Parnell, for some years the respected member of Parliament for the
town of Dundee, where we now write, was the great-great-grandson of
the poet's father. Parnell was born in Dublin, in the year 1679. He
was sent to a school taught by one Dr Jones. Here he is said to have
distinguished himself by the readiness and retentiveness of his
memory; often performing the task allotted for days in a few hours,
and being able to repeat forty lines in any book of poems, after the
first reading. It is a proof of the prematurity of his powers, that he
entered Trinity College, Dublin, at the age of thirteen, where his
compositions attracted attention from the extent of classical lore
which they discovered. He took the degree of M.A. in 1700; and the
same year (through a dispensation on account of being under age) was
ordained deacon by the Bishop of Deny. Three years after, he was
ordained priest; and in 1705, he was made Archdeacon of Clogher, by
Sir George Ashe, bishop of that see. So soon as he received the
archdeanery, he married Miss Ann Minchin, who is described as a young
lady of great beauty, and of an amiable character, by whom he had two
sons, who died young, and a daughter, who long survived both
her parents.

Up to the triumph of the Tories, at the end of Queen Anne's reign,
Parnell appears to have been, like his father, a keen Whig. He was at
that time, however, induced, for motives which his biographers call
obscure, but which to us seem obvious enough, on the well-known
principle of the popularity of the rising sun, to change his party;
and he was hailed by the Tories as a valuable accession to their
ranks. This proves that his talents were even then known; a fact
corroborated by Johnson's statement, that while he was waiting in the
outer-room at Lord Oxford's levee, the prime minister, when told he
was there, went out, at the persuasion of Swift, with his treasurer's