Up to the triumph of the Tories, at the end of Queen Anne's reign, Parnell appears to have been, like his father, a keen Whig. He was at that time, however, induced, for motives which his biographers call obscure, but which to us seem obvious enough, on the well-known principle of the popularity of the rising sun, to change his party; and he was hailed by the Tories as a valuable accession to their ranks. This proves that his talents were even then known; a fact corroborated by Johnson's statement, that while he was waiting in the outer-room at Lord Oxford's levee, the prime minister, when told he was there, went out, at the persuasion of Swift, with his treasurer's staff in his hand, and saluted him in the most flattering manner. He became, either before or immediately after this, intimate with Pope, Swift, Gay, and the rest of that brilliant set, who all appear to have loved him for his social qualities, to have admired his genius, and to have pitied his infirmities. He was a member of the Scriblerus Club, and contributed some trifles to their transactions. He was, at the same time, intimate with Addison and Steele, and wrote a few papers in the "Spectator." To Pope, he was of essential service, assisting him in his notes to the "Iliad," being, what Pope was not, a good Greek scholar. He wrote a life of Homer, which was prefixed to the Translation, although stiff in style, and fabulous in statement. He gratified Pope's malicious spirit still more by writing, under the guise of a "Life of Zoilus," a bitter attack on Dennis--the great object of the poet's fear and mortal abhorrence. For these and other services, Pope rewarded him, after his usual manner, with large offerings of that sweet and suffocating incense, by which he delighted, now to gain his enemies, and now to gratify his friends. With Gay, also, Parnell was intimate; and the latter, himself independent by his fortune, is said to have bestowed on this needy and improvident genius the price of the copyright of his works.
Parnell first visited London in 1706; and from that period till his death, scarcely a year elapsed without his spending some time in the metropolis. He seems to have had as intense a relish of London life as Johnson and Boswell exhibited in the next age. So soon as he had collected his rents, he hied to the capital, and there enjoyed himself to the top of his bent. He jested with the Scriblerus Club. He quaffed now and then with Lord Oxford. He varied his round of amusements by occasional professional exhibitions in the pulpits of Southwark and elsewhere,--made, we fear, more from a desire to display himself, than to benefit his hearers. Still his sermons were popular; and he entertained at one time the hope,--a hope blasted by the death of Queen Anne,--of being preferred to a city charge. So soon as each London furlough was expired, he returned to Ireland, jaded and dispirited, and there took delight in nursing his melancholy; in pining for the amusements of the metropolis; in shunning and sneering at the society around him; and in abusing his native bogs and his fellow-countrymen in verse. This was not manly, far less Christian conduct. He ought to have drowned his recollections of London in active duty, or in diligent study; and if he found society coarse or corrupt, he should have set himself to refine and to purify it. But he seems to have been a lazy, luxurious person--his life a round of selfish rapture and selfish anguish,--in fact, ruined by his independent fortune. Had he been a poorer, he had probably been a happier man. He was not, moreover, of that self-contained cast of character, which can live on its own resources, create its own world, and say, "My mind to me a kingdom is."