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ATTHEW PRIOR is one of those 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 say 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

The difficulty of fettling Prior's birth-place is great. Ia the register of his College he is called; at his admiffion by the Prefident, Matthew Prior of Winburn in Middlesex; by himself next day, Matthew Prior of Dorfetfhire, in which county, not in Middlefex, Winborn, or Wimborne, as it stands in the Villare, is found. When he stood candidate for his fellowship, five years afterwards, he was registered again by himself as of Middlefex. The laft record ought to be 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.

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actions

actions might find him fome illuftrious alli

ance.

He is fuppofed to have fallen, by his father's death, into the hands of his uncle, a vintner near Charing-crofs, who sent him for fome time to Dr. Busby at Westminster; but, not intending to give him any education beyond that of the fchool, took him, whẹn he was well advanced in literature, to his own houfe; where the earl of Dorfet, 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

poems

poems upon facred fubjects, in acknowledgment of a benefaction enjoyed by them from the bounty of his anceftor. On this occafion were those verses written, which, though nothing is faid of their fuccefs, feem to have recommended him to fome notice; for his praise of the countefs's mufic, and his lines on the famous picture of Seneca, afford reafon for imagining that he was more or less converfant with that family.

The fame year he published the City Moufe and Country Moufe, to ridicule Dryden's Hind and Panther, in conjunction with Mr. Montague. There is a story* of great pain fuffered, and of tears fhed, on this occafion, by Dryden, who thought it hard that an old man fhould be fo treated by thofe to whom he had always been civil. By tales like these is the envy raised by fuperior abilities every day gratified when they are attacked, every one hopes to fee them humbled; what is hoped is readily believed, and what is believed is confidently told. Dryden had been more accustomed to hoftilities, than that fuch enemies should break his quiet; and if we can suppose

him vexed, it would be hard to deny him fenfe enough to conceal his uneafiness.

The City Moufe and Country Moufe procur ed its authors more folid advantages than the pleasure of fretting Dryden; for they were both speedily preferred. Montague, indeed, obtained the firft notice, with fome degree of discontent, as it seems, in Prior, who probably knew that his own part of the performance was the beft. He had not, however, much reason to complain; for he came to London, and obtained fuch notice, that (in 1691) he was fent to the Congress at The Hague as fecretary to the embaffy. In this affembly of princes and nobles, to which Europe has perhaps scarcely feen any thing equal, was formed the grand alliance against Lewis; which at last did not produce effects proportionate to the magnificence of the transaction.

The conduct of Prior, in this splendid initiation into public bufmefs, was fo pleafing to king William, that he made him one of the gentlemen of his bedchamber; and he is fupposed to have paffed some of the next years in the quiet cultivation of literature and poetry.

The

The death of Queen Mary (in 1695) produced a fubject for all the writers: perhaps no funeral was ever fo poetically attended. Dryden, indeed, as a man discountenanced and deprived, was filent; but scarcely any other maker of verfes omitted to bring his tribute of tuneful forrow. An emulation of elegy was univerfal. Maria's praise was not confined to the English language, but fills a great part of the Musa Anglicana.

Prior, who was both a poet and a courtier, was too diligent to miss this opportunity of refpect. He wrote a long ode, which was prefented to the king, by whom it was not likely to be ever read,

In two years he was fecretary to another embassy at the treaty of Ryfwick (in 1697); and next year had the fame office at the court of France, where he is faid to have been confidered with great diftinction.

As he was one day furveying the apartments at Versailles, being fhewn the Victories of Lewis, painted by Le Brun, and asked whether

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