Page:The Poetical Works of Thomas Parnell (1833).djvu/94

46 the haunt of dulness, to whose geniuses he owns himself so much indebted. What encomiums does he not lay out upon Roscommon and Walsh in the close of his excellent Essay on Criticism? How gratefully does he express his thanks to Dr. Swift, Sir Samuel Garth, Mr. Congreve, and my poor friend and neighbour Dr. Parnell, in the preface to his admirable translation of the Iliad, in return for the many lights and lessons they administered to him, both in the opening and the prosecution of that great undertaking?

Dr. Parnelle and I have been inseparable ever since you went. We are now at the Bath, where (if you are not, as I heartily hope, better engaged), your coming would be the greatest pleasure to us in the world. Talk not of expenses. Homer shall support his children. I beg a line of you, directed to the Post House in Bath. Poor Parnelle is in an ill state of health.

The ill effects of contention and squabbling, so lively described in the first Iliad, make Dr. Parnelle and myself continue in the most exemplary union in every thing. We deserve to be worshiped by all the poor, divided, factious, interested poets of this world. As we rise in our speculations daily, we are grown so grave, that we have not