habited was a defpicable drab of the loweft fpecies. One of his wenches, perhaps Chloe, while he was abfent from his houfe, ftole his plate, and ran away; as was related by a woman who had been his fervant. Of this propensity to fordid converfe I have feen an account fo ferioufly ridiculous, that it feems to deferve infertion +.

"I have been affured that Prior, after having fpent "the evening with Oxford, Bolingbroke, Pope, and "Swift, would go and fmoke a pipe, and drink a bottle of ale, with a common foldier and his wife, in Long-Acre, before he went to bed; not from any "remains of the lownefs of his original, as one faid, but, I fuppofe, that his faculties,

"Strain'd to the height,

"In that celeftial colloquy fublime,

"Dazzled and spent, funk down, and fought repair." Poor Prior, why was he fo ftrained, and in fuch want of repair, after a converfation with men not, in the opinion of the world, much wifer than himself? But fuch are the conceits of fpeculatifts, who ftrain their faculties to find in a mine what, lies upon the furface.

His opinions, fo far as the means of judging are left us, feem to have been right; but his life was, it feems, irregular, negligent, and fenfual.

PRIOR has written with great variety, and his variety has made him popular. He has tried all styles, from the grotesque to the folemn, and has not fo failed in any as to incur derifion or difgrace.

* Spence.

VOL. III.

Richardfoniana.

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His

His works may be diftinctly confidered as comprifing Tales, Love-verfes, Occafional Poems, Alma, and Solomon.

His Tales have obtained general approbation, being written with great familiarity and great fpritelinefs: the language is eafy, but feldom grofs, and the numbers smooth, without appearance of care. Of thefe Tales there are only four. The Ladle; which is introduced by a Preface, neither neceffary nor pleafing, neither grave nor merry. Paulo Purganti; which has likewise a Preface, but of more value than the Tale. Hans Carvel, not over decent; and Protogenes and Apelles, an old ftory, mingled, by an affectation not disagreeable, with modern images. The Young Gentleman in Love has hardly a juft claim to the title of a Tale. I know not whether he be the original author of any Tale which he has given us. The Adventure of Hans Carvel has paffed through many fucceffions of merry wits; for it is to be found in Ariofto's Satires, and is perhaps yet older. But the merit of fuch stories is the art of telling them.

In his Amorous Effufions he is lefs happy; for they are not dictated by nature or by paffion, and have neither gallantry nor tenderness. They have the coldnefs of Cowley, without his wit, the dull exercises of a fkilful verfifier, refolved at all adventures to write fomething about Chloe, and trying to be amorous by dint of study. His fictions therefore are mythological. Venus, after the example of the Greek Epigram, afks when she was seen naked and bathing. Then Cupid is mistaken; then Cupid is difarmed; then he lofes his darts to Ganymede; then Jupiter fends him a fummons by Mercury. Then Chloe goes a-hunting, with an ivory

gaiver graceful at her fide; Diana miftakes her for one of her nymphs, and Cupid laughs at the blunder. All this is furely defpicable; and even when he tries to act the lover, without the help of gods or goddeffes, his thoughts are unaffecting or remote. He talks not like a man of this world.

The greatest of all his amorous effays is Henry and Emma; a dull and tedious dialogue, which excites neither esteem for the man, nor tenderness for the woman. The example of Emma, who refolves to follow an outlawed murderer wherever fear and guilt fhall drive him, deferves no imitation; and the experiment by which Henry tries the lady's conftancy is such as muft end either in infamy to her, or in difappointment to himself.

P

His occafional Poems neceffarily loft part of their value, as their occafions, being lefs remembered, raised lefs emotion. Some of them, however, are preserved by their inherent excellence. The burlefque of Boileau's Ode on Namur has, in fome parts, fuch airiness and levity as will always procure it readers, even among those who cannot compare it with the original. The Epiftle to Boileau is not fo happy. The Poems to the King are now perused only by young students, who read merely that they may learn to write; and of the Carmen Seculare, I cannot but fufpect that I might praise or cenfure it by caprice, without danger of detection; for who can be fuppofed to have laboured through it? Yet the time has been when this neglected work was fo popular, that it was tranflated into Latin by no common master.

His Poem on the battle of Ramillies is neceffarily tedious by the form of the ftanza: an uniform mafs of

ten lines, thirty-five times repeated, inconfequential and flightly connected, muft weary both the ear and the understanding. His imitation of Spenfer, which confifts principally in Iween and I weet, without exclufion of later modes of fpeech, makes his poem neither ancient nor modern. His mention of Mars and Bellona, and his comparifon of Marlborough to the Eagle that bears the thunder of Jupiter, are all puerile and unaffecting; and yet more defpicable is the long tale told by Lewis, in his defpair, of Brute and Troynovante, and the teeth of Cadmus, with his fimilies of the raven and eagle, and wolf and lion. By the help of fuch eafy fictions, and vulgar topicks, without acquaintance with life, and without knowledge of art or nature, a poem of any length, cold and lifelefs like this, may be eafily written on any subject.

In his Epilogues to Phædra and to Lucius, he is very happily facetious; but in the Prologue before the Queen, the pedant has found his way, with Minerva, Perfeus, and Andromeda.

His Epigrams and lighter pieces are, like thofe of others, fometimes elegant, fometimes trifling, and fometimes dull; among the beft are the Camelion, and the epitaph on John and Joan.

Scarcely any one of our poets has written fo much, and tranflated fo little: the verfion of Callimachus is fufficiently licentious; the paraphrafe on St. Paul's Exhortation to Charity is eminently beautiful.

Alma is written in profeffed imitation of Hudibras, and has at leaft one accidental refemblance: Hudibras wants a plan, because it is left imperfect; Alma is imperfect, because it seems never to have had a plan. Prior appears not to have propofed to himself any drift

OF

or defign, but to have written the cafual dictates of the prefent moment.

What Horace faid when he imitated Lucilius might be faid of Butler by Prior, his numbers were not fmooth or neat: Prior excelled him in verfification, but he was, like Horace, inventore minor; he had not Butler's exuberance of matter and variety of illustration. The fpangles of wit which he could afford, he knew how to polifh; but he wanted the bullion of his mafter. Butler pours out a negligent profufion, certain of the weight, but careless of the ftamp. Prior has comparatively little, but with that little he makes a fine fhew. Alma has many admirers, and was the only piece among Prior's works of which Pope faid that he fhould with to be the author,

Solomon is the work to which he entrusted the pro tection of his name, and which he expected fucceed, ing ages to regard with veneration. His affection was natural; it had undoubtedly been written with great labour; and who is willing to think that he has been labouring in vain? He had infufed into it much know ledge and much thought; had often polifhed it to ele gance, often dignified it with fplendour, and fometimes heightened it to fublimity: he perceived in it many excellences, and did not difcover that it wanted that without which all others are of fmall avail, the power of engaging attention and alluring curiofity.

Tedioufnefs is the moft fatal of all faults; negligences or errors are fingle and local, but tedioufnefs pervades the whole; other faults are cenfured and forgotten, but the power of tediousness propagates itself. He that is weary the first hour is more weary the second; as bodies forced into motion, contrary to their tendency,

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