PARNY. 



PARRHAS1UP. 



his fame must ro*t are, the 'Rise of Woman,' the 'Fairy Tale,' the 

 Hymn to Contentment,' 'Health,' the 'Vigil of Venus' ('Pervigilium 

 Veneris'l, the 'Nigbt-Pieco on Drath,' the 'Allegory on Man,' and 

 ' The Hermit.' Parnell waa the author of the ' Life of Homer ' pre- 

 fixed to Pope'* tranalatiou, certain papers in tlio 'Spectator' and 

 'Qiurdian.'and various unacknowledged performances. 



PARNY, EVARISTE-DESIRE-DESFORQES, Chevalier and after- 

 ward* Vicouite De Parny, was born in the Isle of Bourbon, on the Oth 

 of February 1753- At the age of nine he was sent to France and 

 placed at the College of Rennes ; bnt he appears to have shown consi- 

 derable indifference to the course of studies which was followed there. 

 Bis imagination, which even at an early age had taken the almost 

 entire guidance of his conduct, impressed him as he grew up with the 

 belief that he was called upon to embrace the ecclesiastical profession, 

 and it is said that he attempted to join the brotherhood of La Trappe. 

 An effort of imprudent zeal however, on the part of the confessor 

 whom he had chosen as his spiritual guide, produced a rapid change 

 in the mind of the young convert, aud he is related to have fallen into 

 an opposite extreme of conduct, and soon after, entering into all the 

 dissipations of youth, finally to have enrolled himself in the military 

 profession. He returned to bis native island at the age of twenty, 

 where he became acquainted with a young Creole lady, the Eleanor of 

 bis verse, which acquaintance his fervent imagination soon converted 

 into the most ardent attachment Their mutual love inspired his first 

 poetical effusions, which paint with grace and freshness, though perhaps 

 in too vivid colours, the all-absorbing passion of his soul. The affec- 

 tions however of the lady were of an evanescent nature ; a marriage of 

 interest, which she contracted at the desire of her parents, induced 

 Parny to return to France. Distance and time were unable te efface 

 his sad reminiscences, and he there continued to translate into the 

 language of poetry the feelings which appear to have taken a lasting 

 poweesion of his mind. In 1776 was published bis first collection of 

 elegiac poems, which have been so much admired by his countrymen 

 that they have earned for him the title of the French Tibullus. On 

 the breaking out of the French Revolution he became deprived of the 

 property which he had inherited from his father, and he waa compelled 

 to obtain a livelihood by the cultivation of his talents. A painful aud 

 striking change now appears in his writings, which he had the weakness 

 to adapt to the prevalent taste of a corrupt age. The rival of Tibullus 

 became the feeble copyut of Voltaire, and his ' Pnradis perdu,' ' Qalan- 

 teries de la Bible,' and 'Guerre des Dieux,' by their disgusting 

 profoneness and absence of genuine poetical feeling, will only be 

 remembered by posterity as indications of the state of society at a 

 period when " everything evil was rank and luxuriant." So strong 

 indeed was the feeling excited against Parny even in France on account 

 of the last mentioned of these three poems, that his name was repeat- 

 edly pawed over among the candidates for tbe honours of the Institute. 

 However he was admitted into it in 1803, in the place of Devalues. 

 Most of bis other poems are inferior to his early productions; bis 

 ' Goddam,' published in 1804, is a spiritless and insipid parody on the 

 invasion of Kngland by the Normans ; his ' Isnel and Aale'ga, though 

 possessed of more merit, is but a feeble imitation of the Scandinavian 

 style of poetry ; but among his later productions there are two small 

 poems, one on the culture of flowers, and the other entitled ' Jourm-e 

 Cbainpetre,' which for simple beauty and delicacy of colouring are 

 deserving of bring ranked among the finest specimens of lyric poetry. 

 His principal poem, in eighteen cantos, on the loves of the Queens of 

 France, was destroyed by him from fear of its fulling into the hands 

 of the suspicious judges of the Revolutionary Tribunal Ho died in 

 Paris, lifter a painful and lingering illness, on the 5th of December 1814. 

 His works have been published in 6 vol*. ISuio, by Didot, Paris, 

 1808, and at Brussels, in 2 vols, gvo. Tbe best edition however is 

 that by M. Boissonnade in the 'Collection de Classiques Francais,' 

 Uf. vre, Paris, 1827. A volume wsi published in 1826 entitl. d ' Les 

 Poesies iu&lite do Parny/ with a notice on his life and writings by 



'i . . ; ..'. 



PARR, CATHKU1NE. [HutBT VHL] 



PAUR, SAMUEL, was born in 1747, at llarrow-on-the-Uill, where 

 his father was a surgeon and apothecary. He was early distinguished 

 for hi. love of books aud his aptitude at learning. He received his 

 education at the grammar-school of Harrow, and gave the highest 

 satisfaction to the masters under whom he was placed, and who pre- 

 dicted bis future eminence. In hi* fifteenth year he was removed 

 from school and pat to tbe business of his father. But the progress 

 h* bad made in classical literature, and the intellectual habit* be had 

 formed, enabled him to continue his studies with the greatest advan- 

 tage and suoom. Being disgusted with the employment selected for 

 him, and having mrl displayed a grave and serious disposition, a 

 predilection for the clerical profession, and an attachment to eccle- 

 siastical pomp and ciscumsUnm. it was at length determined to send 

 him to tbe university. Accordingly, in 1765, in his nineteenth year, 

 be was entered at Kmmanuel College, Cambridge, where be applied 

 Wm*lf with great diligence to cla>sical and philological pursuits. 



it hi* father dying soon after, he was compelled, before he had taken 

 a degree, to relinquish his academic career, where so bright a prospect 

 wa* opening upon him, and ia 177 became one of the assistant* in 

 Harrow School In this situation he remained five yearn, with the 

 greatest credit to himself; and on the death of Dr. Sumner offered 



limsclf as a candidate for the vacant mastership, but without gu< 

 ilia youth was the ostensible, while in all probability his politics were 

 lie real objection against him in the mind of the governors. With 

 >itterness of spirit he now left the place of his birth snd the scenes of 

 lis boyhood, and kept a school successively at Stanmore, at Colchester, 

 and at Norwich. In 1786 he settled at Hatton in Warwickshire, to 

 the small living of which place he had been presented ; and here lie 

 spent the remainder of his life, in discharging the duties of his parish, 

 in the instruction of youth, and in accumulating those stores of philo- 

 logical learning for which he became so eminently distinguished. The 

 aigheet preferment ho obtained in the Church was a prebendal stall in 

 St Pauls. The Whigs, to whom he had attached himself, had few 

 opportunities of disposing of the patronage of the state ; and when 

 the occasion offered Lord Grenville, with cool ingratitude, urged 

 against him, who had so long and so faithfully served his party, his 

 unpopularity with the members of his profession. In fact while he 

 served his party he did not attach or fix himself upon the individuals 

 of his party. 



Parr was a man of great talents, of very extensive learning, and of 

 pre-eminent conversational powers ; but he was vain, arrogant, and 

 overbearing. His friends uniformly represent him as possessing much 

 benevolence and kindliness of feeling ; but he required tbe utmost 

 submission, and exacted the most devoted attention from all who 

 approached him, or he never hesitated about insulting and makiug 

 himself offensive to them. Neither can some of hia acts be altogether 

 reconciled, with the character of generosity ascribed to him. He 

 printed an edition of Bellendenus [BELLENDBNCS], with a preface, in 

 which he eulogised the eloquence and ability of the 'tria luuiiim 

 Anglorum' Lord North, Fox, and Burke; but he seems to have 

 undertaken the task rather for the sake of bearding his political foes 

 than passing an encomium upon his political friends. He if published 

 ' Tracts by Warburton and a Warburtouinn ' to annoy Bishop Hurd, 

 the editor of Warburtou; and felt no compunction about injuring the 

 fame of Warburton, whom he pretended to admire and respect, if he 

 could only annoy Hurd, who had given him no offence save what a 

 morbid self-conceit might imagine. In his literary and political dis- 

 putes he argued and declaimed with the fierceness of party-feeling 

 aud the petulance of self-love, and forgot alike both the equities and 

 the decencies of controversy. Though of unquestionable ability, he 

 spoke and wrote with the fluency of ready knowledge, rather than 

 with the profoundness of original thought or the compass of a philo- 

 sophic spirit He was a determined and violent Whig, rather than 

 one having right views or just sentiments with respect to freedom, as 

 his opinions on the Slave Trade and Test Act questions fully testify. 

 It must be stated however that on these subjects his mind underwent 

 a change in the latter part of his life. Still his notions about civil and 

 religious liberty were never the clearest or the most comprehensive; 

 for while he could recommend conciliation to the Roman Catholics and 

 the Unitarians, he did not hesitate to suggest persecution against tbe 

 Methodists. 



Parr left a vast mass of papers behind him, consisting of his corres- 

 pondence, and of historical, critical, and metaphysical disquisition. 

 His published writings, by Dr. Johustone, fill eight thick Svo volumes. 

 They are distinguished by a copious erudition, a ready conception, 

 and a vigorous and ample style. Hut he has left no great work ; nor 

 will his name go down to posterity associated with any important 

 principle or extensive literary undertaking. His fame rests upon a 

 learning which, whatever may have been its accuracy and extent, has 

 bequeathed to the world no memorable results, and upon a colloquial 

 power which, in the opinion of his admirers, left him, with the 

 exception of Dr. Johnson, without a rival He died in 1826, in the 

 teveiity-uiuth year of his age, and was buried at Hatton. 



PARUHA'SIUS, son and pupil of Evenor, was a native of Ephesus, 

 but became a citizen of Athens. Ha raised the art of painting to per- 

 fection in all that ia exalted and essential He compared bin three 

 great predecessors with one another, rejected that which was excep- 

 tionable, and adopted that which was admirable in each. The classic 

 invention of Polygnotus, the magic tone of Apollodorus, and the 

 exquisite design of Zeuxis, were all united in the works of Parrbasiua; 

 what they had produced in practice he reduced to theory. He so 

 circumscribed and defined, says Quintilian (' lust Or.,' xii. 10), all the 

 powers and objects of art, that he was termed the Legislator ; and all 

 contemporary and subsequent artiste adopted hi* standard of divine 

 and heroic proportions. 



Parrhasius himself was aware of his ability : he assumed the epithet 

 of the Elegant ('Alpojfcuroi), and styled himself Prince of Painters ; 

 he wrote an epigram upon himself (Atheneeua, xii. p. 543, Cosaub.), in 

 which he proclaimed hi* birth-place, celebrated his father, and pre- 

 tended that in himself the art of painting had attained perfection. He 

 also declared himself to be descended from Apollo, and carried his 

 arrogance so far as to dedicate his own portrait in a temple as 

 Mercury, and thus receive the adoration of tbe multitude. (Themist, 

 xiv.) He wore a purple robe and a golden garland; he carried a 

 staff wound round with tendrils of gold, and his sandals were bound 

 with golden straps. (^Elian, ' Var. Hist,' ix. 11.) It appears then 

 that Pliny justly terms him the most insolent and most arrogant of 

 artists. ('Hist. Nat,' xxxv. 10, 36.) 



The branch of art in which Parrhasius eminently excelled was a 



