den the people; that Pitt is quoted, and Dryden read.

He did not long enjoy the reputation which this great work defervedly conferred; for he left the world in 1748, and lies buried under a ftone at Blandford, on which is this infcription :

In memory of

CHR. PITT, clerk, M. A.
Very eminent

for his talents in poetry;

and yet more

for the univerfal candour of

his mind, and the primitive
fimplicity of his manners.

He lived innocent,

and died beloved

Apr. 13, 1748,

aged 48.

TH

HE Life of Dr. PARNELL is a tafk which I fhould very willingly decline, fince it has been lately written by Goldsmith, a man of fuch variety of powers, and fuch felicity of performance, that he always feemed 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 conftraint, and easy without weaknefs.

What fuch an author has told, who would tell again? I have made an abftract from his larger narrative; and shall have this gratification from my attempt, that it gives me an opportunity of paying due tribute to the memory of a departed genius.

Τὸ γὰρ γέρας ἐςὶ θανόντων.

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, purchafed an eftate, which, with his lands in Cheshire, defcended to the who was born at Dublin in 1679; and,

poet,

after

after the ufual education at a grammarfchool, was at the age of thirteen admitted into the College,, where,. in 1.700,. he became mafter 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 a priest; and in 1705 Dr. Affie,,the bifhop of Clogher, conferred upon him: the archdeaconry of Clogher.. About the fame time he married Mrs. Anne Minchin, an amiable lady, by whom he had two fons who died young, and a daughter who long furvived him..

At the ejection of the Whigs, in the end of queen Anne's reign, Parnell was perfuaded to change his party, not with