ginally a merchant at Dieppe, where he was born in 1494, and became famous by means of his voyages, and his taste for the sciences. He died in the island of Sumatra, A. D. 1530, being then only thirty-six. The collection of his verses in 4to, printed in 1536, is entitled "Description nouvelle des Dignités de ce Monde, et de la Dignité de l'homme, composée en rithme Françoise et en maniere d'exhortation, par Jean Parmentier avec plusieur chants Royaulx, et une Moralité a l'Honneur de la Vierge, mise par personaiges; plus la déploration sur la mort dudit Parmentier et son frere, composée par Pierre Crignon." This book is very rare. Crignon, who published it, was Parmentier's particular friend, and thus speaks of him: "From the year 1522, he had applied to the practice of cosmography, on the great fluctuations of the sea; he became very profound in astrology; he composed several maps, spherical and plain, which have been used with success in navigation. He was a man worthy to be known by all the learned; and capable, if he had lived, of doing honour to his country by great enterprises. He was the first pilot who conducted vessels to the Brasils, and the first Frenchman who discovered the Indies, as far as the island Samothra or Sumatra, named Taprobane by the ancients. He reckoned also upon going to the Moluccas; and he has told me several times, that when he should return to France, his intention was to seek a passage to the North, and to make discoveries from thence to the South." Another work by him is entitled "Moralités très-excellens en l'honneur de la benoiste Vierge Marie; mise en rime Françoise et en personnaiges, par Jehan Parmentier," Paris, 1531, 4to, black letter. This also is extremely scarce, but is reprinted in the "Description nouvelle," &c.1

PARMIGIANO (IL), whose family name was Francis Mazzuoli, is more generally called PARMIGIANO, from Parma, where he was born in 1503. He studied under two

uncles, Michele and Philip, but the chief model of his imitation was Correggio, from whose works, compared with those of Michael Angelo, Raphael, and Julio, he formed that peculiar style for which he is celebrated. He displayed his natural genius for painting so very early, that at sixteen he is said to have produced designs which would have done honour to an experienced painter. His first public

1 Diet. Hist.-Brunet Manuel du Libraire.

work, the St. Eustachius, in the church of St. Petronius, in Bologna, was done when he was a boy. In 1527, when Rome was sacked by the emperor Charles V. Parmigiano was found, like Protogenes at Rhodes, so intent upon his work as not to notice the confusion of the day. The event is variously related; some say that he escaped, like the ancient artist, from all violence, by the admiration of the soldiers; others, that he was plundered by them of his pictures, though his person was safe; the first party who came taking only a few, while those who followed swept away the rest. His turn for music, and particularly his talent for playing on the lute, in some degree seduced him from his principal pursuit; and Vasari says he was much diverted from his art by the quackery of the alchymists; but this fact has by some writers been questioned. He died of a violent fever, in 1540, at the early age of 36.

The ruling features, says Mr. Fuseli, of Parmigiano's style, are elegance of form, grace of countenance, contrast in attitude, enchanting chiaro-scuro, and blandishments of colour. When these are pure, he is inimitable; but his elegance is often stretched to excessive slenderness, his grace deformed by affectation, contrast driven to extravagance, and from the attempt to anticipate the beauties which time alone can give, his shade presents often nothing but a pitchy mass, and his lights a faded bloom. The taste of Parmigiano was exquisite, but it led him more to imitate the effects than the principles of his masters; with less comprehension than ardour, he adopted the grace of Raphael, the contrasts of Michael Angelo, the harmony of Correggio, without adverting that they were founded on propriety, energy, and grandeur of conception, and the permanent principles of chiaro-scuro; hence the cautious precept of Agostino Caracci, which confines his pupil to a little of Parmigiano's grace.

Parmigiano was a learned designer; to his depth in design we must ascribe that freedom of execution, those decided strokes of his pencil, which Albano calls divine, and which add grace to the finish of his pictures; they have not, indeed, all equal" impasto" of colour, nor equal effect, though some, for the amore with which they are

It is said that at this dangerous time he was employed on the famous picture of the Vision, which the mar

quis of Abercorn purchased in Italy for 1500l. and sold to Mr. Davis, of Bristol, in 1809, for 3000 guineas.

conducted, have been ascribed to Correggio; such is the Cupid scooping his bow, with the two infants at his feet, one laughing, the other crying, of which there are several repetitions. We see indeed, some of the pictures of Parmigiano so often repeated, that though we may grant them the respect due to age, we can scarcely allow them all the praise of originality. Such is, among his lesser works, the picture of the Madonna with the Infant, St. John and St. Catherine, and the head of St. Zaccharia, or some other sainted elder, in the fore-ground; its duplicates are nearly spread over every gallery of Italy. His altar-pieces are not numerous, and the most valued of them is perhaps that of St. Marguerita, in Bologna, a composition rich in figures, contemplated with admiration, and studied by the Caracci; Guido even preferred it to the St. Cecilia of Raphael. The last of his works is the "Moses breaking the Tables," at Parma, in which, says sir Joshua Reynolds, we are at a loss which to admire most, the correctness of drawing, or the grandeur of the conception. The etchings of Parmigiano, models of freedom, taste, and delicacy, are universally known.

Parmigiano had a cousin and pupil, G. Mazzuoli, who is little known beyond Parma and its districts, though for "impasto," and the whole mystery of colour, he has few equals. There is reason to believe that several pictures ascribed to Francis, especially those of a stronger and gayer tone, have been painted by this artist. He was more attached to the style of Correggio than Francis, and seized its character with great felicity in the Nuptials of St. Catherine, in the church del Carmine. He excelled in perspective, and in the Last Supper, in the refectory of S. Giovanni, placed and painted a colonnade with all the illusion of Pozzo. To the most harmonious chiaro-scuro, he added grandeur, variety, vivacity, in fresco. None of his fellow artists equalled him in copiousness, fertility, and execution; and to these perhaps we may ascribe the inequality perceptible in his works. He flourished about 1580, and had a son Alexander, who painted in the dome of Parma, in 1571. He was a feeble imitator of the family style.'

PARNELL (THOMAS), a very pleasing English poet, was descended from an ancient family, settled for some

Argenville, vol. II.-Pilkington, by Fuseli.-Reynolds's Works, vol. II. p. 194.

centuries at Congleton, in Cheshire. His father, of the same name, was attached to the republican party in the reign of Charles I.; and on the restoration found it convenient to go over to Ireland, carrying with him a large personal fortune, with which he purchased estates in that kingdom. These, with the lands he had in Cheshire, descended to the poet, who was born in 1679, in Dublin. In this city he was educated, and entered of Trinity-college, Dublin, at the age of thirteen. He became M. A. in 1700, and in the same year was ordained deacon, although under the canonical age, by a dispensation from the primate. Three years after he was admitted into priest's orders, and in 1705, Dr. Ashe, bishop of Clogher, conferred upon him the archdeaconry of Clogher. About the same time, he married miss Anne Minchin, an amiable lady, by whom he had two sons, who died young, and a daughter who long survived him.

He had by this time given some occasional specimens of his poetical talent, but his ruling passion led him to the enjoyments of social life, and the company of men of wit and learning; and as this was a taste he could gratify at home but in a very small degree, he contrived many excursions to London, where he became a favourite. From some letters published by his biographer, Dr. Goldsmith, we learn that he was admired for his talents as a companion, and his good nature as a man; but with all this, it is acknowledged, that his temper was unequal, and that he was always too much elevated, or too much depressed. It is added, indeed, that he was sensible of this; but his attempts to remove his spleen were rather singular. Goldsmith tells us, that, when under its influence, he would fly with all expedition to the remote parts of Ireland, and there make out a gloomy kind of satisfaction in giving hideous descriptions of the solitude to which he retired. Having tried this imaginary remedy for some time, he used to collect his revenues, and set out again for England to enjoy the conversation of his friends, lord Oxford, Swift, Pope, Arbuthnot, and Gay. With Pope he had a more than usual share of intimacy. Pope highly respected him, and they exchanged opinions on each other's productions with freedom and candour. He afforded Pope some assistance in his translation of Homer, and wrote the life prefixed to it; but Parnell was a very bad prose-writer, and Pope had more trouble in correcting this life than it would have cost

him to write it. Being intimate with all the Scriblerus' tribe, he contributed the "Origin of the Sciences" and also wrote the "Life of Zoilus," as a satire on Dennis and Theobald, with whom the club had long been at variance. To the Spectator and Guardian he contributed a few papers of very considerable merit, in the form of "Visions."

It seems probable that he had an ambition to rise by political interest. When, the Whigs were ejected, in the end of queen Anne's, reign, he was persuaded to change his party, not without much censure from those whom he forsook, and was received by the earl of Oxford and the new ministry as a valuable reinforcement. When Oxford was told that Dr. Parnell waited among the crowd in the outer room, he went, by the persuasion of Swift, with his treasurer's staff in his hand, to inquire for him, and to bid him welcome; and, as may be inferred from Pope's dedication, admitted him as a favourite companion to his convivial hours; but it does not appear that all this was followed by preferment. Parnell also, conceiving himself qualified to become a popular preacher, displayed his elocution with great success in the pulpits of London; but the queen's death putting an end to his expectations, abated his diligence, and from that time he fell into a habit of intemperance, which greatly injured his health. The death of his wife is said to have first driven him to this miserable resource.

Having been warmly recommended by Swift to archbishop King, this prelate gave him a prebend in 1713, and in May 1716, presented him to the vicarage of Finglass, in the diocese of Dublin, worth 400l. a-year. "Such notice," says Dr. Johnson, "from such a man, inclines me to believe, that the vice of which he has been accused was not gross, or not notorious." But he enjoyed these preferments little more than a year, for in July 1717 he died at Chester, on his way to Ireland, in his thirty-eighth year. Dying without male issue, his estate, but considerably embarrassed by his imprudence, devolved to his nephew, sir John Parnell, bart. one of the justices of the King's-bench in Ireland, and father to the Irish chancellor of the Exchequer, sir John Parnell, who died in 1801.

A collection of his poems was published in 1721 by Pope, with an elegant epistle to the earl of Oxford. The best of this collection, and on which Parnell's fame as a poet is