talents as a companion, and his good nature as a man. Pope was particularly fond of his company, and seems to regret his absence more than the rest. The letters which he addressed to Parnell will be read with interest; they bear ample testimony of his affection, and show that Pope knew and respected Parnell's acquirements as a scholar.[1] From one of the letters it appears, that Parnell assisted him in the translation of the Scholiasts and Commentators[2] on Homer, a task afterwards more fully performed by Jortin. Pope's scanty and superficial knowledge of Greek must have made this assistance of great value; nor am I aware that the translator of Homer numbered among his friends, another scholar of equal acquirements.[3] Gay, as Goldsmith observes, was obliged to him on another account; for being always poor, he was not above receiving from Parnell the copy-money which the latter got for his writings.
- ↑ Warton, vol. viii. p. 301–313, vii. 299.
- ↑ See Pope's Letters (Warton's ed.), vol. viii. p. 276, Let. lxxxviii. 'The first gentleman who undertook the task of making extracts from Eustathius, and who grew weary.' Was this person Parnell, or some one else, whose name has not reached us?
- ↑ In the Posthumous Poems (Elysium) he gives a wrong quantity to Laodamia, p. 268,
Fair Laodamia mourns her nuptial right,' &c.
which perhaps he took from Dryden's Ovid, who uses the word Deidamia, with the penultimate syllable short.
