CONTENTS. Song, "Thyrsis, a young and amorous swain" Song, "My days have been so wondrous free" Anacreontic, "When spring came on with fresh delight"..19 Anacreontic, "Gay Bacchus, liking Estcourt's wine". A Fairy Tale, in the ancient English style...... The Vigil of Venus, written in the time of Julius Cæsar, and by some ascribed to Catullus... III. .59 On Bishop Burnet's being set on Fire in his Closet. THE LIFE OF THOMAS PARNELL.* BY OLIVER GOLDSMITH. THE life of a scholar seldom abounds with adventure. His fame is acquired in solitude; and the historian, who only views him at a distance, must be content with a dry detail of actions by which he is scarcely distinguished from the rest of mankind. But we are fond of talking of those who have given us pleasure; not that we have any thing important to say, but because the subject is pleasing. Thomas Parnell, D. D., was descended from an ancient family, that had for some centuries been settled at Congleton, in Cheshire. His father, Thomas Parnell, who had been attached to the Commonwealth party, upon the Restoration went over to Ireland; thither he carried a large personal fortune, which he laid out in lands in that kingdom. The estates he purchased there, as * The Miscellaneous Works of Oliver Goldsmith, including a variety of pieces now first collected. By James Prior. also that of which he was possessed in Cheshire, descended to our poet, who was his eldest son, and still remain in the family. Thus want, which has compelled many of our greatest men into the service of the muses, had no influence upon Parnell; he was a poet by inclination. He was born in Dublin, in the year 1679, and received the first rudiments of his education at the school of Dr. Jones, in that city. Surprising things are told us of the greatness of his memory at that early period; as of his being able to repeat by heart forty lines of any book at the first reading; of his getting the third book of the Iliad in one night's time, which was given in order to confine him for some days. These stories, which are told of almost every celebrated wit, may perhaps be true; but for my own part, I never found any of those prodigies of parts, although I have known enow that were desirous, among the ignorant, of being thought so. There is one presumption, however, of the early maturity of his understanding. He was admitted a member of the College of Dublin at the age of thirteen, which is much sooner than usual, as at that university they are a great deal stricter in their examination for entrance, than either at Oxford or Cambridge. His progress through the college course of study was probably marked with but little splendor; his imagination might have been too warm to relish the cold logic of Burgers dicius, or the dreary subtleties of Smiglesius; but it is certain, that as a classical scholar, few could equal him. His own compositions show this; and the deference which the most eminent men of his time paid him upon that head, put it beyond a doubt. He took the degree of master of arts the 9th of July, 1700; and in the same year he was ordained a deacon by William, bishop of Derry, having a dispensation from the primate, as being under twenty-three years of age. He was admitted into priest's orders about three years after, by William, archbishop of Dublin; and on the 9th of February, 1705, he was collated by Sir George Ashe, bishop of Clogher, to the archdeaconry of Clogher. About that time also he married Miss Anne Minchin, a young lady of great merit and beauty, by whom he had two sons, who died young, and one daughter. His wife died some time before him; and her death is said to have made so great an impression on his spirits, that it served to hasten his own. On the 31st of May, 1716, he was presented by his friend and patron, archbishop King, to the vicarage of Finglass, a benefice worth about four hundred pounds a year, in the diocese of Dublin; but he lived to enjoy his preferment a very short time. He died at Chester, in July, 1717, on his way to Ireland, and was buried in Trinity Church in that town, without any monument to mark the place of his |