a sermon, printed under the title of ‘The faithful and diligent Christian described and exemplified’ (London, 1684). He also wrote, dated 3 June 1673, a testimony to the extraordinary ability of William Wotton [q. v.], as a child, published by his father, Henry Wotton, minister of Wrentham, Suffolk, 1680 (reprinted 1752), as well as a ‘life’ of his near neighbour and friend William Burkitt [q. v.] of Dedham (London, 1704), and preached a funeral sermon on him at Dedham on 9 Nov. 1703, published, n.d. Parkhurst died at Yoxford on 8 Dec. 1707, and was buried in the nave of his church, where an inscription to his memory records that he had been vicar for forty-two years. His funeral sermon, dedicated to Priscilla, his widow, was published, with some remarks on his life, by S. J., London, 1708, 12mo.
Parkhurst is described as of consistent cheerfulness, opposed to gloomy religion, and of great humility, leading an essentially pastoral life. Besides the above works and some religious tracts, Parkhurst published funeral sermons on Rev. Samuel Fairclough [see under Fairclough, Samuel, 1594–1677] (London, 1692), Thomas Neale (1705), the Rev. Mr. G. Jones (1705), together with ‘Ten Select Discourses,’ London, 1706, and ‘Eleven Select Discourses,’ London, 1707. Four of the last collection were previously published ‘for Thomas Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns, near Mercers Chappel in Cheapside, 1706.’
[Watt's Bibl. Brit.; Grad. Cantabr. 1659–1823, p. 356; manuscript notes in the Brit. Mus. copy of the Redeemer's Friend, the Sermon on Fairclough; Darling's Encyclopædia; Funeral Sermon by S. J. in Dr. Williams's Library; Wilford's Memorials of Eminent Persons, pp. 218–222, app. 18.]
PARKHURST, THOMAS (1629?–1707?), bookseller, was bound apprentice to John Clarke, bookseller in London in 1645. He was made a freeman of the Stationers' Company on 3 July 1654, was admitted to the livery of the company on 2 May 1664, served as underwarden in 1689, and elected master in 1703, when he gave the company 37l. to purchase annually twenty-five bibles with psalms. Hence arose the custom of giving a bible to each apprentice bound at Stationers' Hall.
He was in business in 1667 at the Golden Bible on London Bridge, and in 1685, and later, at the Bible and Three Crowns in Cheapside. John Dunton was apprenticed to him in 1674, and in his ‘Life and Errors’ characterises his ‘honoured master’ as the ‘most eminent presbyterian bookseller in the three kingdoms,’ ‘a religious and a just man,’ and as ‘scrupulously honest in all his dealings, a good master, and very kind to all his relations.’ He was on friendly terms with the chief presbyterian divines of his day, particularly with John Howe and Matthew Henry, and published some of their works.
Among other books he issued N. Billingsley's ‘Treasury of Divine Raptures,’ 1667; ‘The History of Moderation,’ ascribed to R. Braithwait, 1669; H. Newcome's ‘Help in Sickness,’ 1685, and ‘Discourse on Anger,’ 1693; R. Baxter's ‘Poetical Fragments,’ 3rd edit., 1699; and the first edition of Matthew Henry's ‘Exposition.’
The last notice of his name in the books of the Stationers' Company is in October 1707, when he bound apprentice Parkhurst Smith.
[Dunton's Life and Errors, 1818, i. 39, 205; Rivington's Records of the Stationers' Company (in Arber's Transcripts, vol. v.); Corser's Collect. Anglo-Poetica (Chetham Soc.), i. 225, 280, 452; Williams's Mem. of Matthew Henry, 1828, p. 303; information kindly supplied by Mr. C. R. Rivington, clerk to the Stationers' Company.]
PARKIN, CHARLES (1689–1765), antiquary, son of William Parkin of London, was born on 11 Jan. 1689, and educated at Merchant Taylors' School, whence he proceeded in 1708 to Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, and graduated B.A. 1711, M.A. 1717. Entering holy orders, he became rector of Oxburgh, Norfolk, in 1717, and assisted Francis Blomefield [q. v.], the county historian, in describing that and the adjoining parishes. In 1744 he engaged in a controversy with Dr. Stukeley as to the antiquity and imagery of the cell at Royston, then lately discovered, provoking a somewhat contemptuous rejoinder, to which he replied with much spirit. After the death of Blomefield in 1752, when about halfway through his third volume, Parkin undertook the completion of his unfinished ‘History of Norfolk,’ and the fourth and fifth volumes of that work (in the original folio edition of five volumes, completed in 1775) are described as from his pen. According to Craven Ord, however, the last sheets were finished by some bookseller's hack employed by Whittingham of Lynn. Parkin died on 27 Aug. 1765, and by his will (dated 17 June 1759) bequeathed a considerable sum of money to his old college for the foundation of exhibitions to be held by scholars from Merchant Taylors' and from the free school at Bowes, Yorkshire, which had been founded by his uncle, William Hutchinson of Clement's Inn.
Parkin wrote:
- ‘An Answer to, or Remarks upon, Dr. Stukeley's “Origines Roysto-
