Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 43.djvu/429

 market, 6 July 1784; Dumps in Cumberland's ‘Natural Son,’ Drury Lane, 22 Dec. 1784; Codger in O'Keeffe's ‘Beggar on Horseback,’ Haymarket, 16 June 1785; and, 4 Aug., at the same house, Mr. Euston in Mrs. Inchbald's ‘I'll tell you what;’ Alscrip in Burgoyne's ‘Heiress,’ Drury Lane, 14 Jan. 1786; Rohf in the ‘Disbanded Officer,’ translated by Johnstone from Lessing, Haymarket, 23 July 1786; Don Gaspar in Mrs. Cowley's ‘School for Greybeards,’ Drury Lane, 25 Nov. 1786; Sir Christopher Curry in Colman's ‘Inkle and Yarico,’ Haymarket, 4 Aug. 1787; Thomaso in Cobb's ‘Doctor and Apothecary,’ Drury Lane, 23 Oct. 1788; First Carpenter in the younger Colman's ‘Siege of Calais,’ Haymarket, 30 July 1791.

With the Drury Lane Company, at the Haymarket Opera House, he played in Cobb's ‘Poor Old Drury,’ and Old Manly in Richardson's ‘Fugitives,’ 20 Aug. 1792. At the smaller Haymarket Theatre he was, 23 June 1793, Toby Thatch in O'Keeffe's ‘London Hermit,’ and, 3 Aug. 1793, Lope Tocho in the younger Colman's ‘Mountaineers.’ This proved to be his last original part. On 15 Jan. 1795 he played Moneytrap in the ‘Confederacy,’ his last part recorded by Genest. On the 19th, according to Bellamy, he appeared for the last time, playing Sir Fretful Plagiary. On 3 Feb. he died at his house in Mead's Row, Lambeth. A rhymed epitaph is over his tomb in the churchyard of Lee, Kent.

In his ‘New Hay at the Old Market,’ produced on 9 June 1795 (a few months after Parsons's death), George Colman the younger [q. v.] gives the following dialogue between the carpenter and the prompter—Carpenter: ‘We want a new scaffold for the “Surrender of Calais.”’ Prompter: ‘Ah! but where shall we get such another hangman? Poor fellow! Poor Parsons! The old cause of our mirth is now the cause of our melancholy. He, who so often made us forget our cares, may well claim a sigh to his memory.’ Carpenter: ‘He was one of the comicalest fellows I ever see!’ Prompter: ‘Aye, and one of the honestest, Master Carpenter. When an individual has combined private worth with public talent, he quits the bustling scene of life with twofold applause, and we doubly deplore his exit.’ In the piece mentioned Parsons had had to erect the scaffold on which the patriotic burghers of Calais were condemned to be hanged by order of King Edward.

Parsons was a modest and an estimable man, to whose merits frequent testimony is borne. He suffered much from ague. Popularly he was known as the Comic Roscius. In a list which does not pretend to completeness, even as regards original characters, Genest supplies 162 parts in which he appeared. This number could be very largely increased, probably almost doubled. His great parts included Sir Hugh Evans, Moneytrap, Foresight, Sir Solomon Sadlife, Crabtree, Major Benbow, D'Oyley, Sir Fretful Plagiary, Alscrip, Don Manuel, and Obadiah in the ‘Committee.’ He himself declared Corbaccio to be his best part, and asserted that he owed it all to Shuter. Davies compares him with Quick in the First Gravedigger, and asks who can be grave when Parsons looks or speaks. The ‘Theatrical Biography’ (1772) praises very highly his Foresight, and says of his old men that he by a happy attention to minutiæ shows a finished picture of dotage, avarice, or any other infirmity he may represent. ‘The tottering knee, the sudden stare, the plodding look, nay, the taking out the handkerchief, all proclaim him a finished actor in this walk.’ Boaden, who praises his rich and singular power of telling a story, says he can hardly convince himself that the place of Parsons has been filled. Reynolds and Dibdin both bear testimony to his ability. Davies chronicles a rather dangerous habit of Parsons's of provoking by whispered words a laugh from the actors with whom he was playing.

Parsons displayed ability as a painter and was a judge of painting. Between 1753 and 1773 he contributed one picture of fruit to the Society of Artists, and two to the Free Society of Artists. Redgrave says he painted also architectural subjects and landscapes. Mr. Robert Walters of Ware Priory, Hertfordshire, possesses a view by Parsons, the details of which are admirable, of the City and St. Paul's from the Spaniards Inn, Hampstead, formerly in the possession of John Bannister. Frog Hall, in St. George's Fields, a quaint and quaintly named retreat of Parsons, was, according to Michael Kelly, full of beautiful landscapes, the handiwork of the actor.

Parsons's first wife died in 1787, and he then married Dorothy, or Dorothea, a daughter of the Hon. James Stewart, brother of the Earl of Galloway, who had run away from a convent at Lille. Four days after his death she is said to have espoused his son's tutor, a clergyman; and it is added that she had a living and a dead husband in the house at the same time. By his will, proved by his widow on 5 Feb. 1795, he left to his surviving son, Stewart Parsons, his leasehold estate, called Stangate, near Westminster Bridge, and his small freehold at Bearsted,