Complete Works of Matthew Prior

by Matthew Prior

  A strong unlaboured Impotence of Thought!

  If we examine it by the new Test of good Poetry, which the Doctor himself has established, Pleasing at first Blush, has this Piece the least Title even to that? Or, if we compare it with the only Pattern, as he thinks, of just Writing [in] this Kind, Ovid, is there any Thing in De Tristibus so wild, so childish, or so flat?

  What can the ingenious Doctor mean? Or at what Time could he write these Verses? Half of the Poem is a Panegyric on a Lord-Treasurer in being; and the rest a Compliment of Condoléance to an Earl that has lost the Staff.

  In thirty Lines his Patron is a River, the Primum — , a Pilot, a Victim, the Sun, any Thing and Nothing. He bestows Increase, conceals his Source, makes the Machine move, teaches to steer, expiates our Offences, raises Vapours, and look[s] larger as he sets.

  Nor is the Choice of his Expressions less exquisite, than that of his Similes. For Commerce to run, Passions to be poizedy Merit to be retrieved from Dépend, and a Machine to be Serene, is perfectly new. The Doctor has a happy Talent at Invention, and has had the Glory of enriching our Language by his Phrases, as much as he has improved Medicine by his Bills.

  But to be more particular —

  And where the Sword destroys not (says our Panegyrist) Famine kills.

  I could wish the Verse would have allowed of the Word Plague, or Pestilence; for I suppose that’s what the Author means. I have heard of the Plague at Dantzick; but what Part of Europe Famine rages in, I know not. Why won’t Physic stand here? It is better Sense, and runs as well. What the Pomp of Peace is, I as little comprehend, as how it can be enjoyed amidst the Woes of War.

  Such Conduct, such Integrity are shown,

  There are no Coffers empty but your

  Since there is so little Poetry in this Couplet, I wish there were more Truth in it. Some Coffers, I have heard, were empty three Weeks ago; and if they are not so still, the Nation is more obliged to the Doctor’s unpractised Crew, than to the experienced Pilot.

  Unask’d you ‘offer —

  A great Discovery! I always thought till now, he that was ask’d might be said to give; but not properly to offer. The malicious Part of the World will, I doubt, be apt to observe, That this Sentence, as it stands here, is as true in Fact, as it is exalt in Language,

  Your Favour, like the Nile, Increase

  If the Beauty of the Simile is to be judged of by the frequent Use which the Poets of all Ages have made of it, scarce any can come in Competition with the Doctor’s River. The Nile on these Occasions is as trite, as the Stories of Icarus and Phaeton. I remember I used it when I was about Twelve, in a New-Year’s-Gift to my Uncle, and was heartily ashamed of it a Year after. A School-Boy can no more miss the Nile, than a French Author, when he dedicates to the Grand Monarch, can live without the Sun, that other Simile in which the Doctor rejoices.

  — Some Star, sinister to our Prayers,

  Contrives new Schemes.

  Alii legunt Five Stars; which makes this Passage intelligible. I have often heard Astrologers talk of a sort of Influence that Stars have upon human Affairs; but I know of no Stars, but those in Mr. Bickerstaff’s Constellation, that ever contrived Schemes; and those too were erected under no very benign Aspect.

  My Lord’s Care, he tells us, is to teach the unpractised Crew to steer. By Crew, we are to understand the Lords of the Treasury. A very civil Expression! But as to the Sense of it: What Affinity is there between Crew and Steering? Is Steering the Business of the whole Ship’s Crew? This is a true Image of the Whig-Scheme, where every Man is his own Pilot.

  If we read the two next Lines, we shall find these People have wounded him; and yet, like the best-natur’d Victim imaginable, he needs no Constraint to expiate their Offence. All this is what the French call Gallimatias, and what the English Critics term Nonsense, But what follows? For whom you bleed. Bleed! What, is the Devil in the Doctor, to mention such a Word, and give so unlucky a Hint? I hoped that this Point had been so well guarded, that there could be no farther need of an Act of Security.

  The God of Day, and your own Lot’s the same,

  A hundred Pound for a Genitive Case! as old Busby used to cry out upon such an Occasion.

  But to go on, from Grammar to Decency. Of this Happiness of Great Britain, is any Part ascribed to the Queen? To this Machine, which moves so like the Universe, does the Royal Hand give any Turn? Methinks he might at least allow Her Majesty as much as his Friends did in the Coronation-Medal.

  VICEM GERIT ILLA.

  But, as the Poet observes,

  Ingratitudes a Weed in every Clime,

  He will give me leave, in my own Turn, to observe, That in Don Sebastian it is,

  Ingratitude’s the Growth of every Clime.

  What Occasion was there of altering a Verse he thought fit to steal? This is being a meer Banditti in Poetry, to rob and murder too. But who is to be charged with this Ingratitude? The whole Body of the Nation did indeed wish the Treasurer out; but ’twas Her Majesty only that could displace him. Such are the Compliments which the Crown receives from this Anti-monarchical Academy. Excellent Poets, dutiful Subjects!

  I could give you many more Observations upon the Beauties of this sublime Panegyric, if I had my Longinus by me. It has been corrected, I find, twice or thrice already; and if the Author corrects it once more, I am so well acquainted with his lucky Performances that Way, that I don’t doubt, but I shall be tempted to write to you again upon the same Subject. He will not be like himself, if he does not shift his Patron as well as his Phrases; and it won’t surprize me at all, if in the next Edition the Poem should come out inscribed to the late Treasurer of Inland.

  But I believe by this Time the Town is tired with the Verses, and you with the Criticisms of

  Your most humble,

  PHILODINGLE.

  My unknown Friend Mr. Philodingle has taken my Province from me: However, I am obliged to him for his Essay. The best Return which can be made to an ingenious Man, is to afford him fresh Matter to employ his Thoughts, and more Opportunities of shewing his Sagacity. For this Reason I present my Brother Examiner with a Riddley which was sent me by a Sage, studious of Egyptian Knowledge, and much addicted to the Hieroglyphics.

  The Biographies

  Matthew Prior after Jonathon Richardson, c. 1718

  Prior by Samuel Johnson

  From ‘The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets’, Volume 3

  MATTHEW PRIOR is one of those that have burst out from an obscure original to great eminence. He was born July 21, 1664, according to some 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 historian of his actions might find him some illustrious alliance.

  He is supposed to have fallen, by his father’s death, into the hands of his uncle, a vintner near Charing-cross, who sent him for some time to Dr. Busby, at Westminster; but, not intending to give him any education beyond that of the school, 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 so well pleased with his proficiency, that he undertook the care and cost 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 supposed that he was distinguished among his contemporaries. He became a Bachelor, as is usual, in four years; and two years afterwards wrote the poem on the Deity, which stands first in his volume.

  It is the established practice of that College, to send every year to the earl of Exeter some poems upon sacred subjects, in acknowledgement of a benefaction enjoyed by them from the bounty of his ancestor. On this occasion were those verses written, which, though no thing is said of their success, seem to have recommended him to some notice; for his praise of the countess’s musick, and his lines on the famous picture of S
eneca, afford reason for imagining that he was more or less conversant with that family.

  The same year he published the City Mouse and Country Mouse, to ridicule Dryden’s Hind and Panther, in conjunction with Mr. Montague. There is a story of great pain suffered, and of tears shed, on this occasion, by Dryden, who thought it hard that “an old man should be so treated by those to whom he had always been civil.” By tales like these is the envy, raised by superior abilities, every day gratified: when they are attacked, every one hopes to see them humbled: what is hoped is readily believed, and what is believed is confidently told. Dryden had been more accustomed to hostilities, than that such enemies should break his quiet; and if we can suppose him vexed, it would be hard to deny him sense enough to conceal his uneasiness.

  The City Mouse and Country Mouse procured its authors more solid advantages than the pleasure of fretting Dryden; for they were both speedily preferred. Montague, indeed, obtained the first notice, with some degree of discontent, as it seems, in Prior, who probably knew that his own part of the performance was the best. He had not, however, much reason to complain; for he came to London, and obtained such notice, that (in 1691) he was sent to the Congress at the Hague as secretary to the embassy. In this assembly of princes and nobles, to which Europe has perhaps scarcely seen anything 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 publick business, was so pleasing to king William, that he made him one of the gentlemen of his bed-chamber; and he is supposed to have passed some of the next years in the quiet cultivation of literature and poetry.

  The death of queen Mary (in 1695) produced a subject for all the writers: perhaps no funeral was ever so poetically attended. Dryden, indeed, as a man discountenanced and deprived, was silent; but scarcely any other maker of verses omitted to bring his tribute of tuneful sorrow. An emulation of elegy was universal. Maria’s praise was not confined to the English language, but fills a great part of the Musæ Anglicanæ.

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

  In two years he was secretary to another embassy at the treaty of Ryswick (in 1697); and next year had the same office at the court of France, where he is said to have been considered with great distinction.

  As he was one day surveying the apartments at Versailles, being shewn the Victories of Lewis, painted by Le Brun, and asked whether the king of England’s palace had any such decorations; “The monuments of my Master’s actions,” said he, “are to be seen every where but in his own house.” The pictures of Le Brun are not only in themselves sufficiently ostentatious, but were explained by inscriptions so arrogant, that Boileau and Racine thought it necessary to make them more simple.

  He was in the following year at Loo with the king; from whom, after a long audience, he carried orders to England, and upon his arrival became under-secretary of state in the earl of Jersey’s office; a post which he did not retain long, because Jersey was removed; but he was soon made commissioner of Trade.

  This year (1700) produced one of his longest and most splendid compositions, the Carmen Seculare, in which he exhausts all his powers of celebration. I mean not to accuse him of flattery: he probably thought all that he writ, and retained as much veracity as can be properly exacted from a poet professedly encomiastic. King William supplied copious materials for either verse or prose. His whole life had been action, and none ever denied him the resplendent qualities of steady resolution and personal courage. He was really in Prior’s mind what he represents him in his verses; he considered him as a hero, and was accustomed to say, that he praised others in compliance with the fashion, but that in celebrating king William he followed his inclination. To Prior gratitude would dictate praise, which reason would not refuse.

  Among the advantages to arise from the future years of William’s reign, he mentions a Society for useful Arts, and among them

  Some that with care true eloquence shall teach,

  And to just idioms fix our doubtful speech.

  That from our writers distant realms may know

  The thanks we to our monarchs owe,

  And schools professour tongue through every land,

  That has invok’d his aid or bless’d his hand.

  Tickell, in his Prospect of Peace, has the same hope of a new academy:

  In happy chains our daring language bound,

  Shall sport no more in arbitrary sound.

  Whether the similitude of those passages which exhibit the same thought on the same occasion proceeded from accident or intimation, is not easy to determine. Tickell might have been impreſſed with his expectation by Swift’s Propoſal for aſcertaining the Engliſh Language, then lately publiſhed.

  In the parliament that met in 1701, he was choſen repreſentative of East Grinſtead. Perhaps it was about this time that he changed his party; for he voted for the impeachment of thoſe lords who had perſuaded the king to the Partition-treaty, a treaty in which he had himſelf been miniſterially employed.

  A great part of queen Anne’s reign was a time of war, in which there was little employment for negotiators, and Prior had therefore leiſure to make or to poliſh verſes. When the battle of Blenheim called forth all the verſe-men, Prior, among the reſt, took care to ſhew his delight in the increaſing honour of his country by an Epiſtle to Boileau.

  He publiſhed, ſoon afterwards, a volume of poems, with the encomiaſtic character of his deceaſed patron the duke of Dorſet: it began with the College Exerciſe, and ended with the Nut-brown Maid.

  The battle of Ramillies ſoon afterwards (in 1706) excited him to another effort of poetry. On this occaſion he had fewer or leſs formidable rivals; and it would be not eaſy to name any other compoſition produced by that event which is now remembered.

  Every thing has its day. Through the reigns of William and Anne no proſperous event paſſed undignified by poetry. In the laſt war, when France was diſgraced and overpowered in every quarter of the globe, when Spain, coming to her aſſiſtance, only ſhared her calamities, and the name of an Engliſhman was reverenced through Europe, no poet was heard amidſt the general acclamation; the fame of our counſellors and heroes was intruſted to the Gazetteer.

  The nation in time grew weary of the war, and the Queen grew weary of her miniſters. The war was burdenſome, and the miniſters were inſolent. Harley and his friends began to hope that they might, by driving the Whigs from court and from power, gratify at once the queen and the people. There was now a call for writers, who might convey intelligence of paſt abuſes, and ſhew the waſte of public money, the unreaſonable Conduct of the Allies, the avarice of generals, the tyranny of minions, and the general danger of approaching ruin.

  For this purpoſe a paper called the Examiner was periodically publiſhed, written, as it happened, by any wit of the party, and ſometimes as is ſaid by Mrs. Manley. Some are owned by Swift; and one, in ridicule of Garth’s verſes to Godolphin upon the loſs of his place, was written by Prior, and anſwered by Addiſon, who appears to have known the author either by conjecture or intelligence.

  The Tories, who were now in power, were in haſte to end the war; and Prior, being recalled (1710) to his former employment of making treaties, was ſent (July 1711) privately to Paris with propoſitions of peace. He was remembered at the French court; and returning in about a month, brought with him the Abbé Gaultier, and M. Meſnager, a miniſter from France, inveſted with full powers.

  This tranſaction not being avowed, Mackay, the maſter of the Dover packet-boat, either zealouſly or officiouſly, ſeized Prior and his aſſociates at Canterbury. It is eaſily ſuppoſed that they were ſoon releaſed.

  The negotiation was begun at Prior’s houſe, where the Queen’s miniſters met Meſnager (September 20,
1711) and entered privately upon the great buſineſs. The importance of Prior appears from the mention made of him by St. John in his Letter to the Queen.

  “My Lord Treaſurer moved, and all my Lords were of the ſame opinion, that Mr. Prior ſhould be added to thoſe who are empowered to ſign; the reaſon for which is, becauſe he having perſonally treated with Monſieur de Torcy, is the beſt witneſs we can produce of the ſenſe in which the general preliminary engagements are entered into: beſides which, as he is the beſt verſed in matters of trade of all your Majeſty’s ſervants, who have been truſted in this ſecret, if you ſhall think fit to employ him in the future treaty of commerce, it will be of conſequence that he has been a party concerned in concluding that convention, which muſt be the rule of this treaty.”

  The aſſembly of this important night was in ſome degree clandeſtine, the deſign of treating not being yet openly declared, and, when the Whigs returned to power, was aggravated to a charge of high treaſon; though, as Prior remarks in his imperfect anſwer to the Report of the Committee of Secrecy, no treaty ever was made without private interviews and preliminary discuſſions.

  My buſineſs is not the hiſtory of the peace, but the life of Prior. The conferences began at Utrecht on the firſt of January (1711–12), and the Engliſh plenipotentiaries arrived on the fifteenth. The miniſters of the different potentates conferred and conferred; but the peace advanced ſo ſlowly, that ſpeedier methods were found neceſſary; and Bolingbroke was ſent to Paris to adjuſt differences with leſs formality; Prior either accompanied him or followed him; and after his departure had the appointments and authority of an ambaſſador, though no publick character.