PARMENTIER, Jean, author, poet, and navigator, was

originally a merchant at Dieppe. Born in that town in 1494, he died in the island of Sumatra in 1530; yet in this brief space of thirty-six years he accomplished much. His poems were collected in a quarto volume in 1536—"Description nouvelle des Dignités de ce Monde, et de la Dignité de l'homme, composée en rithme Françoise et en manière d'exhortation, par Jean Parmentier," &c. The work is exceedingly rare. From the year 1522 he had applied himself to the study of cosmography; and is stated by Crignon, his intimate friend and the editor of his poems, to have been "the first pilot who conducted vessels to the Brazils, and the first Frenchman who discovered the Indies as far as the island Samothra or Sumatra, named Taprobane by the ancients. He reckoned also upon going to the Moluccas; and he has told me several times that when he should return to France, his intention was to seek a passage to the north, and to make discoveries from thence to the south."—W. J. P. PARMIGIANO, Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzuoli or Mazzola, commonly called from his birth-place, Parma, Il Parmigiano, was born January 11, 1503. His father dying while he was still young, he was brought up to painting by his two uncles, brothers of his father. Correggio was at Parma in 1519, and the works of that great painter had such influence on the young Parmese, that he became thenceforth his enthusiastic imitator. In 1523 Parmigiano visited Rome, and was there actually engaged in painting a large picture of St. Jerome, now in the National gallery, when the city was stormed by the soldiers of the Constable Bourbon in 1527. He then left Rome, studied some time at Bologna, and finally returned to Parma in 1531. Here he acquired a great reputation, and was intrusted with the execution of some very extensive works for the church of Santa Maria della Steccata; but he fell into bad habits, and though he had entered regularly into the engagement—receiving the half payment, amounting to two hundred gold scudi, in advance—he neglected it for years, and was thrown into prison for breach of contract; and upon his release on condition of performing his work, he disregarded his word, fled to Casal Maggiore in the territory of Cremona, and died there shortly afterwards, August 24, 1540. Parmigiano was a painter of great ability, but was always a mannered imitator of Correggio. Among his celebrated works are—"Moses breaking the Tables of the Law," a fresco in the church of the Steccata; "St. Margaret," an altar-piece in the Gallery at Bologna; and "Cupid making his bow," an easel picture, painted in 1536, and now in the Gallery at Vienna. His works are well known through engravings; and he himself etched a few plates, being among the first of the Italians to try the art of etching.—(Affo, Vita del grazziosissimo pittore Francesco Mazzola, &c., Parma, 1784; Mortara, Della Vita e dei Lavori di F. Mazzola, &c., Casal Maggiore, 1846.)—R. N. W. PARNELL, Sir Henry, Bart., afterwards first Baron Congleton, an able official and economist, was born in 1776, and is said to have been the great-grand-nephew of Thomas Parnell, the author of The Hermit. In 1812, on the death of his brother, he succeeded to a baronetcy. Sir Henry Parnell entered the parliament of the United Kingdom in 1802 as member for Queen's County, and was scarcely out of the house of commons for nearly forty years. A liberal, and having distinguished himself by his speeches, publications, and parliamentary labours on a number of subjects, political, economical, and financial, especially by his "Essay on Financial Reform," 1830, he was appointed secretary-at-war in Lord Grey's ministry, and held the office in 1831-32. In Lord Melbourne's last ministry he was paymaster-general of the forces from 1835 to 1841, when he was raised to the peerage. His death occurred in 1842. His "Essay on Financial Reform" is an able and instructive book, recommending some of the most important financial changes since carried out.—F. E. PARNELL, Thomas, D.D., an English poet, was descended from an ancient family long resident at Congleton, Cheshire; but the poet's father having been a staunch Commonwealth man, quitted England at the time of the Restoration to settle in Ireland, where he laid out a considerable sum of money in the purchase of lands, which afterwards descended to the poet. Thomas was born in 1679 at Dublin, and was admitted a member of Trinity college there at the early age of thirteen. He took the degree of M.A. in 1700, and was ordained a deacon the same year by the bishop of Derry. He was admitted into priest's orders about three years after, and in 1705 was collated by Bishop Ashe to the archdeaconry of Clogher. About the same time he married Miss Anne Minchin, a young lady of great beauty and worth, to whom he was sincerely attached. His lively impulsive character, however, made his Irish home seem a dull abode, and in 1706 he began to pay those visits to England which threw him into the society of the wits and literary men of the metropolis. His social qualities made him a welcome visitor, and he bestowed his regard impartially upon writers of every shade of politics. But such latitudinarianism could not then be tolerated. Addison, Steele, and Congreve would show no friendship to this son of a parliamentarian, who consorted with men who approved of the treaty of Utrecht, and disliked the duke of Marlborough. Parnell gave up his whig for his tory friends, and was rewarded by lively, flattering letters when in Ireland from Pope, Gay, and Arbuthnot, and by an introduction through Swift to Harley, whom the dean obliged to come with the staff of office in his hand to converse with the poet in the antechamber. Pope celebrated this triple friendship in lines addressed to Lord Oxford after Parnell's death:—

More substantial marks of friendship were procured by Swift in 1716 from Archbishop King, in the vicarage of Finglass, worth £400 a year, and a prebendary stall. A great sorrow, however, befell Parnell in the death of his wife, whose loss drove him still further to indulge in the convivial habits to which he was prone. His health became seriously impaired by habitual intemperance, and he died at Chester, on his way to Ireland, in July, 1718. He was buried in Trinity church in that town, without any monument to mark his grave. Parnell's published works are few. His best-known poem, "The Hermit," is remarkable for elegance of expression and a smooth versification. His lighter pieces, especially the translation of Homer's Battle of the Frogs and Mice, are well worth attention. In prose he contributed a few papers called "Visions" to the Guardian; wrote the "Life of Homer" in Pope's translation; and a satire on Dennis and Theobald, entitled the "Life of Zoilus."—(See Goldsmith's Life, prefixed to Parnell's Poems, 12mo, 1772.) PARNING or PARNYNGE, Sir Robert, Chancellor of England in the reign of Edward III., "the first regularly bred common lawyer," says Lord Campbell, "who was ever appointed to the office," was returned to parliament in the last year of Edward II. as one of the representatives of Cumberland, in which he possessed considerable property. A sergeant-at-law in 1330, he was appointed a justice of the common pleas in 1340, and in the same year chief-justice of the king's bench and treasurer. In 1341 he succeeded Edward's military chancellor, Bourchier. It is recorded of him that while chancellor he used to attend the court of common pleas. He died in 1348.—F. E. PARNY, Evariste-Désiré-Desforges, Chevalier, and afterwards Vicomte de Parny, French poet, was born in the Isle of Bourbon, February 6, 1753, and was sent to France at the age of nine. At first desirous of entering the brotherhood of La Trappe, a sudden change in his convictions and conduct occurred, and he plunged into a career of dissipation. A pure and ardent affection conceived for a lady whom he met on his return to Bourbon at the age of twenty, inspired some of his most charming efforts; and when she was forced by her family into a marriage of interest, he mourned over his vanished hopes with a sweetness and pathos that gained for him the name of the French Tibullus. His first collection of poems was published in 1775. The French revolution deprived Parny, who had long since returned to France, of all his property; and his latter writings (of which the chief is "La Guerre des Dieux") composed, when he had to subsist upon his literary earnings, are far less pure and graceful than those to which we have referred. After a protracted and painful illness, he died at Paris 5th December, 1814. His writings, edited by M. Boissonade, are included in Lefevre's Collection of French Classics, 1827.—W. J. P. PARR, Catherine. See Catherine Parr. PARR, Richard, a native of Fermoy, was born in 1617, and studied first under Romish priests and then at Oxford. He was chaplain to his patron, Archbishop Usher, whose memoirs he wrote, and who made him vicar of Ryegate. In 1653 he became incumbent of Camberwell, where he died in 1691. At the Restoration he was made canon of Armagh. He wrote a work on christian reformation, and sermons.—B. H. C.