Page:The Poetical Works of Thomas Parnell (1833).djvu/59

Rh private friends for happening to be of a different party in politics, but it was then otherwise. The Whig wits held the Tory wits in great contempt, and those retaliated in their turn. At the head of one party were Addison, Steele, and Congreve; at that of the other, Pope, Swift, and Arbuthnot. Parnell was a friend to both sides, and with a liberality becoming a scholar, scorned all those trifling distinctions that are noisy for the time and ridiculous to posterity. Nor did he emancipate himself from these without some opposition from home. Having been the son of a commonwealth's man, his Tory connexions on this side of the water gave his friends in Ireland great offence; they were much enraged to see him keep company with Pope, Swift, and Gay; they blamed his undistinguishing taste, and wondered what pleasure he could find in the conversation of men who approved the treaty of Utrecht, and disliked the Duke of Marlborough."

His conversation is said to have been extremely pleasing. The letters which were written to him by his friends are full of compliments upon his