THE LIFE OF PRIOR. F Or Matthew Prior, eminent as he was, both as a poet and a statesman, the memorials that have been left by his contemporaries, are difproportionate to the dignity of his employments, and the extent of his reputation. He was born July 21. 1664, according to fome, at Winborne in Dorsetshire, of parents whose rank is unfettled; others fay, that he was the fon of Mr. George Prior, a joiner and citizen of London. In the register of St. John's College, Cambridge, he is defigned, at his admiffion, by the prefident, of Winborne in Middlesex; by himself, next day, of Dorfetfbire, in which county Winborne is found. When he stood candidate for his fellowship, five years afterwards, he was registered again by himself as of Middlefex. The laft record ought to be preferred, because it was made upon oath. It is obfervable, that, as a native of Winborne, he is Ayled, Filius Georgii Prior, Generofi, not confiftently with the common account of the meanness of his birth. His father, dying when he was very young, is fuppofed to have left him to the care of an uncle, Mr. Samuel Prior, a vintner, near Charing-crofs; who discharged the truft repofed in him with paternal tenderness, as he himself always acknowledged with filial gratitude. He placed him for fome time at Weftminler fchool, under Dr. Busby; but not intending to give him any education beyond that of the school, took him, when he was well advanced in claffical learning, to his own houfe (the Rummer Tavern), where the Earl of Dorfet found him by chance, as Burnet relates, reading Horace, and was fo well pleafed with his proficiency, that he undertook the care and expence of his academical education. He was admitted of St. John's College, Cambridge, April 2. 1683; and on the 3d of that month was appointed a scholar of the house, on the Duchefs of Somerset's foundation, by her own nomipation. The fame year, he wrote a copy of Latin Verfes on the Marriage of George Prince of Denmark, and the Lady Anne, printed in the " Hymenæus Cantabrigenfis" 1683, with the fignature of A. Prior ; probably from the prefident of the college not knowing, or miltaking his Christian name, when he gave them in to the University Infpectors for their approbation. They bear internal evidence of being written by one, though a Freshman, used to write Latin verse in agreat school under a great master. There is a claffical terfeness in the diction, and eafe and harmony in the numbers. The allufion to Martial's admirable lines on the bappy married pair, (for it can hardly be called an imitation), fhows the taste of a master at the years of a boy. In 1686, he ́was admitted to his bachelor's degree; and two years afterwards, wrote an Ode on Exodus iii. 14. I am that I am, as a college exercise, to be prefented agreeable to the established practice of St. John's College, to the Earl of Exeter, in acknowledgment of a benefaction enjoyed by them from the bounty of his ancestor. This ode, though nothing is faid of its fuccefs, feems to have recommended him to the notice of the Earl of Exeter; for his verses to the Countess of Exeter playing on the Lute, the Epifle to Sir Fleetwood Shephard, May 14. 1689., and his lines on the famous picture of Seneca dying in a Bath at Burleigh-house, afford reason for imagining, that he was more or less converfant with that family. The year before, he wrote, in conjunction with Charles Montague, Efq. of Trinity College, The Hind and Panther, tranfverted to the Story of the Country Mouse and City Mouf, printed 1687, to ridicule Dryden's "Hind and Panther," published in 1686 A a iiij This humorous performance procured its author more folid advantages than the pleasure of freeting Dryden, who thought it hard, that "an old man should be fo treated by thofe to whom he had always been civil," for they were both speedily preferred. Montague obtained the first notice, with fome degree of discontent, as it feems, în Prior. My friend Charles Montague's preferr'd, That one Moufe eats, while t'other's ftarv'd. He had not much reafon to complain, for having been invited to London by his patron, the Earl of Dorset, he obtained fuch notice, that in 1691, he was made Secretary to the Earl of Berkeley, Ambassador and Plenipotentiary from King William at the Congress at the Hague, in which was formed the grand alliance against Lewis XIV. In this fplendid initiation into public bufinefs, his conduct was so pleasing to the King, that he made him one of the Gentlemen of his Bed-chamber; and he is fupposed to have paffed some of the next years in the quiet cultivation of literature and poetry. On the death of Queen Mary, in 1695, when an emulation of elegy was univerfal, he brought his tribute of tuneful forrow, among the reft, in a long Ode prefented to the King on His Majefty's arrival in Holland, of which the language might be cenfured as encomiaftic, if Mary's virtues did not justify the most unqualified praife. In 1697, he was appointed Secretary to the Earls of Pembroke and Jersey, and Sir Jofeph Williamfon, Plenipotentiaries at the treaty of Ryfwick. When the treaty was concluded, he received a prefent of 100 guineas from the Lords Juices, for the trouble of bringing it over to England. The fame year he was made Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. In 1698, he was appointed Secretary to the Earl of Portland, Ambassador at the Court of France, where he is faid to have been confidered with great distinction. As he was one day furveying the apartments at Verfailles, being shown the victories of Lewis, painted by Le Brun, and afked, whether the King of England's palace had any fuch decorations: "The monuments of my Master's actions," faid he, " are to be feen every where but in his own “are houfe." In 1699, he went to the King at Loo, from whom, after a long audience, he carried orders to England; and, upon his arrival, was made Under Secretary in the office of the Earl of Jersey; a place which he did not retain long, having been ordered back to Paris, to affift the Ambaffador in the bufinefs of the partition-treaty. In 1700, he was created Mafier of Arts, by Mandamus, and appointed one of the Commiffioners of Irade. The fame year, he published the Carmen Ecculare, one of his largest and most splendid compofitions. In praife of King William he exhaufis all his powers of celebration. William fupplied copious materials for either verfe or profe. His whole life had been action; and he poffeffed the refplendent qualities of fteady resolution and perfonal courage. After defending his own country from foreign invafion, and delivering ours from domeftic ufurpation, he headed a confederacy, formed by his wifdom and his vigour, against Lewis, who wished to reduce England under the arbitrary way of a tyrant depending on himfelf, and to fubjugate the rest of Europe. By his efforts, Lewis was stopped in his ambitious career, and compelled to acknowledge that man as Chief Magi rate of England, on whom the people were pleafed to confer the office. Ends more noblė than he pursued, or fuccefs more glorious than their attainment, cannot well be imagined. He was really in Prior's mind what he reprefents him in his verfes; he confidered him as a hero, and was accustomed to fay, that he precifed others in compliance with the fashion; but that in celebrating William, he followed his inclinations. In the parliament that met in 1701, he was chofen representative of Eaft-Grinstead. His election was followed by a change of his party; for he joined the Tories in voting for the impeachment of Lord Seniors, and the viber Lords charged with advising the partition-treaty, in which he himfelf had been miniflerially employed. By abandoning the Whigs, with whom he had hitherto avowedly acted upon principle, and to whom he owed his promotion, his character and conduct were chargeable with apparent inconfift ency and ingratitude, which ingenuity has laboured in vain to justify or explain. To whatever cause the notorious desertion of his party may have been owing, he fuck at nothing to serve his new friends; and, with the zeal of a convert, became a Tory, fo ardent and determinate, that he did not willingly affociate with men of the oppofite party. Upon the fuccefs of the war with France, after the acceffion of Queen Anne, he showed his delight, with the poets of both parties, in the increasing honour of his country, by a Letter to M. Boileau, occafioned by the victory at Bleuheim, 1704. On this occasion he had two formidable rivals in Addison and Philips. He foon after published a volume of poems, with a dedication to Lionel Earl of Dorfet and Middlesex, containing an elegant but encomiaftic character of his deceased patron, Charles Earl of Dorset, which does honour to his gratitude. It began with the College Exercife, and ended with Henry and Emma. As no profperous event of that reign paffed undignified by poetry, the battle of Ramillies foon afterwards excited him to another poetical effort in honour of his country, in his Ode on the glorious Success of her Majefty's Arms in 1706. It is written in Spenfer's ftanza, and is perhaps the only compofition, produced by the battle of Ramillies, which is now remembered. Yet he afterwards concurred with Harley and his friends, in condemning the war as burdenfome, and the conduct of the Allies as unreasonable. > The intelligence of minifterial abuses, the avarice of generals, the tyranny of favourites, and the general danger of approaching ruin, was conveyed in a paper, called The Examiner, written by King, Swift, and other wits of the party, and fometimes by Mrs. Manley. One paper, in ridicule of Garth's verfes on Godolphin, was written by Prior, and anfwered by Addison, in the Whig-Ex aminer. The Tories, having driven the Whigs from court and from power, were in hafte to end the war, and Prior was fent (July 1711) privately to Paris with propofitions of peace; and, after returning with Mefnager, the French Plenipotentiary, was much employed in the negotiations at London; and again fent to Paris, in August 1712, to accommodate fuch matters as then remained unfettled in the Congrefs at Utrecht. From the end of August 1713, he had the appointment and rank of an Anibaffador, though attended with fome perplexities and morțifications, and continued till the Queen's death. He remained at Paris alfo, in the character of a public Minifter, fome months after the acceffion of George I., and then was fucceeded by the Earl of Stair. He returned to England as foon as he was enabled to discharge the debts which he had found it neceffary to contract; and, upon his arrival on the 25th March 1715, was immediately taken up by an order of the House of Commons, and foon after examined by a committee of the Privy Council. On the 10th of June, Walpole moved the Houfe for an impeachment against him, on a charge of high-treafon, for holding clandeftine conferences with the French Plenipotentiary; and on the 17th, he was ordered into close custody, which he made less tedious by writing his Alma, or the Progress of the Mind. In 1717, when an act of grace was paffed, he was excepted; but, at the close of the year, he was difcharged. He had now, at the age of fifty-three, his liberty; but he had nothing elfe; having yet no folid revenue, but from the fellowship of his college, which, when, in his exaltation, he was cenfured for retaining, he said, he could live on at last. Having finished his Solomon, he was encouraged to make a collection of his poems, and to publish them in folin by fubfcription. The expedient fucceeded by the industry and kindness of his friends. The price of the volume was two guineas; the whole collection was four thousand; to which Lord Harley, fon of the Earl of Oxford, to whom he had invariably adhered, added an equal fum for the purchase of Downhall in Effex, which Prior was to enjoy during his life, and Harley after his decease, Of any occurrences in his remaining life there is no account, except that he formed a defign of writing a Hiftory of his own Time; but had made very little progress in it, when a lingering fever carried him off, the 18th of September 1721, in the 57th year of his age. He died at Wimpole, a feat of the Earl of Oxford near Cambridge, and was burried in Westminfter Abbey, where, on a monument, for which he left five hundred pounds, is engraven this epitaph, written by Dr. Robert Freind. Sui temporis Hiftoriam meditantis Paulatim obrepens Febris Operi fimul et vitæ filum abrupit, H. S. E. Vir eximius Sereniffimis Regi GULIELMO Reginæque MARIE, Qui anno 1697, Pacem RyswICKI confecerunt, Qui apud Gallos annis proximis legationem obierunt Nec non in utroque Honorabili conceffu Eorum, Qui anno 1700, ordinandis commercii negotiis, Ab ANNA Feliciffimæ memoriæ Regina Ad LUDOVICUM XIV. Galliæ Regem De Pace ftabilienda, (Pace etiamnum durante Diuque ut boni jam omnes fperant duratura) Hos omnes, quibus cumulatus eft, Titulos Cui enim nafcenti faciles arriferant Mufæ. A Vatum Choro avelli nunquam potuit, Tum in Fabellis concinne lepideque texendiş Neminem habuit parem. Hæc liberalis animi oblectamenta; |