PARENTS and CHILDREN, in law. If parents run away, and leave their child ren at the charge of the parish, the church-wardens and overseers, by order of the justices, may seize the rents, goods, and chattels of such persons, and dispose thereof towards their children's maintenance. A parent may lawfully correct his child, being under age, in a reasonable manner ; but the legal power of the father over the persons of his children ceases at the age of twenty-one. PARENTHESIS, in grammar, certain intercalary words, inserted in a discourse, which interrupt the sense, or thread, but seem necessary for the better understand ing of the subject. The proper charac teristic of a parenthesis is, that it may be either taken in or left out, the sense and the grammar remaining entire. In speak ing, the parenthesis is to be pronounced in a different tone,; and in writing, it is enclosed between ( ), called also a pa renthesis, but commonly a bracket, or crotchet, to distinguish it from the rest of the discourse. The politest of our mo dern writers avoid all parenthesis, as keeping the mind in suspense, embar rassing it, and rendering the discourse less clear, uniform, and agreeable. PA RHELIUM, of PAEHELION, in physiology, a mock sun, or meteor, in form of a very bright light, appearing on one side of the sun. The parhelia
are formed by the reflection of the sun's beams on a cloud properly posited. They usually accompany the coronae, or luminous circles, and are placed in the same circumference, and at the same height. Their colours resemble that of the rainbow; the red and yellow are on the side towards the sun, and the blue and violet on the other. There are co ronae sometimes seen without parhelia, and vice versa. Parhelia are double, triple, &c. and in 1629, a parhelion of five suns was seen at Rome; and in 1666, another at Aries, of six. M. Mariotte accounts for parhelia from an infinity of little particles of ice floating in the air, that multiply the image of the sun by refraction or reflection ; and by a geometrical calculus, he has determined the precise of these little icicles, their situation in the air, and the size of the coronae of circles which accompany the parhelia, and the colours wherewith they are painted. 14i. Huygens ac counts for the formation of a parhelion in the same manner as for that of the halo.