Mais celle voix, et ces beaux yeux, Tradition represents him as willing to defcend from the dignity of the poet and the ftatesman to the low delights of mean company. His Chloe probably was fometimes ideal; but the woman with whom he cohabited. was a despicable drab * of the lowest species. One of his wenches, perhaps Chloe, while he was abfent from his house, ftole his plate, and ran away; as was related by a woman who had been his fervant. Of this propenfity to fordid converse I have feen an account fo feriously ridiculous, that it seems to deserve infertion. "I have been affured that Prior, after hav"ing spent the evening with Oxford, Bolingbroke, Pope, and Swift, would go and smoke a pipe, and drink a bottle of ale, with a common foldier and his wife, in Long"Acre, before he went to bed; not from "remains of the lowness of his original, as any one said, but, I suppose, that his faculties "-Strain'd to the height, "In that celeftial colloquy fublime, Poor Prior! why was he fo ftrained, and in fuch want of repair, after a conversation with men not, in the opinion of the world, much wifer than himself? But fuch are the conceits of speculatifts, who ftrain their faculties to find in a mine what lies upon the furface. His opinions, fo far as the means of judging are left us, seem to have been right; but his life was, it feems, irregular, negligent, and fenfual. PRIOR J PRIOR has written with great variety, and his variety has made him popular. He has tried all ftyles from the grotesque to the folemn, and has not fo failed in any as to incur derifion or difgrace. His works may be diftinctly confidered as comprifing Tales, Love-verfes, Occafional Poems, Alma, and Solomon. His Tales have obtained general approbation, being written with great familiarity and great spriteliness the language is eafy, but feldom grofs, and the numbers fmooth, without appearance of care. Of these Tales there are only four. The Ladle; which is introduced by a Preface, neither neceffary nor pleasing, neither grave nor merry. Paulo Purganti; which has likewise a Preface, but of more value than the Tale. Hans Carvel, not overdecent; and Protogenes and Apelles, an old ftory, mingled, by an affectation not disagreeable, with modern images. The Young Gen tleman tleman in Love has hardly a juft claim to the title of a Tale. I know not whether he be the original author of any Tale which he has given us. The Adventure of Hans Carvel has paffed through many fucceffions of merry wits; for it is to be found in Ariofto's Satires, and is perhaps yet older. But the merit of fuch ftories is the art of telling them. In his Amorous Effufions he is less happy; for they are not dictated by nature or by paffion, and have neither gallantry nor tenderness. They have the coldness of Cowley, without his wit, the dull exercises of a fkilful verfifyer, refolved at all adventures to write fomething about Chloe, and trying to be amorous by dint of ftudy. His fictions therefore are mythological. Venus, after the example of the Greek Epigram, afks when she was feen naked and bathing. Then Cupid is mistaken; then Cupid is difarmed; then he lofes his darts to Ganymede; then Jupiter fends him a fummons by Mercury. Then Chloe goes a-hunting, with an ivory quiver graceful at ber fide; Diana mistakes her for one of her nymphs, and Cupid laughs at the blunder. All this is furely defpicable; and even when he he tries to act the lover, without the help of gods or goddeffes, his thoughts are unaffecting or remote. world. He talks not like a man of this The greateft of all his amorous efflaysis Henry and Emma; a dull and tedious dialogue, which excites neither efteem for the man nor tendernefs for the woman. The example of Emma, who refolves to follow an outlawed murderer wherever fear and guilt fhall drive him, deferves no imitation; and the experiment by which Henry tries the lady's conftancy, is fuch as must end either in infamy to her, or in disappointment to himself. His occafional Poems neceffarily loft part of their value, as their occafions, being less remembered, raised lefs emotion. Some of them, however, are preferved by their inherent excellence. The burlefque of Boileau's Ode on Namur has, in fome parts, fuch airiness and levity as will always procure it readers, even among those who cannot compare it with the original. The Epiftle to Boileau is not fo happy. The Poems to the King are |