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 protege; 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 L400 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  It is said that the present representative of the Parnell family preserves a mass of unpublished poems from the pen of his relative.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 protege of Swift, and the pet of the Scriblerus Club.  The character of his poetry is in keeping with the temperament of