Thomas Parnell

Thomas Parnell (born 1679, Dublin—died 1718, Chester, Eng.) was an Irish poet, essayist, and friend of Alexander Pope, who relied on Parnell’s scholarship in his translation of the Iliad. Parnell’s poetry, written in heroic couplets, was esteemed by Pope for its lyric quality and stylistic ease. Among his best poems are “An Elegy to an Old Beauty” and “Night Piece on Death,” said to have influenced Thomas Gray’s “An Elegy Written in a Country Church...