PARNELL. HE Life of Dr. PARNELL is Ta talk a tak which I fhould very willingly decline, fince it has been lately written by Goldfinith, a man of fuch variety of powers, and fuch felicity of performance, that he always seemed to do beft that which he was doing; a mán who had the art of being minute without tediousnefs, and general without confufion; whofe language was copious without exuberance, exact without conftraint, and eafy without weakness. What fuch an author has told, who would tell again? I have made an abftract from his larger narrative; and shall have this gratification from my attempt, that it gives me an opportunity of paying due tribute to the memory of a departed genius. Τὸ γὰρ γέρας ἐςὶ θανόνων. THOMAS PARNELL was the fon of a commonwealthfman of the fame name, who at the Restoration left Congleton in Cheshire, where the family had been established for feveral centuries, and, fettling in Ireland, purchafed an eftate, which, with his lands in Chefhire, defcended to the poet, who was born at Dublin in 1679; and, after after the ufual education at a grammar-fchool, was at the age of thirteen admitted into the College, where, in 1700,. he became master of arts;. and was the fame year ordained a deacon, though under the canonical age, by a difpenfa tion from the bishop of Derry. About three years afterwards he was made a priest; and in 1705 Dr. Afhe, the bishop of Clogher, conferred upon him the archdeaconry of Clogher. About the fame time he married Mrs. Anne Minchin, an amiable lady, by whom he had two fons who died young, and a daughter who long furvived him. At the ejection of the Whigs, in the end of queen Anne's reign, Parnell was perfuaded to change his party, not with out much cenfure from those whom he forfook, and was received by the new miniftry as a valuable reinforcement. When the earl of Oxford was told that Dr. Parnell waited among the croud in the outer room, he went, by the perfuafion of Swift, with his treasurer's ftaff in his hand, to enquire for him, and to bid him welcome; and, as may be inferred from Pope's dedication, admitted him as a favourite companion to his convivial hours, but, as it feems often to have happened in those times to the favourites of the great, without attention to his fortune, which indeed was in no great need of improvement. Parnell, who did not want ambition or vanity, was defirous to make himself confpi |