"concerned in the damned peace at Utrecht! "the man that makes up half the volume of "terfe profe, that makes up the report of "the committee, speaking verfes! Sic eft, "bomo fum." He died at Wimpole, a feat of the earl of Oxford, on the eighteenth of September 1721, and was buried in Westminster; where on a monument, for which, as the last piece of human vanity, he left five hundred pounds, is engraven this epitaph: Sui Temporis Hiftoriam meditanti, Operi fimul & Vitæ filum abrupit, H. S. E. Vir Eximius Sereniffimis Regi GULIELMO Reginæque MARIÆ Qui anno 1697 Pacem RYSWICKI confecerunt, Tum iis, Qui apud Gallos annis proximis Legationem obierunt; Eodem etiam anno 1697 in Hiberniæ SECRE SECRETARIUS; Nec non in utroque Honorabili confeffu Qui anno 1700 ordinandis Commercii negotiis COMMISSIONARIUS; Ab ANNA Feliciffimæ memoriæ Reginâ De Pace ftabilienda, (Pacé etiamnum durante Diuque ut boni jam omnes fperant duratura) Cum fumma poteftate Legatus. MATTHEUS PRIOR Armiger; Qui Hos omnes, quibus cumulatus eft, Titulos Humanitatis, Ingenii Eruditionis Laude Superavit; Cui enim nafcenti faciles arriferant Mufæ. Hunc Puerum Schola hic Regia perpolivit; Juvenem in Collegio Sti. Johannis Cantabrigia optimis Scientiis inftruxit; Virum denique auxit & perfecit Multa cum viris Principibus confuetudo; Ita natus, ita inftitutus, A Vatum Choro avelli nunquam potuit, Sed folebat fæpe rerum Civilium gravitatem Amoniorum Literarum Studiis condire : Et cum omne adeo Poetices genus Tum in Fabellis concinne lepideque texendis Neminem habuit parem, Hæc liberalis animi oblectamenta; Quam nullo Illi labore conftiterint, Facile ii perfpexere, quibus ufus eft Amici; Apud quos Urbanitatum & Leporum plenus Cum ad rem, quæcunque forte inciderat, Aptè variè copiofeque alluderet, Interea nihil quæfitum, nihil vi expressum Videbatur, Sed omnia ultro effluere, Et quafi jugi è fonte affatim exuberare Of Prior, eminent as he was, both by his abilities and station, very few memorials have been left by his contemporaries; the account therefore muft now be deftitute of his private character and familiar practices. He lived at a time when the rage of party detected all which it was any man's intereft to hide; and as little ill is heard of Prior, it is certain that not much was known. He was not afraid of provoking cenfure; for when he forfook the Whigs*, under whofe patronage he first entered the world, he became a Tory fo ardent and determinate, that he did not willingly confort with men of different opinions. He was one of the fixteen Tories who met weekly, and agreed to addrefs each other by the title of Brother; and feems to have adhered, not only by concurrence of political defigns, but by peculiar affection, to the earl of Oxford and his family. With how much confidence he was trufted, has been already told. * He was however, in Pope's opinion, fit only to make verfes, and lefs qualified for business than Addison himself. This was furely faid without confideration. Addison, exalted to a high place, was forced into degradation by the fenfe of his own incapacity; Prior, who was employed by men very capable of estimating his value, having been fecretary to one embaffy, had, when great abilities were again wanted, the fame office another time; and was, after fo much experience of his knowledge and dexterity, at laft fent to tranfact a negotiation in the higheft degree arduous and important; for which he was quali • Spence. fied, among other requifites, in the opinion of Bolingbroke, by his influence upon the French minifter, and by fkill in queftions of commerce above other mėn. Of his behaviour in the lighter parts of life, it is too late to get much intelligence. One of his answers to a boaftful Frenchman has been related, and to an impertinent he made another equally proper. During his embaffy, he fat at the opera by a man, who, in his rapture, accompanied with his own voice the principal finger. Prior fell to railing at the performer with all the terms of reproach that he could collect, till the Frenchman, ceafing from his fong, began to expoftulate with him for his harsh cenfure of a man who was confeffedly the ornament of the ftage. "I know all "that," fays the ambassador, “ mais il chante fi "baut, que je ne fcaurois vous entendre." In a gay French company, where every one fung a little fong or ftanza, of which the burden was, Banniffons la Melancholie; when it came to his turn to fing, after the performance of a young lady that fat next him, he produced these extemporary lines |