Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 43.djvu/430

 near Maidstone. To his wife he left 59l. per annum and her leasehold houses in London Road, and for her life his leasehold estate in Mead's Place and Mead's Row. The will, signed 19 Dec. 1792, describes him as late of the parish of St. Mary, Lambeth, in Surrey.

The Mathews collection of portraits in the Garrick Club has pictures of Parsons as Foresight by De Wilde; as Old Man in ‘Lethe’ and as Sheepface in the ‘Village Lawyer,’ with Bannister as Scout, and as Dumps in the ‘Natural Son,’ by Zoffany; by Vandergucht as Obadiah in the ‘Committee,’ with Moody as Teague. The club also possesses a portrait of the actor in private dress. To these Smith's ‘Catalogue’ adds a portrait by De Wilde; a picture, by J. Mortimer, of Parsons as Varland in the ‘West Indian,’ with Moody as Major O'Flaherty; one by Zoffany with Garrick and others in the ‘Provoked Wife;’ one by Robert Laurie; another as Sheepface in the ‘Village Lawyer,’ with Bannister, jun., as Scout, by De Wilde, engraved by J. R. Smith; and another as Old Man in ‘Lethe,’ with Bransby and Watkins, by Zoffany. A portrait by Hayter, engraved by J. Wright in 1792, is mentioned by Evans. An engraved portrait, by Harding, accompanies a memoir in the ‘European Magazine;’ a head, engraved by Ridley, appears in the ‘Thespian Dictionary;’ a portrait, by De Wilde, engraved by Ridley, accompanies Bellamy's ‘Life.’

[The chief authority for the life of Parsons consists of the memoir by his friend Thomas Bellamy, which forms the greater portion of the latter's Miscellanies in Prose and Verse, London, 8vo, 1794. Estimates of Parsons or anecdotes concerning him are contributed to this by Charles Dibdin and John Litchfield. Other sources of information are: Notes and Queries, 6th ser. viii. 111, 8th ser. v. 130; European Mag. vol. xxvii.; Gent. Mag. 1795, pt. i.; Gilliland's Dramatic Mirror; Georgian Era; Davies's Life of Garrick and Dramatic Miscellanies; Graves's Dictionary of Artists; Doran's Annals of the English Stage, ed. Lowe; Theatrical Biography, 1772; Genest's English Stage; and Clark Russell's Representative Actors.]  PARSONS, WILLIAM (fl. 1785–1807), poet, was a member of the ‘knot of fantastic coxcombs’ who printed verses in the ‘World’ magazine during 1784 and 1785. At that period he was residing in Florence, and he is mentioned by Mrs. Piozzi as being a flattering and agreeable member of her coterie in that city. In the ‘Florence Miscellany’ of 1785, the joint production of Mrs. Piozzi, Robert Merry, the Della Cruscan, Bertie Greatheed, and others, Parsons had the lion's share [see under ]. According to William Gifford, Parsons was considerably nettled at not being included, ‘though an undoubted Bavian,’ in the first edition of the ‘Baviad.’ ‘He accordingly applied to me,’ says Gifford, ‘(in a circuitous method, I confess), and as a particular favour was finally admitted. … But instead of gratifying the ambition of Mr. Parsons, as I fondly expected, and quieting him for ever, this reference had a most fatal effect upon his poor head, and from an honest, painstaking gentleman converted him in imagination into a minotaur.’ Parsons's attempts at retaliation in the ‘Telegraph’ and other London papers were marked by the same puerilities which characterise his verses. He showed his incorrigibility in ‘A Poetical Tour in the years 1784, 1785, and 1786. By a member of the Arcadian Society at Rome,’ London, at the Logographic Press, 1787, in which his traveller's trivialities are eked out by imitations, translations, and complimentary verses to Mrs. Piozzi and Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu. In November 1787 Parsons was elected a member of the Royal Society. His subsequent productions were: 1. ‘Ode to a Boy at Eton,’ London, 1796, 4to, intended to ‘counteract the gloomy conclusions’ of Gray's well-known ‘Ode.’ 2. ‘Fidelity, or Love at First Sight: a Tale [in verse], with other Poems,’ London, 1798, 4to. 3. ‘Travelling Recreations,’ 2 vols. London, 1807, 8vo. Parsons, who, when not on the continent, seems to have resided mainly at Bath, here defines his ambition as ‘merely to be classed among the mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease,’ but the ease is nowhere apparent. His earlier effusions are reprinted in nearly all his subsequent volumes.

[Gifford's Baviad and Mæviad, 1797, passim; Literary Memoirs of Living Authors, 1798, ii. 115; Mrs. Piozzi's Autobiography, ed. Hayward, Biographical Dictionary of Living Authors, 1816, p. 264 (where Parsons is described as ‘a gentleman of fortune’); Thompson's Hist. of the Royal Society, app. lx.; British Critic, vii. 548; Brit. Mus. Cat. (where, however, Parsons's share in the Florence Miscellany is erroneously attributed to William Parsons the chronologer).] 

PARSONS, WILLIAM (1746?–1817), professor of music, born about 1746, was a chorister of Westminster Abbey, under Cooke. Before 1768 he applied in vain for an engagement at Covent Garden Theatre, and thereupon betook himself to Italy for the improvement of his voice and method. On his return he was successful in the career