Parnell is the third in a trio of poetical clergymen whose names have
immediately succeeded each other in this edition. Bowles, Churchill,
and Parnell were all clergymen, and all poets; but in other respects
differed materially from each other. In Bowles, the clerical and the
poetical characters were on the whole well attuned and harmonised. In
Churchill, they came to an open rupture. In Parnell, they were neither
ruptured nor reconciled, but maintained an ambiguous relation, till
his premature death settled the moot point for ever.
The life of this poet has been written by Goldsmith, by Johnson, by
the Rev. John Mitford, and others; but, after all, very little is
known about him. Thomas Parnell was the descendant of an ancient
family, which had been settled for some hundreds of years at
Congleton, Cheshire. His father, whose name also was Thomas, took the
side of the Commonwealth, and at the Restoration went over to Ireland,
where he purchased a considerable property. This, along with his
estate in Cheshire, devolved to the poet. His father had a second son,
John, whose descendants were created baronets. The late Sir Henry
Parnell, for some years the respected member of Parliament for the
town of Dundee, where we now write, was the great-great-grandson of
the poet's father. Parnell was born in Dublin, in the year 1679. He
was sent to a school taught by one Dr Jones. Here he is said to have
distinguished himself by the readiness and retentiveness of his
memory; often performing the task allotted for days in a few hours,
and being able to repeat forty lines in any book of poems, after the
first reading. It is a proof of the prematurity of his powers, that he
entered Trinity College, Dublin, at the age of thirteen, where his
compositions attracted attention from the extent of classical lore
which they discovered. He took the degree of M.A. in 1700; and the
same year (through a dispensation on account of being under age) was
ordained deacon by the Bishop of Deny. Three years after, he was
ordained priest; and in 1705, he was made Archdeacon of Clogher, by
Sir George Ashe, bishop of that see. So soon as he received the
archdeanery, he married Miss Ann Minchin, who is described as a young
lady of great beauty, and of an amiable character, by whom he had two
sons, who died young, and a daughter, who long survived both
her parents.
Up to the triumph of the Tories, at the end of Queen Anne's reign,
Parnell appears to have been, like his father, a keen Whig. He was at
that time, however, induced, for motives which his biographers call
obscure, but which to us seem obvious enough, on the well-known
principle of the popularity of the rising sun, to change his party;
and he was hailed by the Tories as a valuable accession to their
ranks. This proves that his talents were even then known; a fact
corroborated by Johnson's statement, that while he was waiting in the
outer-room at Lord Oxford's levee, the prime minister, when told he
was there, went out, at the persuasion of Swift, with his treasurer's
staff in his hand, and saluted him in the most flattering manner. He
became, either before or immediately after this, intimate with Pope,
Swift, Gay, and the rest of that brilliant set, who all appear to have
loved him for his social qualities, to have admired his genius, and to
have pitied his infirmities. He was a member of the Scriblerus Club,
and contributed some trifles to their transactions. He was, at the
same time, intimate with Addison and Steele, and wrote a few papers in
the "Spectator." To Pope, he was of essential service, assisting him
in his notes to the "Iliad," being, what Pope was not, a good Greek
scholar. He wrote a life of Homer, which was prefixed to the
Translation, although stiff in style, and fabulous in statement. He
gratified Pope's malicious spirit still more by writing, under the
guise of a "Life of Zoilus," a bitter attack on Dennis--the great
object of the poet's fear and mortal abhorrence. For these and other
services, Pope rewarded him, after his usual manner, with large
offerings of that sweet and suffocating incense, by which he
delighted, now to gain his enemies, and now to gratify his friends.
With Gay, also, Parnell was intimate; and the latter, himself
independent by his fortune, is said to have bestowed on this needy and
improvident genius the price of the copyright of his works.
Parnell first visited London in 1706; and from that period till his
death, scarcely a year elapsed without his spending some time in the
metropolis. He seems to have had as intense a relish of London life as
Johnson and Boswell exhibited in the next age. So soon as he had
collected his rents, he hied to the capital, and there enjoyed himself
to the top of his bent. He jested with the Scriblerus Club. He quaffed
now and then with Lord Oxford. He varied his round of amusements by
occasional professional exhibitions in the pulpits of Southwark and
elsewhere,--made, we fear, more from a desire to display himself, than
to benefit his hearers. Still his sermons were popular; and he
entertained at one time the hope,--a hope blasted by the death of
Queen Anne,--of being preferred to a city charge. So soon as each
London furlough was expired, he returned to Ireland, jaded and
dispirited, and there took delight in nursing his melancholy; in
pining for the amusements of the metropolis; in shunning and sneering
at the society around him; and in abusing his native bogs and his
fellow-countrymen in verse. This was not manly, far less Christian
conduct. He ought to have drowned his recollections of London in
active duty, or in diligent study; and if he found society coarse or
corrupt, he should have set himself to refine and to purify it. But he
seems to have been a lazy, luxurious person--his life a round of
selfish rapture and selfish anguish,--in fact, ruined by his
independent fortune. Had he been a poorer, he had probably been a
happier man. He was not, moreover, of that self-contained cast of
character, which can live on its own resources, create its own world,
and say, "My mind to me a kingdom is."
In 1712 he lost his wife, with whom he appears to have lived as
happily as his morbid temperament and mortified feelings would permit.
This blow deepened his melancholy, and drove him, it is said, to an
excessive and habitual use of wine. In the same year we find him in
London, brought out once more under the "special patronage" of Dean
Swift, who had quite a penchant for Parnell, and who wished, through
his side, to mortify certain persons in Ireland, who did not
appreciate, he says, the Archdeacon; and who, we suspect, besides, did
not thoroughly appreciate the Dean. Swift, partly in pity for the
"poor lad," as he calls him, whom he saw to be in such imminent danger
of losing caste and character, and partly in the true patronising
spirit, introduced Parnell to Lord Bolingbroke, who received him
kindly, entertained him at dinner, and encouraged him in his poetical
studies. The Dean's patronage, however, was of little avail in this
matter to the protégé; Bolingbroke, a man of many promises, and few
performances, did nothing for him. The consequences of dissipation
began, at this time, too, to appear in Parnell's constitution; and we
find Swift saying of him, "His head is out of order, like mine, but
more constant, poor boy." It was perhaps to this period that Pope
referred, when he told Spence, "Parnell is a great follower of drams,
and strangely open and scandalous in his debaucheries." If so, his bad
habits seem to have sprung as much from disappointment and discontent
as from taste.
Yet Swift continued his friend, and it was at his instance that, in
1713, Archbishop King presented Parnell with a prebend. In 1714, his
hope of London promotion died with Queen Anne; but in 1716, the same
generous Archbishop bestowed on him the vicarage of Finglass, in the
diocese of Dublin, worth £400 a-year. This preferment, however, the
poet did not live long to enjoy,--dying at Chester, in July
1717, on his way to Ireland, aged thirty-eight years. His estates
passed to his nephew, Sir John Parnell. He had, in the course of his
life, composed a great deal of poetry; much of it, indeed, _invita_
Minerva. After his death, Pope collected the best pieces, and
published them, with a dedication to Lord Oxford. Goldsmith, in his
edition, added two or three; and other editors, a good many poems, of
which we have only inserted one, deeming the rest unworthy of his
memory. In 1788 a volume was published, entitled, "The Posthumous
Works of Dr T. Parnell, containing poems moral and divine." These,
however, attracted little attention, being mostly rubbish. Johnson
says of them, "I know not whence they came, nor have ever inquired
whither they are going." It is said that the present representative of
the Parnell family preserves a mass of unpublished poems from the pen
of his relative. We trust that he will long and religiously refrain
from disturbing their MS. slumbers.
The whole tenor of Parnell's history convinces us that he was an
easy-tempered, kind-hearted, yet querulous and self-indulgent man, who
had no higher motive or object than to gratify himself. His very
ambition aspired not to very lofty altitudes. His utmost wish was to
attain a metropolitan pulpit, where he could have added the reputation
of a popular preacher to that of being the _protégé_ of Swift, and the
pet of the Scriblerus Club. The character of his poetry is in keeping
with the temperament of the man. It is slipshod, easy, and pleasing.
If the distinguishing quality of poetry be to give pleasure, then
Parnell is a poet. You never thrill under his power, but you read him
with a quiet, constant, subdued gratification. If never eminently
original, he has the art of enunciating common-places with felicity and
grace. The stories he relates are almost all old, but his manner of
telling them is new. His thoughts and images are mostly selected from
his common-place book; but he utters them with such a natural ease of
manner, that you are tempted to think them his own. He knows the
compass of his poetical powers, and never attempts anything very lofty
or arduous. His "Allegory on Man,"--pronounced by Johnson his
best,--seems rather a laborious than a fortunate effusion. His "Hymn
to Contentment" is animated, as the subject required, by a kind of
sober rapture. His "Faery Tale" is a good imitation of that old style
of composition. His "Hesiod" catches the classical tone and spirit
with considerable success. His "Flies," and "Elegy to the Old Beauty,"
are ingenious trifles. His "Nightpiece on Death" has fine touches, but
is slight for such a theme, and must not be named beside Blair's
"Grave," and Gray's "Elegy written in a Country Churchyard." His
translations we have, in accordance with the plan of this edition,
omitted--and, indeed, they are little loss. His "Bookworm," &c., are
adaptations from Beza and other foreign authors. By far his most
popular poem is the "Hermit." In it he tells a tale that had been told
in Arabic, French, and English, for the tenth time; and in that tenth
edition tells it so well, that the public have thanked him for it as
for an original work. Of course, the story not being Parnell's, it is
not his fault that it casts no light upon the dread problems of
Providence it professed to explain. But the incidents are recorded
with ease and liveliness; the characters are rapidly depicted, and
strikingly contrasted; and many touches of true poetry occur.
How vivid this couplet, for instance--
"Slow creaking turns the door with jealous care,
And half he welcomes in the shivering pair!"