PARLIAMENT, THE LONG, the name given to the last English Parliament convoked by Charles I. in 1640, dissolved by Cromwell in 1653, and recalled twice after the death of the Protector before it finally gave up the ghost.

PARLIAMENT OF DUNCES, name given to a parliament held at Coventry by Henry IV. in 1494, because no lawyer was allowed to sit in it.

PARLIAMENTARIAN, one who, in the English Civil War, supported the cause of the Parliament against the king.

PARMA (44), a cathedral and university town in N. Italy, on the Parma, a tributary of the Po, 70 m.  NE. of Genoa; is rich in art treasures, has a school of music, picture-gallery, and museum of antiquities; it manufactures pianofortes, silks, and woollens, and has a cattle and grain market; Parma was formerly the capital of the duchy of that name; it was the residence of Correggio as well as the birthplace of Parmigiano.

PARMENION, an able and much-esteemed Macedonian general, distinguished as second in command at Granicus, Issus, and Arbela, but whom Alexander in some fit of jealousy and under unfounded suspicion caused to be assassinated in Media.

PARMENIDES, a distinguished Greek philosopher of the Eleatic school, who flourished in the 5th century B.C.; his system was developed by him in the form of an epic poem, in which he demonstrates the existence of an Absolute which is unthinkable, because it is without limits, and which he identifies with thought, as the one in the many.

PARMIGIANO, a Lombard painter whose proper name was Girolamo Mazzola, born at Parma; went to Rome when 19 and obtained the patronage of Clement VII.; after the storming of the city in 1527, during which he sat at work in his studio, he went to Bologna, and four years later returned to his native city; failing to implement a contract to paint frescoes he was imprisoned, and on his release retired to Casalmaggiore, where he died; in style he followed Correggio, and is best known by his “Cupid shaping a Bow” (1504-1540).

PARNASSUS, a mountain in Phocis, 10 m.  N. of the Gulf of Corinth, 8000 ft. high, one of the chief seats of Apollo and the Muses, and an inspiring source of poetry and song, with the oracle of Delphi and the Castalian spring on its slopes; it was conceived of by the Greeks as in the centre of the earth.

PARNELL, CHARLES STUART, Irish Home-Ruler, born at Avondale, in Wicklow; was practically the dictator of his party for a time and carried matters with a high hand, but at the height of his popularity he suffered a fall, and his death, which was sudden, happened soon after (1846-1891).

PARNELL, THOMAS, English minor poet of the Queen Anne period, born in Dublin, of a Cheshire family; studied at Trinity College, took orders, and became archdeacon of Clogher; is best known as the author of “The Hermit,” though his odes “The Night-Piece on Death” and the “Hymn to Contentment” are of more poetic worth; he was the friend of Swift and Pope, and a member of the Scriblerus Club (1679-1718).