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own sit by me one day; and I will dictate to him a formal relation of Prior's journey, with several particulars all pure invention, and I doubt not but it will take." By September 11 the skit is ready, making a twopenny pamphlet "It is a formal grave lie from beginning to the end." On the 12th, 1,000 copies have been sold and another 500 printed. Prior is genuinely angry at the first reading, but probably sees through the joke at an early day, and only affects a continued indignation.

The pamphlet produced the effect desired, and the government was able to set to work upon the preliminaries to the treaty of Utrecht, which were largely arranged at Prior's house in London, until his return to Paris in 1712 with Bolingbroke. The latter soon came back to England, leaving Prior behind as her Majesty's Plenipotentiary. Except for brief journeys to England for the conveyance of private dispatches, he remained there till 1715. This was the time of Prior's greatest distinction, in spite of the objections of Queen Anne and the haughty Strafford to his low birth. Anne had said quite seriously that she "always thought it very wrong to send people abroad of mean extraction," but she yielded to Oxford's representations of Prior's usefulness.

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We learn, moreover, from the Mémoires du Marquis de Torcy, the French minister, that 'Prior, persécuté par les wighs, étoit attaché au parti supérieur alors, et particulièrement au grand trésorier: il étoit renommé en Angle

terre par ses poésies; mais sa principale qualité, dans les conjonctions présentes, étoit de soutraiter veritablement la paix." The same authority declares that "Les plenipotentiaires du Roi comptoient s'ouvrir principalement à Prior. Le secret des intentions de la Reine sur l'article d'Espagne, la première des conditions fondamentales du traité de paix ; étoit reservé au seul Prior." It is unfortunate that the Frenchman's modesty permitted him to say so little about those details of the negotiations which he personally arranged with Prior. Bolingbroke's correspondence throws a good deal of light on these, and contains the following testimony by Torcy to Prior's tenacity of will as a diplomatist. "Vous avez renvoyé, my lord, sous l'extérieur de Matthieu, le véritable fils de Mons Buys; il ne lui manque que de remplir la verre de son père. Il est d'ailleurs aussi Hollandois, et je crois beaucoup plus opiniâtre. Il a fallu céder et se conformer presque à tout ce qu'il a voulu; encore n'étoit-il pas content: j'espère cependant que vous le serez . . . enfin je crois que vous serez plus content de son excellence que je ne le suis."

1

Prior's work now became very important. He was considered an authority, as we have

1 Then the Dutch ambassador at Paris, of whom much is said in Torcy's Mémoires. The above passages in dicate the nature of the man who did so much to retard the peace.

opportunity of acquiring an exceptional insight into the arts of diplomacy.

His next appointment was that of Secretary to the Embassy, meeting at Ryswick, which produced the treaty signed on Sep. 10th, 1697. He was made Secretary of State in Ireland at the end of the same year, but in 1698 was again sent abroad as Secretary to an Embassy of unusual grandeur at Paris, under Lord Portland, who had been employed by William, during the preceding year, to make terms with Boufflers while the Plenipotentiaries were wasting their time at Ryswick.

Many details, however, were still undetermined, and Prior remained at Paris under Portland's successor, the Earl of Jersey, that "handsome man of ordinary understanding, who was yet trusted in affairs of such importance," and for a short time after the arrival of the Earl of Manchester. Burnet's con. temptuous allusion to the secretary in his History as one Prior called forth Dodsley's epigram (Trifles, p. 241).

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One Prior! and is this, this all the fame
The Poet from th' historian can claim?
No! Prior's verse posterity shall quote
When 'tis forgot one Burnet ever wrote.

It is interesting to find him in April 1700 endeavouring to buy some Greek types in Paris for the University of Cambridge and to procure a Horace, printed at Cambridge, for the French King's Library, in order to set on

foot "a fair correspondence" between his Alma Mater and the "learned at Paris." This capacity for attending to such literary affairs in the intervals of public business was doubtless estimable, but hardly justifies the eulogy of J. Bancks (the editor of Prior's History of his own time), who says that he "spoke of the University as if it had been his constant residence, and one would take him for the Master of a College, who had no other concerns but those of learning."

Prior is always full of gossip and a letter1 to "Mr. Secretary Blathwayt" shows the childlike pleasure he derived from parade and the importance he attached to it, which made him so anxious about keeping up his own state in later years. "There are great preparations making, and everyone is ruining himself upon this occasion. The Dutch ambassad" entry was the subject of our entertainment yesterday. It would have appeared much finer if my Lord Portland's had not immediately preceded it. Their 2 first coaches were of those great machines of 11 foot high, extremely rich on the outside, and lined with plain velvet, with great gold fringes. Their led horses were very fine, there were 14 of them. They had 14 pages, 40 footmen. Their liveries were rich, both the same fond, but different in the lace. Mons. d'Odyck's coach of state had 8 large grey horses, his second coach had 8 pyed,

MS. Morrison.

both setts very fine. Two of Mr. Heemskerke's were magnificent, other 2 too plain for priv te gentlemen to appear in now in Paris, where nothing is liked but gilding and gaudiness. The Marshall de Trouville introduced the Ambassadors. His own coach led the march, as is customary, and his liveries and led horses were noble. I refer you to the next Dutch Gazette for a more particular account of this show."

In a letter' to Lord Halifax he gives a graphic description of James II. as he was in those days-"I faced old James and all his court the other day at St. Cloud. Vive Guillaume. You never saw such a strange figure as the old bully is, lean, worn, and rivelled,2 not unlike Neale the projector. The Queen looks melancholy, but otherwise well. enough: their equipages are all very ragged and contemptible."

In the earlier part of 1701, before Louis had irritated the national pride by his acknowledgement of the Pretender, many things had combined to make the Partition treaties unpopular in England, and Parliament promptly directed its energies towards the impeachment of the Whig lords, Portland, Orford, Somers, and Halifax, who had been in power during

1 Printed in Strickland's Lives of the Queens of England, 1862, vol. vi., p. 379.

2 Contracted into wrinkles and corrugations."Johnson's Dict.

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