When, two years after, an Act of Grace was paffed, he was excepted, and continued ftill in cuftody, which he had made lefs 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 fiftythree 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 Jaft. Being however generally known and esteemed, he was encouraged to add other poems to those which he had printed, and to publish them by fubfcription. The expedient fucceeded by the industry of many friends, who circulated the proposals *, 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 fon of the earl of Oxford, to whom he had invariably adhered, added an equal fun 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 state of quiet. It is not unlikely that his health declined. He complains of deafness; for, fay, •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," *Swift obtained many Subfcriptions for him in Ireland. fays fays he, "treated lady Harriot at Cambridge; (a "Fellow of a College treat!) and fpoke verfes to her "in a gown and cap! What, the plenipotentiary, fo "far concerned in the damned peace at Utrecht! the "man that makes up half the volume of terfe prose, "that makes up the report of the committee, speaking "verses! Sic eft, homo sum. He died at Wimpole, a feat of the earl of Oxford, on the eighteenth of September 1721, and was buried in Westminster; 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, Paulatim obrepens Febris Operi fimul & Vitæ filum abrupit, Vir Eximius Sereniffimis Regi GULIELMO Reginæque MARIE Qui anno 1697 Pacem RYSWICKI confecerunt, Tum iis, Qui apud Gallos annis próximis Legationem obierunt; Nec non in utroque Honorabili confeffu Eorum, Qui anno 1700 ordinandis Commercii negotiis, Præfidebant, COMMISSIONARIUS; Poftremo Poftremo AbANNA Feliciffimæ memoriæ Reginâ De Pace ftabilienda, (Pace etiamnum durante Diuque ut boni jam omnes fperant duratura) Hos omnes, quibus cumulatus eft, Titulos Cui enim nafcenti faciles arriferant Mufæ. A Vatum Choro avelli nunquam potuit, 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 plenus Cum ad rem, quæcunque forte inciderat, Aptè variè copiofeque alluderet, Interea nihil quæfitum, nihil vi expreffum Videbatur, Videbatur, Sed omnia ultro effluere, Et quafi jugi è fonte affatim exuberare, An in Convictu, Comes Jucundior. 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 defigns, 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 lefs qualified for business than Addison himself. This was furely faid without confideration. Addifon, exalted to a high place, was forced into degradation by the fenfe of his own incapacity; Prior, who was employed by men very capable of eftimating his value, having been fecretary to one embaffy, had, when great abilities were again wanted, 6 * Spence. the the fame office another time; and was, after so much experience of his knowledge and dexterity, at last sent to tranfact a negotiation in the highest degree arduous and important; for which he was qualified, among other requifites, in the opinion of Bolingbroke, by his influence upon the French minifter, and by skill in queftions 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 anfwers to a boaftful Frenchman has been related, and to an impertinent he made another equally proper. During his embafly, 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 ftage. "I know that," fays the ambaffador, "mais il chante fi baut, que je ne fçaurois vous entendre.” In a gay French company, where every one fung a little fong or stanza, of which the burden was, Bannisfons la Melancholie; when it came to his turn to fing, after the performance of a young lady that fat next him, he produced thefe extemporary Mais celle voix, et ces beaux yeux, Banniffons la Melancholie. lines: Tradition reprefents him as willing to defcend from the dignity of the poet and the statesman to the low delights of mean company. His Chloe probably was fometimes ideal: but the woman with whom he co habited |