Page:The Poetical Works of Thomas Parnell (1833).djvu/105

Rh who listened attentively, while Parnell went in and out of the room appearing to take no notice of it. However, by dint of his good memory, he brought away the description of the toilet pretty exactly. This he versified, and on the next day, when Pope was reading the poem to some friends, he insisted that part of the description was stolen from an old monkish manuscript. Goldsmith says he was assured of the truth of this account; he adds, that it was not till after some time that Pope was delivered from the confusion which it at first produced.

The Eclogue on Health has the general merit of Parnell's poetry; musical versification and poetical language: yet we occasionally meet with that which I suppose, it took Pope so much labour to improve, flat and prosaic expressions.

The Elegy to an "Old Beauty," has much of that sprightliness and graceful ease which Pope possessed, and which gave a lustre and worth to trifles. There is, however, a couplet in it, that seems to me to be defective, and wanting in