15

consideration. Addison, exalted to a high place,
was forced into degradation by the sense of his
own incapacity; Prior, who was employed by men
very capable of estimating his value, having been
secretary to one embassy, had, when great abilities
were again wanted, the same office another time;
and was, after so much experience of his knowledge
and dexterity, at last sent to transact a negotiation
in the highest degree arduous and important, for
which he was qualified, among other requisites, in
the opinion of Bolingbroke, by his influence upon
the French minister, and by skill in questions of
commerce above other men.

Of his behaviour in the lighter parts of life, it
is too late to get much intelligence. One of his
answers to a boastful Frenchman has been related;
and to an impertinent one he made another equally
proper. During his embassy, he sat at the opera
by a man, who, in his rapture, accompanied with
his own voice the principal singer. Prior fell to
railing at the performer with all the terms of re-
proach that he could collect, till the Frenchman,
ceasing from his song, began to expostulate with
him for his harsh censure of a man who was con-
fessedly the ornament of the stage. "I know all
that," says the ambassador, "mais il chante si
haut, que je ne sçaurois vous entendre."

In a gay French company, where every one sang a little song or stanza, of which the burden, was, "Bannissons la Melancholie:" when it came to his turn to sing, after the performance of a young lady that sat next him, he produced these extem

porary lines:

Mais cette voix, et ces beaux yeux,
Font Cupidon trop dangereux;
Et je suis triste quand je crie,
Bannissons la Melancholie.

Tradition represents him as willing to descend

from the dignity of the poet and statesman to the low delights of mean company. His Chloe probably was sometimes ideal; but the woman with whom he cohabited was a despicable drab of the lowest species. One of his wenches, perhaps Chloe, while he was absent from his house, stole his plate, and ran away; as was related by a woman who had been his servant. Of this propensity to sor. did converse I have seen an account so seriously ridiculous, that it seems to deserve insertion.+

"I have been assured that Prior, after having spent the evening with Oxford, Bolingbroke, Pope, and Swift, would go and smoke a pipe, and drink a bottle of ale, with a common soldier and his wife, in Long Acre, before he went to bed; not from any remains of the lowness of his original, as one said, but, I suppose, that his faculties,

Strain'd to the height, In that celestial colloquy sublime,

Dazzled and spent, sunk down, and sought repair."

Poor Prior, why was he so strained, and in such want of repair, after a conversation with men, not, in the opinion of the world, much wiser than himself? But such are the conceits of speculatists, who strain their faculties to find in a mine what lies upon the surface,

His opinions, so far as the means of judging are left us, seem to have been right; but his life was, it seems, irregular, negligent, and sensual.

PRIOR has written with great variety; and his variety has made him popular. He has tried all styles, from the grotesque to the solemn, and has not so failed in any as to incur derision or disgrace.

Spence; and see Gent. Mag. vol. lvii. p. 1039. +Richardsoniana.

17

His works may be distinctly considered, as com-
prising Tales, Love-verses, Occasional Poems, "Al-
ma" and "Solomon."

His Tales have obtained general approbation,
being written with great familiarity and great
sprightliness; the language is easy, but seldom
gross, and the numbers smooth, without appear-
ance of care. Of these Tales there are only four.
"The Ladle;" which is introduced by a preface,
neither necessary nor pleasing, neither grave nor
merry. "Paulo Purganti;" which has likewise a
preface, but of more value than the Tale. "Hans
Carvel," not over decent; and "Protogenes and
Apelles," an old story,' mingled, by an affectation
not disagreeable, with modern images. "The Young
Gentleman in Love" has hardly a just claim to the
title of a Tale. I know not whether he be the ori-
ginal author of any Tale which he has given us.
The adventure of "Hans Carvel" has passed through
many successions of merry wits; for it is to be
found in Ariosto's "Satires," and is perhaps yet
older. But the merit of such stories is the art of
telling them.

In his amorous effusions he is less happy; for
they are not dictated by nature or by passion, and
have neither gallantry nor tenderness. They have
the coldness of Cowley, without his wit, the dull
exercises of a skilful versifier, resolved at all ad-
ventures to write something about Chloe, and try-
ing to be amorous by dint of study. His fictions
therefore are mythological. Venus, after the ex-
ample of the Greek Epigram, asks when she was
seen naked and bathing. Then Cupid is mistaken;
then Cupid is disarmed; then he loses his darts to
Ganymede; then Jupiter sends him a summons by
Mercury. Then Chloe goes a hunting, with an
ivory quiver graceful at her side; Diana mistakes
her for one of her nymphs, and Cupid laughs at
the blunder. All this is surely despicable; and
even when he tries to act the lover, without the

help of gods or goddesses, his thoughts are unaf fecting or remote. He talks not " like a man of this world."

The greatest of all his amorous essays is "Hen.. ry and Emma;" a dull and tedious dialogue, which excites neither esteem for the man, nor ten derness for the woman. The example of Emma, who resolves to follow an outlawed murderer wherever fear and guilt shall drive him, deserves no imitation; and the experiment by which Henry tries the lady's constancy, is such as must end either in infamy to her, or in disappointment to himself.

His Occasionál Poems necessarily lost part of their value, as their occasions, being less remem. bered, raised less emotion. Some of them, however, are preserved by their inherent excellence. The burlesque of Boileau's Ode on Namur has, in some parts, such airiness and levity as will always procure it readers, even among those who cannot compare it with the original. The epistle to Boileau is not so happy. The poems to the King are now perused only by young students, who read merely that they may learn to write; and of the "Carmen Seculare," I cannot but suspect that I might praise or censure it by caprice, without danger of detection; for who can be supposed to have laboured through it? Yet the time has been when this neglected work was so popular, that it was translated into Latin by no common master.

His poem on the battle of Ramillies is necessa rily tedious by the form of the stanza: an uniform mass of ten lines thirty-five times repeated, inconsequential and slightly connected, must weary both the ear and the understanding. His imitation of Spenser, which consists principally in I ween and I weet, without exclusion of later modes of speech, makes his poem neither ancient nor modern. His mention of Mars and Bellona, and his comparison of Marlborough to the eagle that bears

19 the thunder of Jupiter, are all puerile and unaf fecting; and yet more despicable is the long tale told by Lewis in his despair, of Brute and Troynovante, and the teeth of Cadmus, with his similies of the raven and eagle, and wolf and lion. By the help of such easy fictions, and vulgar topics, without acquaintance with life, and without knowledge of art or nature, a poem of any length, cold and lifeless like this, may be easily written on any subject.

In his Epilogues to Phædra and to Lucius he is very happily facetious; but in the prologue before the Queen, the pedant has found his way, with Minerva, Perseus, and Andromeda.

His Epigrams and lighter pieces are, like those of others, sometimes elegant, sometimes trifling, and sometimes dull; amongst the best are the "Ca melion," and the epitaph on John and Joan.

Scarcely any one of our poets has written só
much and translated so little: the version of Cal-
limachus is sufficiently licentious; the paraphrase
on St. Paul's Exhortation to Charity is eminently
beautiful,

"Alma" is written in professed imitation of "Hu-
dibras," and has at least one accidental resemblance:
"Hudibras" wants a plan, because it is left imper-
fect; "Alma" is imperfect, because it seems never
to have had a plan. Prior appears not to have pro
posed to himself any drift or design, but to have
written the casual dictates of the present moment.
What Horace said, when he imitated Lucilius,
might be said of Butler by Prior; his numbers were
not smooth or neat. Prior excelled him in versi-
fication: but he was, like Horace, inventore mi-
nor: he had not Butler's exuberance of matter
and variety of illustration. The spangles of wit
which he could afford he knew how to polish; but
he wanted the bullion of his master. Butler pours
out a negligent profusion, certain of the weight,
but careless of the stamp. Prior has comparatively