[3] PRIO R. ATTHEW PRIOR is one of thofe that have burft out from an obscure 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 unsettled, in hope, like Don Quixote, that the hiftorian of his actions might find him fome illuftrious alliance*. He * The difficulty of fettling Prior's birth-place is great. In the register of his College he is called, at his admiffion by the Prefident, Matthew Prior of Winburn in Middlefex; by himself next day, Matthew Prior of Dorfetfhire, in which county, not in Middlefex, Winborn, or Wimborne, as it ftands in the Villare, is found. When he ftood candidate for his fellowship, five years afterwards, he was registered again by himself as of Middlefex. The laft record ought to be preferred, B 2 He is fuppofed to have fallen, by his fa ther's death, into the hands of his uncle, a vintner near Charing-crofs, who fent him for fome time to Dr. Bufby 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 Dorset, celebrated for 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 reasonably 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 preferred, because it was made upon oath. It is obfervable, that, as a native of Winborne, he is ftiled Filius Georgii Prior, generofi; not confiftently with the common account of the meanness of his birth. poems |