Thomas Parnell

Thomas Parnell (1679–1718) was an Anglo-Irish poet and clergyman, born in Dublin and educated at Trinity College, who became Archdeacon of Clogher in 1706. He was a friend of Swift, Pope, Gay and Arbuthnot, took part in the Scriblerus Club, and wrote the essay on Homer prefixed to Pope's Iliad.

He died at Chester in 1718, on a journey to Ireland. Pope edited his Poems on Several Occasions (1722). A Night-Piece on Death is often seen as an early forerunner of Gray's Elegy, and The Hermit, a moral tale in couplets, was widely reprinted through the eighteenth century.