PRIO R.

MAT

ATTHEW PRIOR is one of thofe that have burft out from an obscure original to great eminence. He was born July 21, 1664, according to fome, 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 hiftorian of his

*The difficulty of fettling Prior's birth-place is great. In the register of his College he is called, at his admiffion by the Prefident, Matthew Prior of Winburn in Middlesex ; by himself next day, Matthew Prior of Dorfetfire, in which county, not in Middlesex, Winborn, or Wimborne, as it ftands in the Villare, is found. When he flood candidate for his fellowship, five years afterwards, he was registered again by himself as of Middlefex. The last record ought to be preferred, because it was made upon oath. It is obfervable, that, as a native of Winborne, he is ftiled Filius Georgii Prior, generofi; not confiftently with the common account of the meanness of his birth.

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actions

actions might find him fome illustrious alli

ance.

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He is fuppofed to have fallen, by his father's death, into the hands of his uncle, a vintner near Charing-crofs, who sent him for fome 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 houfe; where the earl of Dorfet, celebrated for patronage of genius, found him by chance, as Burnet relates, reading Horace, and was fo well pleafed with his proficiency, that he undertook the care and coft of his academical education.

He entered his name in St. John's College at Cambridge in 1682, in his eighteenth year; and it and it may be reasonably fuppofed that he was diftinguifhed among his contemporaries. He became a Bachelor, as is ufual, in four years; and two years afterwards wrote the poem on the Deity, which ftands firft in his volume.

It is the established practice of that College to fend every year to the earl of Exeter fome

poems

poems upon facred fubjects, in acknowledgment of a benefaction enjoyed by them from the bounty of his ancestor. On this occafion were those verses written, which, though nothing is faid of their fuccess, seem to have recommended him to fome notice; for his praise of the countess's music, and his lines on the famous picture of Seneca, afford reafon for imagining that he was more or lefs converfant with that family.

The fame year he published the City Moufe and Country Moufe, to ridicule Dryden's Hind and Panther, in conjunction with Mr. Montague. There is a story* of great pain fuffered, and of tears shed, on this occafion, by Dryden, who thought it hard that an old man fhould be fo treated by thofe to whom he had always been civil. By tales like thefe is the envy raised by superior abilities every day gratified when they are attacked, every one hopes to fee them humbled; what is hoped is readily believed, and what is believed is confidently told. Dryden had been more accustomed to hoftilities, than that fuch enemies should break his quiet; and if we can fuppofe

him vexed, it would be hard to deny him fenfe enough to conceal his uneafiness.

The City Mouse and Country Moufe procured its authors more folid advantages than the pleasure of fretting Dryden; for they were both speedily preferred. Montague, indeed, obtained the first notice, with fome degree of discontent, as it seems, in Prior, who probably knew that his own part of the performance was the beft. He had not, however, much reafon to complain; for he came to London, and obtained fuch notice, that (in 1691) he was fent to the Congress at The Hague as fecretary to the embaffy. In this affembly of princes and nobles, to which Europe has perhaps scarcely seen any thing 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 fplendid initiation into public bufinefs, was fo pleasing to king William, that he made him one of the gentlemen of his bedchamber; and he is fuppofed to have paffed some of the next years in the quiet cultivation of literature and poetry.

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