Antoinette Bourignon, Part: sec: Ep. xvii. Antonia who the Hermit's story fram'd, A tale to prose-men known, by verse-men fam'd. W. Harte's Courtier and Prince.
* ↑ In the first couplet of this poem, the word 'grew,' for 'liv'd,' is exceptionable, and there is an ambiguity of expression, in the lines "To find if books, or swains, report it right, (For yet by swains alone the world he knew, Whose feet came wandering o'er the nightly dew);" which might without much difficulty have been removed. The word 'alone' has no reference to books in the preceding line, but to 'swains,' as distinguished from all other persons; when I wrote the above, I was not aware of the difficulty having been noticed in Boswell's Johnson; see vol. iii. p. 418. At p. 126 of Pope's ed. of Parnell (The Flies, an Eclogue) "your fenny shade forsakes the vale," is a misprint for "ferny."
* ↑ "This poem (the Hermit) is held in just esteem; the versification being chaste and tolerably harmonious, and the story told with perspicuity and conciseness." Goldsmith's Beauties of Eng. Poetry, vol. i. p. 29.
* ↑ See Campbell's Specimens of British Poetry, vol. iv, p. 409.
* ↑ Goldsmith added two poems to those in Pope's volume, viz. 'Piety or the Vision,' and 'Bacchus.' He says that they were first communicated to the public by the late ingenious Mr. James Arbuckle, and published in his Hibernicus's Letters, No. 62; but they were printed in the Posthumous Works of Parnell, 1758, p. 213. 277. Mr. Nicholls collected some additional poems, which now appear among his works, v. Anderson's and Chalmer's Poets, &c.; and Goldsmith mentions some unpublished pieces which he saw, besides others which had appeared. Life, p. xv.
* ↑ Parnell has written several poems besides those published by Pope, and some of them have been made public with very little credit to his reputation. There are still many more that have not yet seen the light, in the possession of Sir John Parnell his nephew, who from that laudable zeal which he has for his uncle's reputation, will probably be slow in publishing what he may even suspect will do it injury. Life of Parnell, p. xxix. See also Nicholl's Select Poems, vol. iii. p. 208—236.
* ↑ Spence's Anecdotes, p. 290.
* ↑ P. 3. I now perceive, I long to sing thy praise, I now perceive, I long to find my lays. The following lines are obscure, p. 4. For this I call, that ancient Time appear, And bring his rolls to serve in method here, His rolls which acts, that endless honour claim, Have rank'd in order for the voice of fame. P. 18. ——— The visions seem to range, They seem to flourish, and they seem to change. P. 25. As snow's fair feathers fleet to darken sight. P. 28. Majestic notion seems decreed to nod. P. 59. Why moves the chariot of my son so slow, Or what affairs retard his coming so? P. 69. As painted prospects skip along the green, From hills to mountains eminently seen. P. 154. The foreign agents reach the appointed place, The Congress opens, and it will be peace. These examples, hastily taken, are sufficient to prove the obscurity and the flatness of the lines; but from some expressions, I observe that the author had read Dryden with attention, though not with success. A volume of such verses would form no addition to Parnell's fame.
* ↑ It is very unreasonable, after this, to give you a second trouble in revising the Essay on Homer, but I look upon you as one sworn to suffer no errors in me; and though the common way with a commentator be to erect them into beauties, the best office of a critic is to correct and amend them. There being a new edition coming out of Homer, I would willingly render it a little less defective, and the bookseller will not allow me time to do so myself. Pope's Letter to Warburton, xx.
* ↑ It must be remembered that at the time when Parnell wrote, little critical research had been employed on the Homeric Poems, spurious pieces of biography, and interpolated passages passed without suspicion. The solid learning, and sagacity of Heynè, Wolff, P. Knight, and particularly of that unequalled scholar Hermann, have thrown much light on a subject so obscure from its antiquity; but the difficulties of the question are as yet only pointed out, and the modern Aristarchus is still to come.
* ↑ See Swift's Works, ed. Nichols, vol. xiv. p. 5, p. 136. "But these things shall lie by till you come to compare them, and alter rhyme and grammar, and triplets, and cacophonies of all kinds," &c. yet Swift uses shall for will.