By ſome miſtake of the Queen’s orders the court of France had been diſguſted; and Bolingbroke ſays in his Letter, “Dear Mat, hide the nakedneſs of thy country, and give the beſt turn thy fertile brain will furniſh thee with to the blunders of thy countrymen, who are not much better politicians than the French are poets.”
Soon after, the duke of Shrewſbury went on a formal embaſſy to Paris. It is related by Boyer, that the intention was to have joined Prior in the commiſſion, but that Shrewſbury refuſed to be aſſociated with a man ſo meanly born. Prior therefore continued to act without a title till the duke returned next year to England, and then he aſſumed the ſtyle and dignity of ambaſſador.
But, while he continued in appearance a private man, he was treated with confidence by Lewis, who ſent him with a letter to the Queen, written in favour of the elector of Bavaria. “I ſhall expect,” ſays he, “with impatience, the return of Mr. Prior, whoſe conduct is very agreeable to me.” And while the duke of Shrewſbury was still at Paris, Bolingbroke wrote to Prior thus: “Monſieur de Torcy has a confidence in you; make uſe of it, once for all, upon this occaſion, and convince him thoroughly, that we muſt give a different turn to our parliament and our people, according to their reſolution at this criſis.”
Prior’s publick dignity and ſplendour commenced in Auguſt 1713, and continued till the Auguſt following; but I am afraid that, according to the uſual fate of greatneſs, it was attended with ſome perplexities and mortifications. He had not all that is cuſtomarily given to ambaſſadors: he hints to the Queen, in an imperfect poem, that he had no ſervice of plate; and it appeared, by the debts which he contracted, that his remittances were not punctually made.
On the firſt of Auguſt, 1714, enſued the downfal of the Tories, and the degradation of Prior. He was recalled; but was not able to return, being detained by the debts which he had found it neceſſary to contract, and which were not diſcharged before March, though his old friend Montague was now at the head of the treaſury.
He returned then as ſoon as he could, and was welcomed on the 25th of March by a warrant, but was, however, ſuffered to live in his own houſe, under the cuſtody of the meſſenger, till he was examined before a committee of the Privy Council, of which Mr. Walpole was chairman, and Lord Coningſby, Mr. Stanhope, and Mr. Lechmere, were the principal interrogators; who, in this examination, of which there is printed an account not unentertaining, behaved with the boiſterouſneſs of men elated by recent authority. They are repreſented as aſking queſtions ſometimes vague, ſometimes inſidious, and writing anſwers different from thoſe which they received. Prior, however, ſeems to have been overpowered by their turbulence; for he confeſſes that he ſigned what, if he had ever come before a legal judicature, he ſhould have contradicted or explained away. The oath was adminiſtered by Boſcawen, a Middleſex juſtice, who at laſt was going to write his atteſtation on the wrong ſide of the paper.
They were very induſtrious to find ſome charge against Oxford; and asked Prior, with great earneſtneſs, who was preſent when the preliminary articles were talked of or ſigned at his houſe? He told them, that either the earl of Oxford or the duke of Shrewſbury was abſent, but he could not remember which; an anſwer which perplexed them, becauſe it ſupplied no accuſation againſt either. “Could any thing be more abſurd,” ſays 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 ſolemn promiſe, that nothing which I could ſay ſhould hurt myſelf, I had no reaſon to truſt them: for they violated that promiſe about five hours after. However, I owned I was there preſent. Whether this was wiſely done or no, I leave to my friends to determine.”
When he had signed the paper, he was told by Walpole, that the committee were not ſatisfied with his behaviour, nor could give ſuch an account of it to the Commons as might merit favour; and that they now thought a stricter confinement necessary than to his own houſe. “Here,” ſays he, “Boſcawen played the moraliſt, and Coningſby the chriſtian, but both very awkwardly.” The meſſenger in whoſe cuſtody he was to be placed, was then called, and very decently asked by Coningſby, “if his houſe was secured by bars and bolts?” The messenger answered, “No,” with aſtoniſhment. At which Coningſby very angrily ſaid, “Sir, you muſt ſecure this priſoner; it is for the ſafety of the nation: if he eſcape, you ſhall anſwer for it.”
They had already printed their report; and in this examination were endeavouring to find proofs.
He continued thus confined for ſome time; and Mr. Walpole (June 10, 1715) moved for an impeachment againſt him. What made him ſo acrimonious does not appear: he was by nature no thirſter for blood. Prior was a week after committed to cloſe cuſtody, with orders that no “perſon ſhould be admitted to ſee him without leave from the Speaker.”
When, two years after, an Act of Grace was paſſed, he was excepted, and continued ſtill in cuſtody, which he had made leſs tedious by writing his Alma. He was, however, ſoon after diſcharged.
He had now his liberty, but he had nothing elſe. Whatever the profit of his employments might have been, he had always ſpent it; and at the age of fifty-three was, with all his abilities, in danger of penury, having yet no ſolid revenue but from the fellowſhip of his college, which, when in his exaltation he was cenſured for retaining, he ſaid, he could live upon at laſt.
Being however generally known and eſteemed, he was encouraged to add other poems to thoſe which he had printed, and to publiſh them by ſubſcription. The expedient ſucceeded by the induſtry of many friends, who circulated the propoſals, and the care of ſome, who, it is ſaid, withheld the money from him leſt he ſhould ſquander it. The price of the volume was two guineas; the whole collection was four thouſand; to which lord Harley, the ſon of the earl of Oxford, to whom he had invariably adhered, added an equal ſum for the purchaſe of Down-hall, which Prior was to enjoy during life, and Harley after his deceaſe.
He had now, what wits and philoſophers have often wiſhed, the power of paſſing the day in contemplative tranquillity. But it ſeems that buſy men ſeldom live long in a ſtate of quiet. It is not unlikely that his health declined. He complains of deafneſs; “for,” ſays he, “I took little care of my ears while I was not ſure 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,” ſays he, “treated lady Harriot at Cambridge; (a Fellow of a College treat!) and ſpoke verſes to her in a gown and cap! What, the plenipotentiary, ſo far concerned in the damned peace at Utrecht! the man that makes up half the volume of terſe proſe, that makes up the report of the committee, ſpeaking verſes! Sic eſt homo ſum.”
He died at Wimpole, a ſeat 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 Hiſtoriam meditanti,
Paulatim obrepens Febris
Operi ſimul & Vitæ filum abrupit,
Sept. 18. An. Dom. 1721. Ætat. 57.
H. S. E.
Vir Eximius
Sereniſſimis
Regi Gulielmo Reginæque Mariæ
In Congreſſione Fœderatorum
Hagæ anno 1690 celebrata,
Deinde Magnæ Britanniæ Legatis
Tum iis,
Qui anno 1697 Pacem Ryswicki confecerunt,
Tum iis,
Qui apud Gallos annis proximis Legationem obierunt;
Eodem etiam anno 1697 in Hibernia
Secretarius;
Necnon in utroque Honorabili conſeſſu
Eorum,
Qui anno 1700 ordinandis Commercii negotiis,
Quique anno 1711 dirigendis Portorii rebus,
Præſidebant,
Commissionarius;
Poſtremo
Ab Anna
/>
Feliciſſimæ memoriæ Reginâ
Ad Ludovicum XIV. Galliæ Regem
Miſſus anno 1711
De Pace ſtabilienda,
(Pace etiamnum durante
Diuque ut boni jam omnes ſperant duratura)
Cum ſumma poteſtate Legatus.
Matthæus Prior Armiger;
Qui
Hos omnes, quibus cumulatus eſt, Titulos
Humanitatis, Ingenii, Eruditionis laude
Superavit;
Cui enim naſcenti faciles arriſerant Muſæ.
Hunc Puerum Schola hic Regia perpolivit;
Juvenem in Collegio Sti. Johannis
Cantabrigia optimis Scientiis inſtruxit;
Virum denique auxit; & perfecit
Multa cum viris Principibus conſuetudo;
Ita natus, ita inſtitutus,
A Vatum Choro avelli nunquam potuit,
Sed ſolebat ſæpe rerum Civilium gravitatem
Amœniorum Literarum Studiis condire:
Et cum omne adeo Poetices genus
Haud infeliciter tentaret,
Tum in Fabellis concinne lepideque texendis
Mirus Artifex
Neminem habuit parem.
Hæc liberalis animi oblectamenta:
Quam nullo Illi labore conſtiterint,
Facile ii perſpexere, quibus uſus eſt Amici;
Apud quos Urbanitatum & Leporum plenus
Cum ad rem, quæcundue forte inciderat,
Aptè variè copioſèque alluderet,
Interea nihil quæſitum, nihil vi expreſſum
Videbatur,
Sed omnia ultro effluere,
Et quaſi jugi è fonte affatim exuberare,
Ita ſuos tandem dubios reliquit,
Eſſetne in Scriptis, Poeta Elegantior,
An in Convictu, Comes Jucundior.
Of Prior, eminent as he was, both by his abilities and ſtations, very few memorials have been left by his contemporaries; the account therefore muſt now be deſtitute 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 intereſt to hide; and as little ill is heard of Prior, it is certain that not much was known. He was not afraid of provoking cenſure; for when he forſook the Whigs, under whoſe patronage he firſt entered the world, he became a Tory ſo ardent and determinate, that he did not willingly conſort with men of different opinions. He was one of the ſixteen Tories who met weekly, and agreed to addreſs each other by the title of Brother; and ſeems to have adhered, not only be concurrence of political deſigns, but by peculiar affection, to the earl of Oxford and his family. With how much confidence he was truſted, has been already told.
He was however, in Pope’s opinion, fit only to make verſes, and leſs qualified for buſineſs than Addiſon himſelf. This was ſurely ſaid without conſideration. Addiſon, exalted to a high place, was forced into degradation by the ſenſe of his own incapacity; Prior, who was employed by men very capable of eſtimating his value, having been ſecretary to one embaſſy, had, when great abilities were again wanted, the ſame office another time; and was, after ſo much experience of his knowledge and dexterity, at laſt ſent to tranſact a negotiation in the higheſt degree arduous and important; for which he was qualified, among other requiſites, in the opinion of Bolingbroke, by his influence upon the French miniſter, and by ſkill in queſtions 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 answers to a boaſtful Frenchman has been related, and to an impertinent he made another equally proper. During his embaſſy, he ſat at the opera by a man, who, in his rapture, accompanied with his own voice the principal ſinger. Prior fell to railing at the performer with all the terms of reproach that he could collect, till the Frenchman, ceaſing from his ſong, began to expoſtulate with him for his harſh cenſure of a man who was confeſſedly the ornament of the ſtage. “I know all that,” ſays the ambaſſador, “mais il chante ſi haut, que je ne ſçaurois vous entendre.”
In a gay French company, where every one ſung a little ſong or ſtanza, of which the burden was, “Banniſſons la Melancholie;” when it came his turn to ſing, after the performance of a young lady that ſat next him, he produced theſe extemporary lines:
Mais celle voix, et ces beaux yeux,
Font Cupidon trop dangereux,
Et je ſuis triſte quand je crie
Banniſſons la Melancholie.
Tradition repreſents him as willing to deſcend from the dignity of the poet and ſtateſman to the low delights of mean company. His Chloe probably was ſometimes ideal: but the woman with whom he cohabited was a deſpicable drab of the loweſt ſpecies. One of his wenches, perhaps Chloe, while he was abſent from his houſe, ſtole his plate, and ran away; as was related by a woman who had been his ſervant. Of this propenſity to ſordid converſe I have ſeen an account ſo ſeriouſly ridiculous, that it ſeems to deſerve inſertion.
“I have been aſſured that Prior, after having ſpent the evening with Oxford, Bolingbroke, Pope, and Swift, would go and ſmoke a pipe, and drink a bottle of ale, with a common ſoldier and his wife in Long-Acre, before he went to bed; not from any remains of the lowneſs of his original, as one ſaid, but, I ſuppose, that his faculties,
”–Strain’d to the height,
In that celeſtial colloquy ſublime,
Dazzled and ſpent, ſunk down and ſought repair.”
Poor Prior, why was he ſo ſtrained, and in ſuch want of repair, after a converſation with men not, in the opinion of the world, much wiſer than himſelf? But ſuch are the conceits of ſpeculatiſts, who ſtrain their faculties to find in a mine what lies upon the ſurface.
His opinions, ſo far as the means of judging are left us, ſeem to have been right; but his life was, it ſeems, irregular, negligent, and ſenſual.
Prior has written with great variety, and his variety has made him popular. He has tried all ſtyles, from the groteſque to the ſolemn, and has not ſo failed in any as to incur deriſion or diſgrace.
His works may be diſtinctly conſidered as compriſing Tales, Love-verſes, Occaſional Poems, Alma, and Solomon.
His Tales have obtained general approbation, being written with great familiarity and great ſpritelineſs: the language is eaſy, but ſeldom groſs, and the numbers ſmooth, without appearance of care. Of theſe Tales there are only four. The Ladle; which is introduced by a Preface, neither neceſſary nor pleasing, 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 ſtory, mingled, by an affectation not diſagreeable, with modern images. The Young Gentleman in Love has hardly a juſt 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 paſſed through many ſucceſſions of merry wits; for it is to be found in Arioſto’s Satires, and is perhaps yet older. But the merit of ſuch ſtories is the art of telling them.
In his Amorous Effuſions he is leſs happy; for they are not dictated by nature or by paſſion, and have neither gallantry nor tenderneſs. They have the coldneſs of Cowley, without his wit, the dull exerciſes of a ſkilful verſiſier, reſolved at all adventures to write ſomething about Chloe, and trying to be amorous by dint of ſtudy. His fictions therefore are mythological. Venus, after the example of the Greek Epigram, aſks when ſhe was ſeen naked and bathing. Then Cupid is miſtaken; then Cupid is diſarmed; then he loſes his darts to Ganymede; then Jupiter ſends him a ſummons by Mercury. Then Chloe goes a-hunting with an ivory quiver graceful at her ſide; Diana miſtakes her for one of her nymphs, and Cupid laughs at the blunder. All this is ſurely deſpicable; and even when he tries to act the lover, without the help of gods or goddeſſes, his thoughts are unaffecting or remote. He talks not “like a man of this world.”
The greateſt of all his amorous eſſays 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 reſolves to follow an outlawed murderer wherever fear and guilt ſhall drive him, deſerves no imitation; and the experiment by which Henry tries the lady’s conſtancy, is ſuch as muſt end either in infamy to her, or in diſappointment to himſelf.
Hos occaſional Poems neceſſarily loſt part of their value, as their occaſions, being leſs remembered, raiſed leſs emotion. Some of them, however, are preſerved by their inherent excellence. The burleſque of Boileau’s Ode on Namur has, in ſome parts, ſuch airineſs and levity as will always procure it readers, even among thoſe who cannot compare it with the original. The Epiſtle to Boileau is not ſo 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 ſuſpect that I might praiſe or cenſure it by caprice, without danger of detection; for who can be ſupposed to have laboured through it? Yet the time has been when this neglected work was so popular, that it was tranſlated into Latin by no common maſter.
His Poem on the battle of Ramillies is neceſſarily tedious by the form of the ſtanza: an uniform maſs of ten lines thirty-five times repeated, inconſequential and ſlightly connected, muſt weary both the ear and the underſtanding. His imitation of Spenſer, which conſiſts principally in I ween and I weet, without excluſion of later modes of ſpeech, makes bis poem neither ancient nor modern. His mention of Mars and Bellona, and his compariſon of Marlborough to the Eagle that bears the thunder of Jupiter, are all puerile and unaffecting; and yet more deſpicable is the long tale told by Lewis in his deſpair, of Brute and Troynovante, and the teeth of Cadmus, with his ſimilies of the raven and eagle and wolf and lion. By the help of ſuch eaſy fictions, and vulgar topicks, without acquaintance with life, and without knowledge of art or nature, a poem of any length, cold and lifeleſs like this, may be eaſily written on any ſubject.
Complete Works of Matthew Prior Page 62
