if he had ever come before a legal judicature, he should have contradicted or explained away. The oath was administered by Bofcawen, a Middlefex juftice, who at laft was going to write his atteftation on the wrong fide of the paper. They were very induftrious to find fome charge against Oxford, and asked Prior, with great earnestness, who was present when the preliminary articles were talked of or figned at his house? He told them, that either the earl of Oxford or the duke of Shrewsbury was abfent, but he could not remember which; an answer which perplexed them, because it supplied no accufation against "Could any thing be more abfurd," either. fays he, or more inhuman, than to propose to me a question, by the answering of "which I might, according to them, << prove myself a traitor? And notwithstanding their folemn promise, that nothing "which I could say should hurt myself, I "had no reason to trust them: for they vio"lated that promise about five hours after. 86 However, I owned I was there present. "Whether "Whether this was wifely done or no, I "leave to my friends to determine." When he had figned the paper, he was told by Walpole, that the committee were not fatisfied with his behaviour, nor could give fuch an account of it to the Commons as might me→ rit favour; and that they now thought a ftricter confinement neceffary than to his own houfe. "Here" fays he, "Bofcawen played "the moralift, and Coningsby the chriftian, "but both very aukwardly." The messenger, in whose cuftody he was to be placed, was then called, and very decently asked by Coningsby, if his houfe was fecured by bars and bolts? The meffenger anfwered, No, with astonishment; at which Coningsby very angrily faid, Sir, you must fecure this prisoner; it is for the fafety of the nation: if he escape, you fhall answer for it. They had already printed their report; and in this examination were endeavouring to find proofs. He continued thus confined for fome time; and Mr. Walpole (June 10, 1715) moved for VOL. III. C an an impeachment against him. What made him fo acrimonious does not appear: he was by nature no thirster for blood. Prior was a week after committed to clofe cuftody, with orders that no perfon fhould be admitted to fee him without leave from the Speaker: When, two years after, an Act of Grace was paffed, he was excepted, and continued ftill in cuftody, which he had made less tedious by writing his Alma. He was, however, foon after discharged. He had now his liberty, but he had nothing else. Whatever the profit of his employments might have been, he had always fpent it; and at the age of fifty-three was, with all his abilities, in danger of penury, having yet no folid revenue but from the fellowship of his college, which, when in his exaltation he was cenfured for retaining it, he faid, he could live upon at last. Being however generally known and efteemed, he was encouraged to add other poems to thofe which he had printed, and to publish them by fubfcription. The expedient fucceeded fucceeded by the industry of many friends, who circulated the propofals *, and the care of fome, who, it is faid, withheld the money from him, left he fhould fquander it. The price of the volume was two guineas; the whole collection was four thoufand; to which lord Harley, the son of the earl of Oxford, to whom he had invariably adhered, added an equal fum for the purchase of Down-hall, which Prior was to enjoy during life, and Harley after his decease. He had now, what wits and philofophers have often wifhed, the power of paffing the day in contemplative tranquillity. But it feems that bufy men feldom live long in a ftate of quiet. It is not unlikely that his health declined. He complains of deafness ; for, fays he, I took little care of my ears while I was not fure if my head was my own. Of any occurrences in his remaining life I have found no account. In a letter to Swift, "I have," fays he, "treated lady Har"riot at Cambridge. A Fellow of a College "treat! and spoke verses to her in a gown "and cap! What, the plenipotentiary, so far * Swift obtained many subscriptions for him in Ireland. "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 Qui anno 1697 Pacem RYSWICKI confecerunt, Tum iis, Qui apud Gallos annis proximis Legationem obierunt ; Eodem etiam anno 1697 in Hibernia SECRE |