Letter No. 460. Monday, August 18, 1712. [Parnell [1]]
been told the same even of the Mahometans, with relation to the
Propriety of their Demeanour in the Conventions of their erroneous
Worship: And I cannot but think either of them sufficient and laudable
Patterns for our Imitation in this Particular.
'I cannot help upon this Occasion remarking on the excellent Memories
of those Devotionists, who upon returning from Church shall give a
particular Account how two or three hundred People were dressed; a
Thing, by reason of its Variety, so difficult to be digested and fixed
in the Head, that 'tis a Miracle to me how two poor Hours of Divine
Service can be Time sufficient for so elaborate an undertaking, the
Duty of the Place too being jointly and, no doubt, oft pathetically
performed along with it. Where it is said in Sacred Wit, that the
Woman ought to have a Covering on her Head, because of the Angels [2]
that last Word is by some thought to be metaphorically used, and to
signify young Men. Allowing this Interpretation to be right, the Text
may not appear to be wholly foreign to our present Purpose.
'When you are in a Disposition proper for writing on such a Subject, I
earnestly recommend this to you, and am,
SIR,
Your very humble Servant.
T.
[Footnote 1: Thomas Parnell, the writer of this allegory, was the son of a commonwealthsman, who at the Restoration ceased to live on his hereditary lands at Congleton, in Cheshire, and bought an estate in Ireland. Born in 1679, at Dublin, where he became M.A. of Trinity College, in 1700 he was ordained after taking his degree, and in 1705 became Archdeacon of Clogher. At the same time he took a wife, who died in 1711. Parnell had been an associate of the chief Whig writers, had taste as a poet, and found pleasure in writing for the papers of the time. When the Whigs went out of power in Queen Anne's reign, Parnell connected himself with the Tories. On the warm recommendation of Swift, he obtained a prebend in 1713, and in May, 1716, a vicarage in the diocese of Dublin, worth L400 a year. He died in July, 1717, aged 38. Inheriting his father's estates in Cheshire and Ireland, Pamell was not in need. Wanting vigour and passion, he was neither formidable nor bitter as a political opponent, and in 1712 his old friends, Steele and Addison, were glad of a paper from him; though, with Swift, he had gone over to the other side in politics.]
[Footnote 2: I Corinthians xi. 10.]
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