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PRIO R.

ATTHEW PRIOR is one of

MATT

those that have burst out, from an obfcure original to great eminence, He was born July 21, 1664, according to fome, at Winburne in Dorsetshire, of I know not what parents; others fay that he was the son of a joiner of London: he was perhaps willing enough to leave his birth unfettled, in hope, like Don Quixote, that the hiftorian of his actions might find him fome illuftrious. alliance *.

* The difficulty of fettling Prior's birth-place is great. In the register of his College he is called,

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He is supposed to have fallen, by his father's death, into the hands of his uncle, a vintner near Charing-cross, who fent him for fome time to Dr. Busby at Westminster; but, not intending to give him any education beyond that of the fchool, took him, when he was well advanced in literature, to his own house; where the earl of Dorfet, celebrated for

called, at his admiffion by the Prefident, Matthew Prior of Winburn in Middlesex; by himfelf next day Matthew Prior of Dorsetshire, in which county, not in Middlefex, Winborn, or Wimborne, as it ftands in the Villare, 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 filed Filius Georgii Prior, generofi; not confiftently with the common account of the meannefs of his birth.

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patronage of genius, found him by chance, as Burnet relates, reading Horace, and was fo well pleased with his proficiency, that he undertook the care and coft 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 reafonably fuppofed that he was diftinguished among his contemporaries. He became a Bachelor, as is ufual, in four years; and two years afterwards wrote the poem on the Deity, which ftands first in his volume.

It is the established practice of that College to fend every year to the earl of. Exeter fome poems upon facred fubjects, in acknowledgement of a benefaction

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faction enjoyed by them from the bounty of his ancestor. On this occafion were those verses written, which, though nothing is faid of their fuccefs, feem to have recommended him to fome notice; for his praife of the countefs's mufick, and his lines on the famous picture of Seneca, afford reafon for imagining that he was more or lefs converfant with that family.

The fame year he published the City Moufe and Country Moufe, to ridicule Dryden's Hind and Panther, in conjunction with Mr. Montague. There is a ftory of great pain fuffered, and of

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tears fhed, on this occafion, by Dryden,

who thought it hard that an old man

* Spence.

Should

fhould be fo treated by those to whom he had always been civil. By tales like these is the envy raised by fuperior abilities every day gratified: when they are attacked, every one hopes to fee them humbled; what is hoped is readily believed, and what is believed is confidently told. Dryden had been more accustomed to hoftilities, than that fuch enemies fhould break his quiet; and if we can fuppofe him vexed, it would be hard to deny him fenfe enough to conceal his uneafinefs.

The City Moufe and Country Moufe procured its authors more folid advantages than the pleasure of fretting Dryden; for they were both speedily preferred. Montague indeed obtained the

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