sing with success at that theatre and at Her Majesty's, her ‘creations’ including the title-part of Mellon's ‘Victorine’ (1859), La Reine Topaze in Massé's opera of that name (1860), and Mabel in Macfarren's ‘Helvellyn’ (1864, Covent Garden) [see Macfarren, Sir George Alexander]. She also appeared at the Philharmonic concerts in 1860, and at the Handel festivals of 1862 and 1865. About the beginning of 1864 Mademoiselle Parepa married a captain in the British army, named Henry de Wolfe Carvell, who died sixteen months later (26 April 1865) at Lima, Peru (Grove, Dict. of Music, ii. 694a). In 1866 she made a professional tour through America under the direction of Maurice Strakosch and Bateman (ib. iii. 734b), and there met Carl Rosa [q. v.], to whom she was married in New York on 26 Feb. 1867. Shortly afterwards the Parepa-Rosa English Opera Company was formed and remained a conspicuous feature in American musical life for the next few years, and its promoters made a considerable fortune (Musical Times, 1 June 1889, p. 348).
The spring and summer of 1871 Carl Rosa and his wife spent in England. In 1872 Madame Parepa-Rosa made her last appearance in London during the Covent Garden season, when she was heard on three occasions as Donna Anna and Norma (Athenæum, 24 Jan. 1874), and at the Philharmonic, where she sang ‘Ah! perfido!’ The winter of 1872–3 was passed in Cairo, where, at the Grand Opera, she played in ‘Ruy Blas’ on 11 Feb. 1873, and on 25 March in that year a great benefit performance was given at Cairo in her honour. Later in the year she was in England, rehearsing the part of Elsa in an English version of ‘Lohengrin,’ which her husband had arranged to produce at Drury Lane in March 1874. But before the performance took place she died at 10 Warwick Crescent, Maida Vale, on 21 Jan. 1874. She was buried at Highgate cemetery on 26 Jan.
Madame Parepa-Rosa had a fine, sympathetic soprano voice of two and a half octaves in range, and an admirable stage presence. She seems to have achieved greater success on the concert platform than on the stage.
A ‘Parepa-Rosa’ scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music was endowed by Carl Rosa in memory of his wife in 1874.
[Musical World, 1873 pp. 113–265, 1874 pp. 50, 54, 70, &c.; Arcadian, March 1874; Times, 23 Jan. 1874.]
PARFEW or PURFOY, ROBERT (d. 1558), bishop of St. Asaph, Hereford. [See Warton.]
PARFITT, EDWARD (1820–1893), naturalist, born at East Tuddenham, Norfolk, on 17 Oct. 1820, was son of Edward Parfitt (1800–1875) by his wife, Violet Howlet (1800–1836). The father was head gardener to Lord Hastings. Parfitt was educated at East Tuddenham and Honingham, and studied gardening under his father; he then became successively gardener to Anthony Gwyn of Sennow Lodge, Norfolk, and John Hay Hill, Gressinghall House, near East Dereham, and subsequently went on a voyage for scientific purposes. He was wrecked near the Cape of Good Hope, and an enforced stay in the colony intensified his taste for botany and entomology. Returning to England, he became in 1848 gardener to John Milford, Coaver House, Exeter. In 1859 he was appointed curator to the Archæological and Natural History Society of Somerset, a post which on 26 Jan. 1861 he exchanged for that of librarian to the Devon and Exeter Institute and Library at Exeter. He died on 15 Jan. 1893, having married on 23 Dec. 1850, at Exeter, Mary, eldest daughter of Thomas and Elizabeth Cooper of Exeter, and widow of James Sanders.
Parfitt left a manuscript work on the fungi of Devonshire, in twelve volumes, illustrated by 1530 plates, drawn and painted by himself. He also contributed numerous papers to the ‘Transactions’ of the Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Science, ‘Annals and Magazine of Natural History,’ ‘Entomological Magazine,’ ‘Naturalist,’ and ‘Transactions’ of the Royal Microscopical Society.
[Boase's Collectanea Cornubiensia, col. 651; Natural Science, April 1893.]
PARFRE, JHAN (fl. 1512), is usually described as the author of a mystery-play entitled ‘Candlemas Day.’ The play, which was long quoted as ‘Parfre's Candlemas Day,’ was written in English verse in the fifteenth century, and was prepared for the great annual Corpus Christi exhibitions. It deals mainly with Herod and the massacre of the Innocents. From the unique manuscript which is in the Bodleian Library (Digby 133), it was printed for the first time in 1773 in Hawkins's ‘Origin of the English Drama,’ and was reissued by the Abbotsford Club in 1835 in ‘Ancient Mysteries from the Digby MSS.’ At the end of the manuscript appear the words ‘Jhan Parfre ded wryte thys booke Anno D'ni Mill'mo CCCCCXIJ.’ It is clear from these words that Parfre was the copyist of the Digby MS., and that he prefers no claim to be regarded as the author of the
