the Parnell family preserves a mass of unpublished poems from the pen
of his relative. We trust that he will long and religiously refrain
from disturbing their MS. slumbers.

The whole tenor of Parnell's history convinces us that he was an
easy-tempered, kind-hearted, yet querulous and self-indulgent man, who
had no higher motive or object than to gratify himself. His very
ambition aspired not to very lofty altitudes. His utmost wish was to
attain a metropolitan pulpit, where he could have added the reputation
of a popular preacher to that of being the _protégé_ of Swift, and the
pet of the Scriblerus Club. The character of his poetry is in keeping
with the temperament of the man. It is slipshod, easy, and pleasing.
If the distinguishing quality of poetry be to give pleasure, then
Parnell is a poet. You never thrill under his power, but you read him
with a quiet, constant, subdued gratification. If never eminently
original, he has the art of enunciating common-places with felicity and
grace. The stories he relates are almost all old, but his manner of
telling them is new. His thoughts and images are mostly selected from
his common-place book; but he utters them with such a natural ease of
manner, that you are tempted to think them his own. He knows the
compass of his poetical powers, and never attempts anything very lofty
or arduous. His "Allegory on Man,"--pronounced by Johnson his
best,--seems rather a laborious than a fortunate effusion. His "Hymn
to Contentment" is animated, as the subject required, by a kind of
sober rapture. His "Faery Tale" is a good imitation of that old style
of composition. His "Hesiod" catches the classical tone and spirit
with considerable success. His "Flies," and "Elegy to the Old Beauty,"
are ingenious trifles. His "Nightpiece on Death" has fine touches, but
is slight for such a theme, and must not be named beside Blair's
"Grave," and Gray's "Elegy written in a Country Churchyard." His