"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, fpeaking 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 Weftminfter; 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, Vir Eximius Sereniffimis Regi GULIELMO Reginæque MARIÆ In Congreffione Fœderatorum 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 Regina De Pace ftabilienda, (Pace etiamnum durante Hos omnes, quibus cumulatus eft, Titulos Cui enim nafcenti faciles arriferant Mufæ. A Vatum Choro avelli nunquam potuit, 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 plenuş Cum ad rem, quæcunque forte inciderat, Aptè variè copiofeque alluderet, Interea nihil quæfitum, nihil vi expreffum 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 must 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 designs, 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 verses, and less qualified for bufinefs than Addison himself. This was furely faid without confideration. Addison, exalted to a high place, was forced into degra dation by the sense of his own incapacity ; Prior, who was employed by men very capable of estimating his value, having been fecretary to one embassy, had, when great abilities were again wanted, the fame office another time; and was, after fo much experience of his knowledge and dexterity, at last sent to tranfa&t a negotiation in the highest 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 minister, and by skill in questions of commerce above other men. 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 stage. "I know all "that," fays the ambaffador, “mais il chante fi “haut, que je ne fcaurois vous entendre." In a gay French company, where every one fung a little fong or stanza, 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; |