THE LIFE OF THOMAS PARNELL, D. D. THOMAS PARNELL was descended from an ancient family, that had for some centuries been settled at Congleton, in Cheshire. His father, Thomas Parnell, who had been attached to the Commonwealth party, upon the Restoration went over to Ireland; thither he carried a large personal fortune, which he laid out in lands in that kingdom. The estates he purchased there, as also that of which he was possessed in Cheshire, descended to our poet, who was his eldest son, and they still remain in the family. Thus want, which has compelled many of our greatest men into the service of the Muses, had no influence upon Parnell; he was a poet by inclination. He was born in Dublin, in the year 1679, and received the first rudiments of his education at the school of Dr. Jones, in that city. Surprising things are told of the greatness of his memory at that early period, as, of his being able to repeat forty lines of any book at the first reading; of his getting by heart |