Goldsmith
says that his father and uncle both knew Parnell ('Life of Parnell',
1770, p. v), and that he received assistance from the poet's nephew, Sir
John Parnell, the singing gentleman who figures in Hogarth's 'Election
Entertainment'. Why Goldsmith should write an epitaph upon a man who
died ten years before his own birth, is not easy to explain. But Johnson
also wrote a Latin one, which he gave to Boswell. (Birkbeck Hill's
'Life', 1887, iv. 54.)
l. 1. -----
"gentle Parnell's Name". Mitford compares Pope on
Parnell ['Epistle to Harley', 1. iv]:--
With softest manners, gentlest Arts adorn'd.
Pope published Parnell's 'Poems' in 1722, and his sending them
to Harley, Earl of Oxford, after the latter's disgrace and
retirement, was the occasion of the foregoing epistle, from
which the following lines respecting Parnell may also be cited:--
For him, thou oft hast bid the World attend,
Fond to forget the statesman in the friend;
For SWIFT and him despis'd the farce of state,
The sober follies of the wise and great;
Dext'rous the craving, fawning crowd to quit,
And pleas'd to 'scape from Flattery to Wit.
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