PARNY PARR. 



425 



the archdeaconry of Clogher. He was connected 

 with Addison, Congreve, Steele, and other whigs in 

 power ; but, towards the latter part of queen Anne's 

 reign, when the tories became triumphant, he desert- 

 ed his former friends, and linked himself with Swift, 

 Pope, Gay, and Arbuthnot. He afforded Pope some 

 assistance in his translation of Homer, and wrote the 

 Life prefixed to it ; but, being a very bad prose writer, 

 Pope had a great deal of trouble in correcting it. 

 He contributed to the Origin of the Sciences, and 

 wrote the Life of Zoilus, as a satire on Dennis and 

 Theobald, with whom the Scriblerus club had long 

 been at variance. By Swift's recommendation, he 

 obtained a prebend and the valuable living of Fin- 

 glass, but finally contracted habits of intemperance, 

 which shortened his life. He died in 1717. A col- 

 lection of his poems was published by Pope after his 

 death. They are pleasing, and possess fancy, ease, 

 sprightliness, and melody of versification ; while 

 their sentiments are elegant, and morality pure. 

 Another posthumous volume was published at Dublin, 

 in 1758. 



PA RNY, CHEVALIER EVARIST DE, called the French 

 Tibulhis. was born, in the Isle of France, in 1742, 

 went to France in 1753, studied at Paris and Rennes, 

 was for some time seized with a religious zeal, and 

 wished to become a Trappist, but finally entered the 

 military service. He then returned to the Isle of 

 France, where a disappointed passion for a young 

 girl, known to us under the name of ElSonore, made 

 him a poet. Grace and tenderness of sentiment, 

 depth of feeling, richness of imagination, united with 

 harmony, and ease of versification, were the charac- 

 teristics of his elegies, which placed him in the first 

 rank of classical French poets. His Epitre aux In- 

 surgents de Boston (Epistle to the Boston Rebels), 

 published in 1777, deprived him of any hopes of 

 ministerial favour. Besides his elegies, he also wrote 

 La Guerre des Dieux, Le Portefeuille vole, and Les 

 Rosecroix. The first of these poems an attempt to 

 throw ridicule on Christianity was an imitation of 

 Voltaire's Pucelle. In the second work above men- 

 tioned, Les Deguisements de Venus is distinguished 

 for grace and freshness of description. Several other 

 works of Parny, which it is unnecessary to mention, 

 were violations of the rules of decency and good 

 morals, and he was in consequence excluded from 

 the institute on its first organization. In 1808, how- 

 ever, he was admitted into that body. His death 

 took place in December, 1814. 



PA RODY. The Greeks gave this name to humor- 

 ous poems, or to parts of them, in which whole pas- 

 sages or single expressions were taken from serious 

 compositions. Athenaeus has preserved a poem of 

 this kind by Matron, and calls Hipponax the inven- 

 tor ; but, according to Pristotle, Hegemon of Thasus 

 invented them. Aristophanes is full of such parodies. 

 By parody, at present, is generally meant a composi- 

 tion in which a serious composition has been trans- 

 formed by changing its subject into another, either 

 serious or comic, most commonly the latter ; hence a 

 parody, in its narrower sense, is the same as a traves- 

 ty. In a still narrower sense, parody means a poem 

 in which merely the chief personages and ideas are 

 changed, but the subordinate parts and the whole tone 

 are preserved, as in the Battle of the Frogs and Mice. 

 Contrast is the chief instrument of parody, and as 

 mere contrast, by exciting surprise, often produces, 

 for a time, the effect of wit, poor parodies often 

 please for a moment by boldness in applying the 

 gravest expressions to the most comic subjects, or 

 the reverse. 



PAROLE ; a term signifying any thing done ver- 

 bally, or by word of mouth, in contradistinction to 

 what is written ; thus an agreement may be by 



parole. Evidence, also, may be divided into parole 

 evidence and written evidence. See Evidence. 



In military affairs, a promise given by a prisoner 

 of war, when he has leave to depart from custody, 

 that he will return at the time appointed unless dis- 

 charged. It is also used for a word given out every 

 day in orders by a commanding officer, in a camp or 

 garrison, by which friends may be distinguished from 

 enemies. 



PARONOMASIA ; a rhetorical figure by which 

 different ideas are expressed by words of similar 

 sound or the same extraction, in order to make the 

 difference more striking ; for instance : 



Not friends, but fiends, are here. 



PAROQUET. See Parrot. 



PAROS ; an island of the Grecian Archipelago, 

 in the Central Cyclades, to the west of Naxos, with 

 a population of 2000 Greeks. The island is moun- 

 tainous, but fertile and well cultivated ; square miles 

 100. Pares was celebrated, in ancient times, for its 

 marble, which was remarkable for its whiteness and 

 firmness, and withstood the action of the weather 

 better than any other sort. (See Marble.) The 

 famous Parian chronicle was taken hence in 1627. 

 (See Arundelian Marbles.) Many remains of ancient 

 buildings are still found in the island. Near it lies 

 the island of Antiparos, with 500 inhabitants. It 

 was the birth-place of Phidias and Praxiteles, and 

 contains a celebrated grotto or cave, full of fine 

 stalactites. 



PAROXYSM OF A FEVER. See Fever. 



PARR, CATHARINE. See Catharine Parr. 



PARR, SAMUEL,a learned divine and eminent critic, 

 was the son of an apothecary of Harrow, in Mid- 

 dlesex, where he was born in 1747. At the age of 

 six, he was admitted into the celebrated school of 

 his native place, which he headed in his fourteenth 

 year. He entered Emmanuel college, Cambridge ; 

 but, unable to support the expense, accepted the 

 situation of usher at Harrow. In 1769, he entered 

 into deacon's orders, and, in 1771, was created 

 A.M. at Cambridge, by royal mandate, for the pur- 

 pose of qualifyirg him to succeed doctor Sumner, in 

 the mastership of Harrow school ; but, not succeed- 

 ing, he opened a school at Stanmore, and in 1776, 

 became master of the grammar school at Colchester, 

 whence, in 1778, he removed to take charge of that 

 of Norwich. In 1783, he obtained the perpetual 

 curacy of Hatton, in Warwickshire, where he after- 

 wards resided, and was presented by bishop Lowth 

 to a prebend in the cathedral of St Paul. In 1802, 

 Sir Francis Burdett presented him to the valuable 

 living of Graffham, in the county of Huntingdon. 

 Doctor Parr commenced his career as an author in 

 1760, by the publication of Two Sermons on Educa- 

 tion ; and, in the following year, printed a Discourse 

 on the late Fast, which, in consequence of its allusion 

 to the contest with America, excited great atten- 

 tion. In 1787, he assisted his friend Henry Homer in 

 a new edition of the learned Scotsman William Bel- 

 lenden (Bellendenus). This republication he inscribed 

 to Messrs Fox and Burke, and lord North, the 

 character of whose oratory he drew with uncommon 

 elegance, force, and felicity. Making use of the 

 same opportunity to assail that of their political 

 opponents, he put an end to all hopes of preferment 

 from government, on which account a subscription 

 was made by the whig club, which secured him an 

 annuity of .300 per annum. In 1789, he repub- 

 lished the Tracts by Warburton and a Warburtonian, 

 to which he prefixed some severe strictures on bishop 

 Hurd. In 1790, he engaged in the controversy on 

 the real authorship of White's Bampton Lectures, 

 from which it appeared that his own share in them 



