MATTHEW PRIOR, one of the moft eminent poets of the prefent century, is supposed, with great probability, to have been born at Winbourn Minfter, in the county of Do:fct.

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His

Dorfet, on the 21ft day of July 1664. parents were diffenters, and in mean circumftances. They afforded him, however, as good an education as the place would allow, which was at the free fchool founded by Margaret Countess of Richmond and Derby. How long he continued here before his removal to London, we are not informed, but it may be prefumed that he did not remain any confiderable time, as it is faid on the death of his father he was fent for by an uncle, then fettled in town as a vintner, who undertook to give his nephew fuch an education as his parents were unable to beftow upon him. He was accordingly placed under the care of Dr. Busby, at Westminster fchool, where he diftinguished himself very foon above his fellows of the fame clafs. Before he had gone through the school, his progress in literature was interrupted by his uncle, who intending him for his fucceffor, took him from

*All the biographers of Mr. Prior fay he was born in London, but for the reafons affigned by Mr. Hutchins in his History and Antiquities of Dorfet, vol. II. p. 73, ye have fixed the place of his birth to Winbourn Minster, which feems to be intitled to claim the honour of having given birth to this excellent poet.

thence,

thence, and employed him for fome time in the conduct and management of his business. This mean and low fituation was infufficient to extinguish that love of letters which he had acquired at fchool: he ftill continued to devote fome of his time to claffical learning, and fortunately the bent of his ftudies and the force of his genius were known to fome who used to frequent his uncle's houfe. An accident, we are told, occafioned his being released from his ignoble employment. The Earl of Dorfet, with other gentlemen, being at the tavern where he lived, a dispute arose about the meaning of a particular paffage in Horace, which not being fettled to the fatisfac tion of thofe prefent, one of them faid, he was mistaken if there was not a young fellow in the house who was able to fet them all right, and at the fame time propofed fending for Mr. Prior. On this recommendation, all the company defired he might be called in; when the difficulty being propofed to him, he explained it with fo much modefty, that the Earl of Dorfet immediately refolved to take him under his protection, and foon after he was fent to St. John's College, Cambridge, where he was entered a penfioner on the 2d of April, 1683. He there took his degree

degree of Batchelor of Arts in 1686; and on the 5th of April 1688, was admitted to a fellowship.

During his refidence at Cambridge he became acquainted with Charles Montague, afterwards Earl of Hallifax, and in conjunction with him in the preceding year, 1687, exhibited the first publick specimen of his abilities, by turning into ridicule Dryden's Hind and Panther, which they parodied with great humour in a piece intitled, The Hind and Panther tranfverfed to the story of the Country Mouse and the City Moufe. In 1689 he came to London, and immediately applied to his friend Fleetwood Shepherd,* Efq; who introduced him to the Earl of Dorset, and by their joint intereft procured him the next year to be appointed secretary on the part of the English in the Congrefs at the Hague. He executed this office with fo much ability, and fo much to the fatisfaction of his royal mafter, that foon afterwards he had the poft of Gentleman of his Majesty's Bedchamber conferred upon him. He was in 1697 again employed in the office of fecretary to the English negotiations on settling the Treaty of Rifwick; and in the fame year

* See vol. 2. p. 106.

nominated Principal Secretary of State in Ireland. The next year he went fecretary to the embassy in France, and continued in that kingdom until Auguft 1699*, when on his return to England he vifited Loo in Holland, in order to pay his duty to King William, then refiding there; and from thence, after a long audience of his Majefty, departed by the way of Hague, and on his arrival in England took poffeffion of his feat as Under Secretary of State in the office of the Earl of Jerfey. He had not been many days in this employment before he was ordered back to Paris, to affift the ambassador in negotiating the Partition Treaty. In 1700 the degree of Master of Arts was conferred on him by the university of Cambridge, in obedience to a mandamus from the king. The Earl of Jersey accepting the place of Lord Chamberlain this year, Mr. Prior

It was during his refidence this time in France, that one of the officers of the king's houfhold, fhewing him the royal apartments and curiofities of Versailles, and among them the paintings of Le Brun, in which the victories of Lewis XIV. are defcribed, afked him, whether King William's actions were to be feen alfo in his palace?"No," anfwered the English fecretary, "the "monuments of my mafter's actions are to be feen every where but in his own house."

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