Thomas Parnell was an Anglo-Irish poet and clergyman who was a friend of both Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift.
He was the son of Thomas Parnell of Maryborough, Queen's County , a prosperous landowner who had been a loyal supporter of Cromwell during the English Civil War and moved to Ireland after the restoration of the monarchy. Thomas was educated at Trinity College, Dublin and collated archdeacon of Clogher in 1705.He however spent much of his time in London, where he participated with Pope, Swift and others in the Scriblerus Club, contributing to The Spectator and aiding Pope in his translation of The Iliad. He was also one of the so-called "Graveyard poets": his 'A Night-Piece on Death,' widely considered the first "Graveyard School" poem, was published posthumously in Poems on Several Occasions, collected and edited by Alexander Pope and is thought by some scholars to have been published in December 1721 . It is said of his poetry, "it was in keeping with his character, easy and pleasing, enunciating the common places with felicity and grace."He died in Chester in 1718 on his way home to Ireland. His wife and children having died, his Laois estate passed to his brother John, a judge and MP in the Irish House of Commons and the ancestor of Charles Stewart Parnell.Oliver Goldsmith wrote a biography of Parnell which often accompanied later editions of Parnell's works. Wikipedia
from the poem Piety, or the Vision.
“Let those love now who never loved before;
Let those who always loved, now love the more.”
Translation of the Pervigilium Veneris, written in the time of Julius Caesar, and by some ascribed to Catullus: Cras amet qui numquam amavit; Quique amavit, cras amet.
“Still an angel appear to each lover beside,
But still be a woman to you.”
When thy Beauty appears.
