the First was made earl of Halifax, knight of the garter, and first commiffioner of the treasury, with a grant to his nephew of the reverfion 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 praise with the guilt of flattery, and to suppose that the encomiaft always knows and feels the falfehood of his affertions, is furely to difcover great ignorance of human nature and human human life. In determinations depending not on rules, but on experience and comparison, judgement is always in fome degree fubject to affection. Very near to admiration: is the wish to admire. Every man willingly gives value to the praise which he receives, and confiders the fentence paffed in his favour as the sentence of difcernment. We admire in a friend that understanding that felected 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, those performances which gratitude forbids us to blame, affection will eafily difpofe us to exalt. To these prejudices, hardly culpable, interest 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 Many a blandishment was practised 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 esteemed no honour, by a contributor to the monthly bundles of verses, to be told, that, in ftrains either familiar or folemn, he fings like Montague. PARNELL. PARNELL. TH HE Life of Dr. PARNELL is a task which I should 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 seemed 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 easy without weakness. What fuch an author has told, who would tell again? I have made an abstract from his larger 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 ἐπὶ πανόντων. THOMAS PARNELL was the fon of a commonwealthfman of the fame name, who at the Reftoration left Congleton in Cheshire, where the family had 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 prieft; and in 1705 Dr. Afhé, the bishop of Clogher, conferred upon him the archdeaconry of Clogher. About the fame time he married Mrs. Anne Minchin, an amiable lady, |
