acts uf royal favour; for he was again declared captain-general, and commander in chief, of all his majefty's land-forces, colonel of the first regiment of foot-guards, and mafter of the ordnance. His advice was of great ufe in concerting those measures by which the rebellion in the year 1715 was crushed; and his advice on this Occafion was the laft effort he made in refpe& to public affairs; for his infirmities encreafing with his years, he retired from business, and fpent the greateft part of his time, during the remainder of his life, at one or other of his country-houfes. His death happened upon the fixteenth of June, 1722, in his feventy-third year, at Windfor-lodge; and his corpfe, upon the ninth of Auguft following, was interred, with the highest folemnity, in Westminster-abbey. Befides the marquis of Blandford, whom we have already mentioned, his grace had four daughters, which married into the best families of the kingdom. THE THE LIFE OF MATTHEW PRIOR. HIS celebrated poet was the fon of Mr. TGeorge Prior, citizen of London, who was by profeffion a joiner. Our author was born in 1664. His father dying when he was very young, left him to the care of an uncle, a vintner near Charing-cross, who discharged the truft that was repofed in him with a tenderness truly paternal, as Mr. Prior always acknowledged with the highest profeffions of gratitude. He received part of his education at Weftminfter-school, where he distinguished himself to great advantage; but was afterwards taken home by his uncle in order to be bred up to his trade. Notwithstanding this mean employment, to which Mr. Prior feemed now doomed, yet, at his leisure hours, he profecuted his ftudy of the claffics, and efpecially his favourite Horace; by which means he was foon taken notice of by the polite company who reforted to his uncle's houfe. It happened one day, that the earl of Dorfet, being at this tavern, which he often fre C 3 quented quented with feveral gentlemen of rank, the difcourfe turned upon the Odes of Horace; and, the company being divided in their fentiments about a paffage in that poet, one of the gentlemen faid, "I find we are not like to agree in our criticisms; but, if I am not miftaken, there is a young fellow in the house, who is able to fet us all right:" upon which he named Prior, who was immediately fent for, and defired to give his opinion of Horace's meaning in the ode under confideration. This he did with great modefty, and fo much to the fatisfaction of the company, that the earl of Dorset, from that moment, determined to remove him from the station in which he was, to one more fuited to his genius; and accordingly procured him to be fent to St. John's college in Cambridge, where he took his degree in 1686, and afterwards became a fellow of the college. During his refidence in the univerfity, he contracted an intimate friendfhip with Charles Montague, efq. afterwards earl of Hallifax; in conjunction with whom he wrote a very humorous piece, entitled, The Hind and Panther, tranfverfed to the story of the Coun try Moufe and the City Moufe, printed, in 1687, in quarto, in anfwer to Mr. Dryden's Hind and Panther, published the year before. Upon the revolution, Mr. Prior was brought to court by his great patron the earl of Dorfet, by whofe interest he was introduced to public employ. |