Page:The Poetical Works of Thomas Parnell (1833).djvu/53

Rh 1705, Sir George Ashe, Bishop of Clogher, conferred on him the Archdeaconry of Clogher. At this time he married Miss Ann Minchin, a young lady of more than usual beauty, and of great merit, by whom he had two sons, who died young, and a daughter who long survived him.

Being the son of a Commonwealth's man, it might naturally be expected that Parnell would have embraced the principles and politics of the Whigs; but he was persuaded, by motives with which we are not acquainted, to change his party; and in the end of Queen Anne's reign, when the Whigs went out of office, Parnell was received by the new ministry 'as a valuable reinforcement.'

When Lord Oxford was told that 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; the dedication