431 
PAR 
Jiope that none of our readers will ever be in the painful 
fituation of being obliged to decide. 
PA'RENT, a town of Pruflia, in Pomerelia : ten miles 
north of Marienburg. 
PAREN'T (Anthony), a refpeCtable French mathe¬ 
matician, was born at Paris in 1666. He was adopted, 
when only three years of age, by a maternal uncle, the 
cure of Leves near Chartres, who was a worthy divine 
and able naturalift, and undertook himfelf to educate his 
nephew in the elements of learning. Under his inflruc- 
tions young Parent was well grounded in the principles 
of piety, to which he continued Readily attached through 
life ; and he was encouraged and aflilted in the early pro- 
penlity which he difcovered to the Rudy of the mathe¬ 
matics. Such books in this fcience as fell in his way, he 
perufed with great eagernefs ; and it was his cuftom, as 
he read them, to write remarks in the margins. Purfuing 
this practice, when he was only thirteen years of age, he 
had filled a number of books with a kind of commentary, 
which excited no little furprife in able mailers. At the 
age of fourteen, he was fent to board with a tutor in rhe¬ 
toric at Chartres; and, while he was purfuing this courfe, 
he accidentally met with a dodecaedron, upon every face 
of which was delineated a fun-dial, excepting the lowed, 
upon which it Rood. Struck as it were inllantaneoufly 
with the curiofity of thefe dials, he attempted to draw 
one himfelf; but, as he poReRed a book which taught 
only the practical part, without the theory, it was not 
till after his maRer had explained to him the doflrine of 
the fphere, that he was able to underRand how the pro¬ 
jection of the circles of the fphere formed fun-dials. He 
now undertook to write a treatife “ upon Gnomonics 
which, it mult be acknowledged, was rude and unpolifhed 
enough. However, imperfeft as it was, it had the merit 
of being his own invention ; as was, likewife, a book “ on 
Geometry,” in the fame tafle, which he wrote about the 
fame time at Beauvais. 
When he had finiflted his courfe of rhetoric, his rela¬ 
tions fent for him to Paris, with a view to his Rudyi ( ng 
the law, which had been his father’s profeRion. Out of 
compliance with their wilhes, he went through a courfe 
in that faculty ; but no fooner was it completed, than he 
betook himfelf, with increafed ardour, to thofe purfuirs 
which accorded belt with his genius and inclination. 
That he might meet with no interruption in his favourite 
Rudies, he Ihut himfelf up in the college of Dormans, 
where, with good books, and an income of not more than 
two hundred livres, he lived contented, feldom Rirring 
from his retreat but when he went to the college-royal, 
to attend the leftures of M. de la Hire, or M. Sauveur. 
As foon as he thought himfelf capable of teaching others, 
he took pupils ; and, fortification being a branch of Rudy 
which the war had brought into particular notice, he fre¬ 
quently had occafion to teach that fcience. After fome 
time, he began to entertain fcruples about undertaking 
to teach a fubjeCt of which he had no practical knowledge, 
and communicated them to M. Sauveur. Upon this, 
that friend recommended him to the marquis d’Alegre, 
who fortunately at that time wanted the afiifiance of an 
able mathematician, and engaged M. Parent in his luite. 
With this officer our author made two campaigns, during 
which he had fufficient opportunities to inform himfelf 
refpeCiing the nature of fortified places, approaches, &c. 
of which he drew a number of plans, though he had never 
been inRrudted in the art of drawing. 
Upon his return to Paris, M. Parent fpent his time in 
a continual application to the Rudy of natural philofophy, 
and all the branches of the mathematics, both fpeculative 
and practical, to which he added that of anatomy, botany, 
and chemiRry : his genius and indefatigable induRry en¬ 
abling him to furmount the difficulties attendant on the 
acquifition of any fcience. In the year 1699, M. Fillau 
des Billettes, having been.admitted a member of the Aca¬ 
demy of Sciences at Paris, with the title of their mechani¬ 
cian, nominated M. Parent for his eleve , or difciple, who 
PAR 
particularly excelled in that branch of mathematics. 
Soon after his admiffion into the fociety, it was difcovered, 
that he directed his attention to all the fubjefts that came 
before them, and that he was competent to the inveRiga- 
tion of every topic which was recommended to their no¬ 
tice. But this extent of ability and compafs of know¬ 
ledge which he poffieRed, joined to a natural warmth and 
impetuofity of temper, excited a fpirit of contradiction in 
him, which he indulged upon all occafions ; fometimes to 
a degree of precipitancy that was highly culpable, and too 
often but with little regard to decency. It is true, indeed, 
that fome fiery fpirits Ihowed the fame behaviour towards 
him, to which he gave the firR provocation ; and the 
papers which he brought to the academy were often 
treated with much feverity. To fuch attacks he laid 
himfelf open in his beR pieces, by a want of perfpicuity 
and method which greatly detracted from their value, 
and was the caufe why his works never met with a cir¬ 
culation proportioned to the excellence of the matter 
contained in them. In the year 1716, the king efiablilhed 
a new regulation for the academy, by w'hich the clafs of 
eleves was l'upprefled, as it created a diRinCtion that 
feemed to put too great an inequality between the mem¬ 
bers. On this occafion M. Parent was made an adjunct, 
or affiRant member, of the clafs of geometry ; though he 
enjoyed this appointment only for a very Ihort time, be¬ 
ing cut ofl’ by the fmall-pox in the fame year, when he 
was about the age of fifty. NotwithRanding his conten¬ 
tious and irritable difpofition, and a forbidding aulterity 
and roughnefs of manners by which he was diRinguilhed, 
he is faid to have pofiefled great goodnefs of heart; and, 
though his fortune was very limited, he devoted a con- 
fiderable fltare of it to a£ts of beneficence and charity. 
Befides leaving many works behind him in manufeript, 
he publilhed, 3. Elements of Mechanics and natural Plii- 
lofophy, 1700, nmo. 4. Mathematical and Phyfical Re- 
learches ; a kind of Journal, which firR appeared in 1705, 
in nmo. and afterwards greatly augmented in 1712, in 
3 vols. 410. 5. A theoretico-pradical Treatife on Arith¬ 
metic, 1714, 8vo. He was alfo the author of a multitude 
of papers in the difierent French Journals, and, in the 
volumes of the Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences, 
from the year 1700 to 1714, feveral papers in almoR every 
volume, upon a great variety of mathematical fubjects. 
Fontenelle's Eloge in the Ilijl. of the Acad, of Sciences. 
Hutton''s Math. Did. 
PA'RENTAGE, f. Extraction ; birth ; condition with 
refpeCt to the rank of parents.—We find him not only 
boafiing of his parentage, as an Ifraelite at large, but par¬ 
ticularizing his defeent from Benjamin. Atterbury. 
A gentleman of noble parentage. 
Of fair demeafns, youthful, and nobly allied. Shakefp. 
PAREN'TAL, atlj. Becoming parents; pertaining to 
parents.—Young ladies, on whom parental controul fits 
heavily, give a man of intrigue loom to think, that they 
want to be parents. Richardfon's Clariffa. 
PARENTA'LIA, J\ in antiquity, funeral obfeq.uies, 
or the lafi duties paid by children to their deceafed 
parents. 
Parentalia is alfo ufed for a facrifice or folemn fer- 
vice offered annually to the manes of the dead. 
PARENTA'TION, f. [from parento, Lat.] Something 
done or laid in honour of the dead.—Some other cere¬ 
monies were praftiled, which difl’ered not much from thole 
ufed in parentatious. Potter's Antiq. of Greece. 
Let fortune this new parentation make 
For hated Carthage’s dire fpirits’ fake; 
Let bloody Hannibal, and Punick ghoRs, 
Of this fad Roman expiation boaR. May's Lucan. 
PAREN'TELA. De parentela fe tollcre, in ancient 
cuRoms, fignified a renunciation of one’s kindred and 
family. This was done in open court, before the judge, 
and in the prefence of twelve men, who made oath, that 
they 
