conformity. He headed the Enquiry into the danger of the Church. In 1706; he propofed and negotiated the Union with Scotland; and when the elector of Hanover received the garter, after the act had paffed for fecuring the Proteftant Succeffion, he was appointed to carry the enfigns of the order to the electoral court. He fat as one of the judges of Sacheverell; but voted for a mild fentence. Being now no longer in favour, he contrived to obtain a writ for fummoning the electoral prince to parliament as duke of Cambridge.

At the queen's death he was appointed one of the regents; and at the acceffion of George the Firft was made earl of Halifax, knight of the garter, and first commiffioner of the treasury, with a grant to his nephew of the reversion of the auditorship of the Exchequer. More was not to be had, and this he kept but a little while; for on the 19th of May, 1715, he died of an inflammation of his lungs.

Of him, who from a poet became a patron of poets, it will be readily believed that the works would not mifs of celebration. Addifon began to praise him early, and was followed or accompanied by other poets; perhaps by almost all, except Swift and Pope; who forbore to flatter him in his life, and after his death spoke of him, Swift with flight cenfure, and Pope in the character of Bufo with acrimonious contempt.

He was, as Pope fays, fed with dedications; for Tickell affirms that no dedicator was unrewarded. To charge all unmerited praife with the guilt of flattery, and to fuppofe that the encomiaft always knows and feels the falfehoods of his affertions, is furely to dif cover great ignorance of human nature and human life. In determinations depending not on rules, but on experience

perience and comparison, judgement is always in fomé degree fubject to affection. Very near to adiniration is the wish to admire.

Every man willingly gives value to the praife which he receives, and confiders the fentence paffed in his favour as the fentence of, difcernment. We admire in a friend that understanding that fetected us for confidence; we admire more, in a patron, that judgement which, instead of scattering bounty indifcriminately, directed it to us; and, if the patron be an author, thofe performances which gratitude forbids us to blame, affection will, eafily difpofe us to exalt.

To these prejudices, hardly culpable, intereft adds a power always operating, though not always, because not willingly, perceived. The modesty of praise wears gradually away; and perhaps the pride of patronage may be in time fo increased, that modeft praise will no longer please.

Many a blandifhinent was practifed upon Halifax, which he would never have known, had he had no other attractions than those of his poetry, of which a fhort time has withered the beauties. It would now be efteemed no honour, by a contributor to the monthly bundles of verfes, to be told, that, in ftrains either familiar or folemn, he fings like Montague.

PARNELL,

PAR NEL L.

PARNEL

HE Life of Dr. PARNELL is a tak

TH

of Dr.

which I fhould very willingly decline, fince it has been lately written by Goldfmith, a man of fuch variety of powers, and fuch felicity of performance, that he always feemed to do beft that which he was doing; a man who had the art of being minute without tediousness, and general without confufion; whofe language was copious without exuberance, exact without constraint, and eafy without weakness.

What fuch an author has told, who would tell again? I have made an abftract from his larger narrative; and have this gratification from my attempt, that it gives me an opportunity of paying due tribute to the memory of Goldsmith.

Τὸ γὰρ γέρας ἐςι θανόντων.

THOMAS PARNELL was the fon of a com monwealthfman of the fame name, who at the Restoration left Congleton in Cheshire, where the family had VOL. III.

C

been

been established for feveral centuries, and, fettling in Ireland, purchased an estate, which, with his lands in Cheshire, defcended to the poet, who was born at Dublin in 1679; and, after the ufual education at a grammar fchool, was at the age of thirteen admitted into the College, where, in 1700, he became master of arts; and was the fame year ordained a deacon, though under the canonical age, by a difpenfation from the bishop of Derry.

About three years afterwards he was made a pries; and in 1705 Dr. Ashe, the bishop of Clogher, conferred upon him the archdeaconry of Clogher. About the fame time he married Mrs. Anne Minchin, an amiable lady, by whom he had two fons who died young, and a daughter who long furvived him.

At the ejection of the Whigs, in the end of queen Anne's reign, Parnell was perfuaded to change his party, not without much cenfure from thofe whom he 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 thofe times to the favourites of the great, without attention to his fortune, which, however, was in no great need of improve

ment.

Parnell, who did not want ambition or vanity, was defirous to make himself confpicuous, and to fhew how worthy he was of high preferment. As he thought himfelf qualified to become a popular preacher, he difplayed

difplayed his clocution with great fuccess in the pulpits of London; but the queen's death putting an end to his expectations, abated his diligence: and Pope re prefents him as falling from that time into intempes fance of wine. That in his latter life he was too much a lover of the bottle, is not denied; but I have heard it imputed to a caufe more likely to obtain forgiveness from mankind, the untimely death of à darling fon; or, as others tell, the lofs of his wife, who died (1712) in the midst of his expectations.

He was now to derive every future addition to his preferments from his perfonal intereft with his private friends, and he was not long unregarded. He was warmly recommended by Swift to archbishop King, who gave him a prebend in 1913; and in May 1716 prefented him to the vicarage of Finglas in the diocefe of Dublin, worth four hundred pounds a year. Such notice from fuch a man, inclines me to believe that the vice of which he has been accused was not grofs, or not notorious.

But his profperity did not last löng. His end, whatever was its caufe, was now approaching. He enjoyed his preferment little more than a year; for in July 1717, in his thirty-eighth year, he died at Chef ter, on his way to Ireland.

He seems to have been one of thofe poets who take delight in writing. He contributed to the papers of that time, and probably published more than he owned. He left many compofitions behind him, of which Pope felected thofe which he thought beft, and dedicated them to the earl of Oxford. Of thefe Goldfmith has given an opinion, and his criticifin it is feldon fafe to contradict. He beftows juft praise upon