Page:The Poetical Works of Thomas Parnell (1833).djvu/112

64 the few pieces which Parnell had selected, for publication. Spence says, "In the list of papers ordered to be burnt, were the pieces for carrying on the Memoirs of Scriblerus, and several copies of verses by Dean Parnell. I interceded in vain for both. As to the latter, he said, that they would not add any thing to the Dean's character." These might have been duplicates, or perhaps transcripts made by Pope from the manuscripts mentioned above. Johnson says, "of the large appendages which I find in the last edition, I can only say, that I know not whence they came, nor have ever inquired whither they are going. They stood upon the faith of the compilers." Of their authenticity, after what I have observed, no reasonable doubt can be entertained; but of the prudence of publishing what Pope, and indeed previously Parnell himself, had rejected from their acknowledged inferiority, an estimate can easily be formed; when we consider that probably no one has ever heard a passage or line quoted from the volume; or has deposited a single image or sentiment from it in his memory; while the former poems of Parnell are familiar to old and young, the delight of the general reader, and approved by the most refined judges of poetical merit. Few men have the power of arriving at excellence, but by assiduous toil, and after repeated failures. He who has attained the art of writing well, has