men of both parties, for he was agreeable, generous, and sincere. When he had a fit of spleen he withdrew to a remote part of the country, that he might not annoy others. He shared Swift's dislike of Ireland, and was consequently not popular with his neighbours. In spite of his considerable fortune, he seems to have often exceeded his income; but his chief weakness, according to Pope, was his inability to resist the general habit of heavy drinking. Pope ascribes the intemperance to dejection occasioned by the death of Parnell's wife. But the vice was apparently neither gross nor notorious. Parnell was fond of popular preaching, and was often heard in public places in Southwark and London in Queen Anne's time.
As a poet, Parnell's work is marked by sweetness, refined sensibility, musical and fluent versification, and high moral tone. There are many faulty lines and awkward expressions, and there would have been more had not Pope revised the more important pieces. Pope, his junior by nine years, gave him much good advice, and the twenty poems which Pope published contain all by which his friend will be remembered. The best are ‘The Hermit,’ ‘The Fairy Tale,’ ‘The Night Piece on Death,’ ‘The Hymn to Contentment,’ and ‘Hesiod, or the Rise of Woman.’ Parnell was a careful student of Milton, and his writings influenced Young and Blair in one direction, and Goldsmith, Gay, and Collins in another. Some manuscript poems by Parnell, partly unpublished, are in the possession of Lord Congleton.
The first collective edition of Parnell's poems was that published by Pope in December 1721. In 1758 the ‘Posthumous Works of Dr. Thomas Parnell’ appeared, with what purported to be a certificate by Swift of their genuineness. There is no reason to doubt the authenticity of the pieces in this volume, but they add nothing to Parnell's fame. They consist chiefly of meditative and devotional verses, and of long paraphrases of Old Testament history in rhymed couplets. In 1770 Goldsmith republished Pope's collection, with two additional pieces which had appeared in the ‘Dublin Journal’ for 4 June 1726, and prefixed to the volume the first life of the poet, based on information derived from Sir John Parnell, the poet's nephew. An edition published in Glasgow in 1767 contained a number of ‘Variations,’ showing to what extent Pope corrected Parnell's work. Foulis printed a handsome folio edition in Glasgow in 1786, and some additional poems were included in Nichols's edition of the ‘Poets’ (for which Johnson wrote his ‘Lives’) in 1779. An edition with woodcuts by Bewick was published with the works of Oliver Goldsmith, 1795, 4to. The original Aldine edition appeared in 1833, with an introduction by the Rev. John Mitford; and in 1854 the Rev. R. A. Willmott edited, with critical notes, the ‘Poetical Works of Gray, Parnell, Collins, Green, and Warton.’ The new Aldine edition, 1894, is edited by the present writer.
A mezzotint portrait of the poet was engraved by Dixon in 1771, and Basire executed a small engraving for the 1773 Dublin edition of the ‘Poems.’ Other engravings will be found in Bell's edition, 1786, and the Aldine editions of 1833 and 1894. There is a marble bust in the library of Trinity College, Dublin.
[Works cited; Swift's Works, ed. Scott; Pope's Works, ed. Elwin and Courthope; Johnson's Lives, ed. Cunningham; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. ii. 558, viii. 162, 296, 300; Spence's Anecdotes; Boswell's Life of Johnson; Ward's English Poets, iii. 133; Aitken's Life of Steele, and Life and Works of Arbuthnot; Drake's Essays illustrative of the Tatler, &c., iii. 182–200; Noble's Cont. of Granger, i. 259; Smith's British Mezzotint Portraits, p. 1741; Gent. Mag. xxviii. 282, xlix. 599; Notes and Queries, 1st ser. i. 427, iii. 135, 2nd ser. x. 141, 5th ser. viii. 485, 6th ser. viii. 509, 7th ser. xii. 467; Goldsmith's Works, ed. Cunningham, i. 111, iii. 438; Lascelles's Liber Mun. Publ. Hiberniæ; Playfair's British Family Antiquity, vol. ix. pp. cxvii–cxx; information from Mr. B. V. Keenan and the Rev. A. W. Ardagh.]
PARNELL, WILLIAM, afterwards PARNELL-HAYES (d. 1821), controversialist, was third son of Sir John Parnell [q. v.] by Letitia Charlotte, second daughter and coheiress of Sir Arthur Brooke of Cole-Brooke, co. Fermanagh (Burke, Landed Gentry, 5th edit. ii. 1052). He was opposed to the union, and, though a protestant, had a warm admiration for the Roman catholic clergy. He was also in favour of catholic emancipation. He was elected M.P. for co. Wicklow on 12 Aug. 1817, on 29 June 1819, and on 17 March 1820. He was a magistrate and deputy-lieutenant of co. Wicklow, and, as a resident and liberal landlord, he was greatly esteemed among his tenantry. Parnell succeeded his father in the property of Avondale, Rathdrum, co. Wicklow, which his father had inherited in 1796 under the will of Samuel Hayes. Parnell thereupon assumed the additional name of Hayes. He died on 2 Jan. 1821, at Castle Howard, co. Wicklow, the seat of Colonel Howard (Scots Mag. 1821, pt. i. p. 191). By his marriage in 1810 to Frances (d. 1813), daughter of the Hon. Hugh Howard, he had issue John Henry Parnell
