I hardly know whether this can be discovered, or if it is, whether it does not arise from the graver and more important subject of the narrative.[1]
"The compass of Parnell's poetry (says a critic of genius and taste) is not extensive, but its tone is peculiarly delightful; not from mere correctness of expression, to which some critics have stinted its praises, but from the graceful and reserved sensibility that accompanied his polished phraseology. The curiosa felicitas, the studied happiness of his diction does not spoil its simplicity. His poetry is like a flower that has been trained and planted by the skill of the gardener, but which preserves in its cultured state the natural fragrance of its wilder air."[2]
In the observations which have been made on the poetry of Parnell, I have confined myself to those productions which were first published by Pope, and subsequently reprinted by Goldsmith;[3]
- ↑ "This poem (the Hermit) is held in just esteem; the versification being chaste and tolerably harmonious, and the story told with perspicuity and conciseness." Goldsmith's Beauties of Eng. Poetry, vol. i. p. 29.
- ↑ See Campbell's Specimens of British Poetry, vol. iv, p. 409.
- ↑ Goldsmith added two poems to those in Pope's volume, viz. 'Piety or the Vision,' and 'Bacchus.' He says that they were first communicated to the public by the late ingenious Mr. James Arbuckle, and published in his Hibernicus's Letters, No. 62; but they were printed in the Posthumous Works of Parnell, 1758, p. 213. 277. Mr. Ni-
