PRIO R. M ATTHEW PRIOR is one of those that have burst cut from an obscure original to great eminence. He was born July 21, 1664, according to some, at Winburne in Dorsetshire, of I know not what parents; others say that he was the son of a Joiner of London; he was perhaps willing enough to leave his birth unsettled *, in hope, like Don Quixote, that the historian of his actions might find him some illustrious alliance. He is suposed to have fallen, by his father's death, into the hands of his uncle, a vintner † near Charing-cross, who sent him for some time to Dr. Busby at Westminster; but not intending to give him any education beyond that of the school, took him, when he was well advanced in literature, to his own house, where the earl of Dorset, celebrated for patronage of genius found him by chance, as Burnet relates, reading Horace, and was so well pleased with his proficiency, that he undertook the care and cost of his academical education. He entered his name in St. John's College at Cambridge in 1682, in his eighteenth year; and it may be reasonably supposed that he was distinguished among his contemporaries. He became a Bachelor, as is usual, in four years; and two years afterwards wrote the poem on the Deity, which stands first in his volume. It is the established practice of that College, to send every year to the earl of Exeter some poems upon sacred subjects, in' acknowledgement of a benefaction enjoyed by them from the bounty of his ancestor. On this occasion The difficulty of settling Prior's birth-place is great. In the register of his College he is called, at his admission by the President, Matthew Frier of Windburn in Middlesex by himself next day, Matthew Frier of Dorsetshire, in which county, not in Middlesex, Windbern, or Wimborne as it stands in the Villare, is found. When he stood candidate for his fellowship, five years afterwards, he was registered again by himself as of Middlesex. The last record ought to be preferred, because it was made upon oath. It is observable, that, as a native of Winberne, he is stiled Filius Georgii Prier, Generosi; not consistently with the common account of the meanness of his birth. Dr. J. Samuel Prior kept the Rummer Tavern near Charing Cross in 1685. The annual feast of the nobility and gentry living in the parish of St. Martin in the Fields was held at his house, Oct. 14, that year. N. He was admitted to his Bachelor's degree in 1686, and to his Master's, by mandate, in 1700. H. were those verses written which, though nothing is said of their success seem to have recommended him to some notice; for his praise of the countess's musick, and his lines on the famous picture of Seneca, afford reason for imagining that he was more or less conversant with that family * The same year he published the City mouse and country Mouse, to ridicule Dryden's Hind and Panther, in conjunction with Mr Montague. There is a story of great pain suffered, and of tears shed, on this occasion, by Dryden, who thought it hard that an old man should be so treated by those to "whom he had always been civil." By tales like these is the envy, raised by superior abilities, every day gratified: when they are attacked, every one hopes to see them humbled; what is hoped is readily believed, and what is believed is confidently told. Dryden had been more accustomed to hostilities, than that such enemies should break his quiet; and if we can suppose him vexed, it would be hard to deny him sense enough to conceal his un casiness. The City Mouse and Country Mouse procured its authors more solid ad|vantages than the pleasure of fretting Dryden; for they were both speedily preferred. Montague, indeed, obtained the first notice, with some degree of discontent, as it seems, in Prior, who probably knew that his own part of the performance was the best. He had not, however, much reason to complain; for he came to London, and obtained such notice, that (in 1691) he was sent to the Congress at the Hague as secretary to the embassy. In this assembly of princes and nobles, to which Europe has perhaps scarcely seen any thing equal, was formed the grand alliance against Lew is; which at last did not produce effects proportionate to the magnificence of the trans action. The conduct of Prior, in this splendid initiation into public business, was so pleasing to king William that he made him one of the gentlemen of his bed-chamber; and he is supposed to have passed some of the next years in the quiet cultivation of literature and poetry. The death of Queen Mary (in 1695) produced a subject for all the writers: perhaps no funeral was ever so poetically attended. Dryden, indeed, as a man discountenanced and deprived, was silent; but scarcely any other maker of verses omitted to bring his tribute of tuneful sorrow. An emula tion of elegy was universal. Maria's preise was not confined to the English language, but fills a great part of the Musa Anglicana. Prior who was both a poet and a courtier, was too diligent to miss this opportunity of respect. He wrote a long ode, which was presented to the king by whom it was not likely to be ever read. * Spence. In In two years he was secretary to another embassy at the treaty of Ryswick (in 1697 *); and next year had the same office at the court of France, where he is said to have been considered with great distinction. As he was one day surveying the apartments at Versaille, being shewn the Victories of Lewis, painted by Le Brun, and asked whether the king of England's palace had any such decorations; "The monuments of my Mas"ter's actions," said he, " are to be seen every where but in his own house." The pictures of Le Brun are not only in themselves sufficiently ostentatious, but were explained by inscriptions so arrogant, that Boileau and Racine thought it necessary to make them more simple. He was in the following year at Loo with the king; from whom, after a long audience, he carried orders to England, and upon his arrival became under-secretary of state in the earl of Jersey's office; a post which he did not retain long, because jersey was removed; but he was soon made commissioner of Trade. This year (1700) produced one of his longest and most splendid compositions, the Carmen Seculare, in which he exhausts all his powers of celebration. I mean not to accuse him of flattery; he probably thought all that he writ, and retained as much veracity as can be properly exacted from a poet professedly encomiastic. King William supplied copious materials for either verse or prose. His whole life had been action, and none ever denied him the resplendent qualities of steady resolution and personal courage. He was really in Prior's mind what he represents him in his verses; he considered him as a hero, and was accustomed to say, that he praised others in compliance with the fashion, but that in celebrating king William he followed his inclination. To Prior gratitude would dictate praise, which reason would not refuse. Among the advantages to arise from the future years of William's reign, he mentions a Society for useful Arts, and among them Some that with care true eloquence shall teach, And to just idoms fix our doubtful speech; The thanks we to our monarchs owe, And schools profess our tongue through every land, Tickell, in his Prospect of Peace, has the same hope of a new academy: In happy chains our daring language bound, * He received in September 1697, a presert of 200 guineas from the lords justices, for his trouble in bringing over the treaty of peace. N. Whether Whether the similitude of those passages which exhibit the same thought on the same occasion proceeded from accident or imitation, is not easy to determine. Tickell might have been impressed with his expectation by Swift's Proposal for ascertaining the English Language, then lately published. In the parliament that met in 1701, he was chosen representative of East Grinstead. Perhaps it was about this time that he changed his party; for he voted for the impeachment of those lords who had persuaded the king to the Partition-treaty, a treaty in which he had himself been ministerially employed. A great part of queen Anne's reign was a time of war, in which there was little employment for negotiators, and Prior had therefore leisure to make or to polish verses. When the battle of Blenheim called forth all the versemen, Prior, among the rest, took care to shew his delight in the increasing honour of his country by an Epistle to Boileau. He published, soon afterwards, a volume of poems, with the encomiastic character of his deceased patron the duke of Dorset: it began with the College Exercise, and ended with the Nut-brown Maid. The battle of Ramilies soon afterwards (in 1706) excited him to another effort of poetry. On this occasion he had fewer or less formidable rivals ; and it would not be easy to name any other composition produced by that event which is now remembered. Every thing has its day. Through the reigns of William and Anne no prosperous event passed undignified by poetry. In the last war, when France was disgraced and overpowered in every quarter of the globe, when Spain, coming to her assistance, only shared her calamities, and the name of an Englishman was reverenced through Europe, no poet was heard amidst the general acclamation; the fame of our counsellors and heroes was intrusted to the Gazetteer. The nation in time grew weary of the war, and the queen grew weary of her ministers. The war was burdensome, and the ministers were insolent. Harley and his friends began to hope that they might, by driving the Whigs from court and from power, gratify at once the queen and the people. There was now a call for writers, who might convey intelligence of past abuses, and shew the waste of public money, the unreasonable Conduct of the Allies, the avarice of generals, the tyranny of minions, and the general danger of approaching ruin. For this purpose a paper -alled the Examiner was periodically published, written as it happened, by any wit of the party, and sometimes as is said by Mrs. Manley. Some are owned by Swift; and one, in ridicule of Gaith's verses to Godolphin upon the loss of his place, was written by Prior, and answered by Addison, who appears to have known the author either by conjecture or intelligence. The Tories, who were now in power, were in haste to end the war; and Priof, being recalled (1710) to his former employment of making treaties, was sent (July 1711) privately to Paris with propositions of peace. He was remembered at the French court; and returning in about a month, brought with him the Abbé Gaultier, and M. Mesnager, a minister from France, invested with full powers. This transaction not being avowed, Mackay, the master of the Dover packet-boat, either zealously or officiously, seized Prior and his associates at Canterbury. It is easily supposed that they were soon released: The negotiation was begun at Prior's house, where the Queen's ministers met Mesnager (September 20, 1711) and entered privately upon the great business. The importance of Prior appears from the mention made of him by St. John in his Letter to the Queen. My Lord Treasurer moved, and all my Lords were of the same opi"nion, that Mr. Prior should be added to those who are empowered to siga; the reason for which is, because he, having personally treated with Mon"sieur de Torcy, is the best witness we can produce of the sense in which the general preliminary engagements are entered into: besides which, as "he is the best versed in matters of trade of all your Majesty's servants "who have been trusted in this secret, if you shall think fit to employ him "in the future treaty of commerce, it will be of consequence that he has been a party concerned in concluding that convention, which must be the "rule of this treaty." The assembly of this important night was in some degree clandestine, the design of treating not been yet openly declared, and, when the Whigs returned to power, was aggravated to a charge of high treason: though, as Prior remarks in his imperfect answer to the report of the Committee of Secrecy, no treaty ever was made without private interviews and preliminary discussions. 1 My business is not the history of the peace, but the life of Prior. The conferences began at Utrecht on the first of January (1711-12), and the English plenipotentiaries arrived on the fifteenth. The ministers of the different potentates conferred and conferred; but the peace advanced so slowly, that speedier methods were found necessary; and Bolingbroke was sent to Paris to adjust differences with less formality; Prior either accompanied him or followed him; and after his departure had the appointments and authority of an ambassador, though no public character. By some mistake of the Queen's orders, the court of France had been disgusted; and Bolingbroke says in his Letter, "Dear Mat, hide the naked"ness of thy country, and give the best turn thy fertile brain will furnish "thee with to the blunders of thy countrymen, who are not much better politicians than the French die poets." Scen |