On whose delicious banks a stately row
Of shady limes or sycamores should grow.
At th' end of which a silent study placed,
Should be with all the noblest authors graced :
Horace and Virgil, in whose mighty lines
Immortal wit and solid learning shines;
Sharp Juvenal, and amorous Ovid too,
Who all the turns of love's soft passion knew:
He that with judgment reads his charming lines,
In which strong art with stronger nature joins,
Must grant his fancy does the best excel-

His thoughts so tender, and expressed so well :
With all those moderns, men of steady sense,
Esteemed for learning and for eloquence.
In some of these, as fancy should advise,
I'd always take my morning exercise;
For sure no minutes bring us more content
Than those in pleasing useful studies spent.
I'd have a clear and competent estate,
That I might live genteelly, but not great;
As much as I could moderately spend ;
A little more, sometimes to oblige a friend.

Nor should the sons of poverty repine

Too much at fortune; they should taste of mine;
And all that objects of true pity were

Should be relieved with what my wants could spare ;
For that our Maker has too largely given
Should be returned in gratitude to Heaven.
A frugal plenty should my table spread ;
With healthy, not luxurious, dishes spread;
Enough to satisfy, and something more,

To feed the stranger, and the neighbouring poor.
Strong meat indulges vice, and pampering food
Creates diseases and inflames the blood.
But what's sufficient to make nature strong,
And the bright lamp of life continue long,
I'd freely take; and as I did possess,
The bounteous Author of my plenty bless.

Matthew Prior.

Matthew Prior was born 21st July 1664, probably at Wimborne Minster in East Dorsetshire, but was brought up at Westminster, and sent to the school there. His father, a Nonconformist joiner, died, and Matthew was adopted by an uncle, Samuel Prior, who kept the Rhenish Wine House in Channel (now Cannon) Row, Westminster. The Earl of Dorset here found him once reading Horace, and got his uncle to send the lad back to Westminster; in 1681 he became a king's scholar, and in 1683 was elected to a scholarship at St John's College, Cambridge. Here he distinguished himself, and amongst other verses, produced (1687), in conjunction with Charles Montagu (afterwards Earl of Halifax), a no-popery skit entitled the City Mouse and Country Mouse, burlesquing Dryden's Hind and Panther, in which Bayes figures somewhat as in the Rehearsal. The Earl of Dorset subsequently obtained for him an appointment as secretary to Lord Dursley, afterwards Earl of Berkeley, ambassador to the Hague. In this post Prior showed gifts unusual in successful poets, and secured the approbation of King William, who made him one of the gentlemen

of the bedchamber. In 1697 he was appointed secretary to the embassy on the treaty of Ryswick; and next year he was secretary of embassy at Paris. Johnson relates that, viewing at Versailles Le Brun's pictures of the victories of Louis, Prior, on being asked whether the King of England's palace had any such decorations, happily replied: 'The monuments of my master's actions are to be seen everywhere but in his own house.' After his return to England Prior was appointed a Commissioner of Trade and Plantations. In 1701 he entered the House of Commons for the borough of East Grinstead, and abandoning his former friends, the Whigs, joined the Tories in impeaching Lord Somers. This came with a bad grace from Prior, for the charge against Somers was that he had advised that partition treaty in which the poet himself had had a share. He showed his patriotism by afterwards celebrating in verse the battles of Blenheim (1704) and Ramillies (1706). When the Whig Government was overturned, Prior became attached to Harley's administration, and went with Bolingbroke to France in 1711 to negotiate a treaty of peace. He lived in splendour in Paris, was a favourite of the French monarch, and enjoyed all the honours of ambassador. He was recalled, sore against his will, to London in 1715. Queen Anne being dead, and the Whigs again in office, Prior was committed to custody on a charge of high treason. The charge was that he had held clandestine conferences with the French plenipotentiary-though, as he justly replied, no treaty was ever made without private interviews and preliminaries; it was suggested, too, that Bolingbroke and he were intriguing for the Pretender. The Whigs were indignant at what they regarded as the disgraceful treaty of Utrecht; Prior only shared in the blame of the Government and the unpopularity of Bolingbroke. After two years' confinement, the poet was released without a trial. He had in the interval written his poem of Alma; and being now left without any other support than his fellowship of St John's, and very improvident to boot, he produced Solomon, the most elaborate of his works. He further issued a collected edition of his poems (1718), which was sold to subscribers for two guineas a copy and realised four thousand guineas. An equal sum was presented to Prior by Lord Oxford's son, Lord Harley, now Earl of Oxford, and thus he had laid up a provision for old age. He was now ambitious only of comfort and private enjoyment-or said so. Even these he did not long possess; he died on the 18th of September 1721, at Lord Harley's seat at Wimpole, in the fifty-eighth year of his age. The Duchess of Portland, Lord Harley's daughter, said Prior made himself beloved by every living thing in the house-master, child, and servant, human creature or animal.' To this lady as a child he had addressed his well-known verses beginning: My noble lovely little Peggy, Let this, my first epistle, beg ye,

At dawn of morn and close of even
To lift your heart and hands to heaven :
In double beauty say your prayer,
'Our Father' first, then 'Notre Père.'

He was said to have been fond of toping and of low company, and at the time of his death was, according to Arbuthnot, on the point of marrying a certain Bessy Cox, who kept an alehouse in Long Acre. To this person and to his secretary, Prior left his estate. Arbuthnot, writing to a friend the month after Prior's death, says: 'We are to have a bowl of punch at Bessy Cox's. She would fain have put it Lewis that she was his (Prior's) Emma: she owned Flanders Jane was his Chloe.' To this doubtful Chloe some of his happiest verses were

upon

MATTHEW PRIOR.

From the Portrait by Jon. Richardson in the National Portrait Gallery.

devoted; even high-born ladies might well have envied such compliments as these :

What I speak, my fair Chloe, and what I write, shows
The difference there is betwixt Nature and Art;
I court others in verse, but I love thee in prose;
And they have my whimsies, but thou hast my heart.
The god of us verse-men-you know, Child-the Sun,
How after his journeys he set up his rest;
If at morning o'er earth 'tis his fancy to run,
At night he reclines on his Thetis's breast.
So when I am wearied with wandering all day,
To thee, my delight, in the evening I come;
No matter what beauties I saw in my way,

They were but my visits, but thou art my home.

To Chloe was inscribed his Henry and Emma, a poem upon the model of the Nut-brown Maid; but in discarding the simplicity of the original, Prior sacrificed much of its charm.

The works of Prior range over a variety of styles

and subjects-odes, songs, epistles, epigrams, and tales; he was unquestionably versatile, though not always equal to himself in grace. His longest poem, Solomon on the Vanity of the World, was by its author thought his best, and so too thought Cowper. It is free, of course, from the objections that can be raised against some of the others, and is perhaps the most carefully written; but the tales and lighter pieces of Prior are undoubtedly his happiest efforts. In these he displays that 'charming ease' Cowper commends, together with the lively illustration and colloquial humour of his master, Horace. Few poets have possessed in greater perfection the art of graceful and fluent versification. His narratives flow on like a clear stream, without break or fall, and interest us by their perpetual good-humour and vivacity, even when they wander into metaphysics, as in Alma, or into coarseness, as in his tales-though Johnson called Prior's works 'a lady's book.' Alma is still read by those who like its model, Hudibras; but Henry and Emma, also very popular at first, is forgotten. The Secretary, The Female Phaton, and the lines To a Child of Quality, all famous in his lifetime, were not included in the poems of 1718. Pope and Beattie praised four (unprinted) prose Dialogues of the Dead by him; an interesting 'History of his own Time,' printed amongst his works, is of doubtful authenticity. Prior, who was tall and lank in person, and in manner usually somewhat solemn, was vain of his gifts, though he constantly professed that his poetry was but the accident of a busy life. Thackeray thought highly of his work: 'Prior's seem to me,' he says, 'amongst the easiest, the richest, the most charmingly humorous of English lyrical poems.' His classical allusions and images-in the fashion of the day-seem not to carry with them the air of pedantry or restraint. Like Swift he liked to versify the common occurrences of life and relate personal feelings and adventures; but he had none of the Dean's bitterness or misanthropy, and employed no stronger weapons of satire than raillery and arch allusion. He contrived to com bine playfulness with grace and even a measure of dignity. His verses to children-a department in which he was a pioneer-are delightful. He sported on the surface of existence, noting its foibles, its pleasures, and eccentricities, but without the power of penetrating into its recesses or evoking the nobler passions of our nature. He was the most natural of artificial poets-a seeming paradox, yet as true as the old maxim that the perfection of art is the art of concealing it.

For My Own Monument.

As doctors give physic by way of prevention,
Matt, alive and in health, of his tombstone took care;
For delays are unsafe, and his pious intention
May haply be never fulfilled by his heir.

Then take Matt's word for it, the sculptor is paid;
That the figure is fine, pray believe your own eye;

Yet credit but lightly what more may be said,
For we flatter ourselves, and teach marble to lie.

Yet counting as far as to fifty his years,
His virtues and vices were as other men's are ;
High hopes he conceived, and he smothered great fears,
In a life party-coloured, half pleasure, half care.
Nor to business a drudge, nor to faction a slave,
He strove to make int'rest and freedom agree;
In public employments industrious and grave,

And alone with his friends, Lord! how merry was he.

Now in equipage stately, now humbly on foot,
Both fortunes he tried, but to neither would trust;
And whirled in the round as the wheel turned about,
He found riches had wings, and knew man was but dust.

This verse, little polished, though mighty sincere,
Sets neither his titles nor merit to view;
It says that his relics collected lie here,
And no mortal yet knows too if this may be true.
Fierce robbers there are that infest the highway,
So Matt may be killed and his bones never found;
False witness at court, and fierce tempests at sea,
So Matt may yet chance to be hanged or be drowned.
If his bones lie in earth, roll in sea, fly in air,
To Fate we must yield, and the thing is the same;
And if passing thou giv'st him a smile or a tear,
He cares not-yet, prithee, be kind to his fame.

'The sculptor' was Antoine Coysevox. The bust was presented to Prior by Louis XIV.

Epitaph Extempore.

Nobles and Heralds, by your leave,

Here lies what once was Matthew Prior;

The son of Adam and of Eve,

Can Bourbon or Nassau claim higher?

Instead of being extempore, this is more probably a recollection like Goldsmith's 'Ned Purdon.' There is an old epitaph

'Johnnie Carnegie lais heer,

Descendit of Adam and Eve,

Gif ony can gang hieher,

Ise willing gie him leave.'

An Epitaph.

Interred beneath this marble stone,
Lie sauntering Jack and idle Joan.
While rolling threescore years and one
Did round this globe their courses run,
If human things went ill or well,
If changing empires rose or fell,
The morning past, the evening came,
And found this couple still the same.

They walked and ate, good folks: What then?
Why, then they walked and ate again;
They soundly slept the night away;
They did just nothing all the day
Nor sister either had nor brother;
They seemed just tallied for each other.
Their moral and economy
Most perfectly they made agree;
Each virtue kept its proper bound,
Nor trespassed on the other's ground.
Nor fame nor censure they regarded;
They neither punished nor rewarded.
He cared not what the footman did;
Her maids she neither praised nor chid;

So every servant took his course,
And, bad at first, they all grew worse.
Slothful disorder filled his stable,

And sluttish plenty decked her table.
Their beer was strong, their wine was port;
Their meal was large, their grace was short.
They gave the poor the remnant meat,
Just when it grew not fit to eat.
They paid the church and parish rate,
And took, but read not the receipt ;
For which they claimed their Sunday's due,
Of slumbering in an upper pew.

No man's defects sought they to know,
So never made themselves a foe.
No man's good deeds did they commend,
So never raised themselves a friend.
Nor cherished they relations poor,
That might decrease their present store;
Nor barn nor house did they repair,
That might oblige their future heir.
They neither added nor confounded;
They neither wanted nor abounded
Nor tear nor smile did they employ
At news of public grief or joy.

When bells were rung and bonfires made,
If asked, they ne'er denied their aid;
Their jug was to the ringers carried,
Whoever either died or married.
Their billet at the fire was found,
Whoever was deposed or crowned.
Nor good, nor bad, nor fools, nor wise,
They would not learn, nor could advise ;
Without love, hatred, joy, or fear,

They led-a kind of-as it were;

Nor wished, nor cared, nor laughed, nor cried; And so they lived, and so they died.

To a Child of Quality (one of the Dorset House],
Five Years Old, the Author Forty. 1704.
Lords, knights, and squires, the numerous band
That wear the fair Miss Mary's fetters,
Were summoned by her high command
To shew their passion by their letters.

My pen amongst the rest I took,

Lest those bright eyes that cannot read
Should dart their kindling fires, and look
The power they have to be obeyed.

Nor quality nor reputation

Forbid me yet my flame to tell.
Dear five-years-old befriends my passion,
And I may write till she can spell.

For, while she makes her silkworms beds
With all the tender things I swear;
Whilst all the house my passion reads,
In papers round her baby's hair;

She may receive and own my flame,
For though the strictest prudes should know it,
She'll pass for a most virtuous dame,

And I for an unhappy poet.

Then, too, alas! when she shall tear

The lines some younger rival sends ; She'll give me leave to write, I fear,

And we shall still continue friends.

For, as our different ages move,

'Tis so ordained (would Fate but mend it !) That I shall be past making love,

When she begins to comprehend it.

Baby in the sixteenth line is a doll. Cf. Tatler No. 95.

Abra's Love for Solomon.

Another nymph, amongst the many fair
That made my softer hours their solemn care,
Before the rest affected still to stand,

And watched my eye, preventing my command.
Abra-she so was called-didst soonest haste
To grace my presence; Abra went the last;
Abra was ready ere I called her name;
And, though I called another, Abra came.
Her equals first observed her growing zeal,
And laughing, glossed that Abra served so well.
To me her actions did unheeded die,

Or were remarked but with a common eye;
Till, more apprised of what the rumour said,
More I observed peculiar in the maid.
The sun declined had shot his western ray,
When tired with business of the solemn day,
I purposed to unbend the evening hours,
And banquet private in the women's bowers.
I called before I sat to wash my hands-
For so the precept of the law commands-
Love had ordained that it was Abra's turn
To mix the sweets and minister the urn.
With awful homage, and submissive dread,
The maid approached, on my declining head
To pour the oils; she trembled as she poured;
With an unguarded look she now devoured
My nearer face; and now recalled her eye,
And heaved, and strove to hide, a sudden sigh.
'And whence,' said I, 'canst thou have dread or
pain?

What can thy imagery of sorrow mean?
Secluded from the world and all its care,
Hast thou to grieve or joy, to hope or fear?
For sure,' I added, 'sure thy little heart
Ne'er felt love's anger, or received his dart.'

Abashed she blushed, and with disorder spoke :
Her rising shame adorned the words it broke :
'If the great master will descend to hear
The humble series of his handmaid's care;
O! while she tells it, let him not put on

The look that awes the nations from the throne !
O! let not death severe in glory lie

In the king's frown and terror of his eye!
Mine to obey, thy part is to ordain ;
And, though to mention be to suffer pain,
If the king smile whilst I my woe recite,
If weeping, I find favour in his sight,
Flow fast my tears, full rising his delight,
O! witness earth beneath, and heaven above!
For can I hide it? I am sick of love;
If madness may the name of passion bear,
Or love be called what is indeed despair.

'Thou Sovereign Power, whose secret will controls
The inward bent and motion of our souls!
Why hast thou placed such infinite degrees
Between the cause and cure of my disease?
The mighty object of that raging fire,
In which unpitied, Abra must expire.

Had he been born some simple shepherd's heir,
The lowing herd or fleecy sheep his care,
At morn with him I o'er the hills had run,
Scornful of winter's frost and summer's sun,
Still asking where he made his flock to rest at noon;
For him at night, the dear expected guest,

I had with hasty joy prepared the feast;
And from the cottage, o'er the distant plain,
Sent forth my longing eye to meet the swain,
Wavering, impatient, tossed by hope and fear,
Till he and joy together should appear,
And the loved dog declare his master near.
On my declining neck and open breast
I should have lulled the lovely youth to rest,
And from beneath his head, at dawning day,
With softest care have stol'n my arm away,
To rise and from the fold release his sheep,
Fond of his flock, indulgent to his sleep.
Or if kind heaven, propitious to my flame-
For sure from heaven the faithful ardour came-
Had blest my life, and decked my natal hour
With height of title, and extent of power;
Without a crime my passion had aspired,
Found the loved prince, and told what I desired.
Then I had come, preventing Sheba's queen,
To see the comeliest of the sons of men,
To hear the charming poet's amorous song,
And gather honey falling from his tongue,
To take the fragrant kisses of his mouth,
Sweeter than breezes of her native South,
Likening his grace, his person, and his mien,
To all that great or beauteous I had seen.'.

Here o'er her speech her flowing eyes prevail.
O foolish maid! and O, unhappy tale! . . .
I saw her; 'twas humanity; it gave
Some respite to the sorrows of my slave.
Her fond excess proclaimed her passion true,
And generous pity to that truth was due.
Well I entreated her, who well deserved;
I called her often, for she always served.
Use made her person easy to my sight,
And ease insensibly produced delight.
Whene'er I revelled in the women's bowers-
For first I sought her but at looser hours-
The apples she had gathered smelt most sweet,
The cake she kneaded was the savoury meat :
But fruits their odour lost, and meats their taste,
If gentle Abra had not decked the feast.
Dishonoured did the sparkling goblet stand,
Unless received from gentle Abra's hand;
And, when the virgins formed the evening choir,
Raising their voices to the master lyre,
Too flat I thought this voice, and that too shrill,
One shewed too much, and one too little skill;
Nor could my soul approve the music's tone,
Till all was hushed, and Abra sung alone.
Fairer she seemed distinguished from the rest,
And better mien disclosed, as better drest.
A bright tiara round her forehead tied,
To juster bounds confined its rising pride.
The blushing ruby on her snowy breast
Rendered its panting whiteness more confessed;
Bracelets of pearl gave roundness to her arm,
And every gem augmented every charm.
Her senses pleased, her beauty still improved,
And she more lovely grew, as more beloved.

Written in Mezeray's History of France.
Whate'er thy countrymen have done
By law and wit, by sword and gun,
In thee is faithfully recited;
And all the living world that view
Thy work give thee the praises due,
At once instructed and delighted.

Yet for the fame of all these deeds,
What beggar in the Invalides,

With lameness broke, with blindness smitten,
Wished ever decently to die,

To have been either Mezeray

Or any monarch he has written?

It's strange, dear author, yet it true is,
That down from Pharamond to Louis,
All covet life, yet call it pain;
All feel the ill, yet shun the cure.
Can sense this paradox endure?

Resolve me, Cambray or Fontaine.

The man in graver tragic known

(Though his best part long since was done)

Still on the stage desires to tarry;

And he who played the Harlequin,
After the jest still loads the scene,

Unwilling to retire, though weary.

Cambray is, of course, Fénelon, who was Archbishop of Cambrai ; François de Eudes Mézeray (1610-83) wrote what was long the standard Histoire de France. Sir Walter Scott, about a year before his death, repeated these verses when on a Border tour with Mr Lock. hart. They met two beggars, old soldiers, one of whom recognised Scott, and bade God bless him. The mendicants went on their way, and we stood breathing on the knoll. Sir Walter followed them with his eye, and, planting his stick firmly on the sod, repeated without break or hesitation Prior's verses to the historian Mezeray. That he applied them to himself was touchingly obvious.'

The Thief and the Cordelier.-A Ballad. Who has e'er been at Paris must needs know the Grève, The fatal retreat of the unfortunate brave; Where honour and justice most oddly contribute To ease heroes' pains by a halter and gibbet.

Derry down, down, hey derry down.

There death breaks the shackles which force had put on, And the hangman completes what the judge but begun ; There the 'squire of the pad, and the knight of the post, Find their pains no more balked, and their hopes no more crossed.

'What frightens you thus, my good son?' says the

priest;

'You murdered, are sorry, and have been confessed.' 'O father! my sorrow will scarce save my bacon; For 'twas not that I murdered, but that I was taken.' Derry down, &c.

'Pooh, prithee ne'er trouble thy head with such fancies; Rely on the aid you shall have from St Francis ; If the money you promised be brought to the chest, You have only to die; let the church do the rest.' Derry down, &c.

'And what will folks say if they see you afraid? It reflects upon me, as I knew not my trade. Courage, friend; to-day is your period of sorrow; And things will go better, believe me, to-morrow.' Derry down, &c.

'To-morrow!' our hero replied in a fright;

'He that's hanged before noon ought to think of to-night.' 'Tell your beads,' quoth the priest,' and be fairly trussed up, For you surely to-night shall in paradise sup.'

Derry down, &c.

'Alas!' quoth the 'squire, howe'er sumptuous the treat, Parbleu! I shall have little stomach to eat ;

I should therefore esteem it great favour and grace,
Would you be so kind as to go in my place.'

Derry down, &c.

'That I would,' quoth the father, 'and thank you to boot; But our actions, you know, with our duty must suit; The feast I proposed to you I cannot taste, For this night by our order is marked for a fast.'

Derry down, &c.

Then turning about to the hangman, he said: 'Despatch me, I prithee, this troublesome blade; For thy cord and my cord both equally tie, And we live by the gold for which other men die.' Derry down, &c.

Ode to a Lady:

She refusing to continue a Dispute with me, and leaving me in the Argument.

Spare, generous victor, spare the slave,
Who did unequal war pursue;
That more than triumph he might have
In being overcome by you!

In the dispute whate'er I said,

My heart was by my tongue belied;
And in my looks you might have read
How much I argued on your side.

You, far from danger as from fear,
Might have sustained an open fight;
For seldom your opinions err,

Your eyes are always in the right.

Why, fair one, would you not rely

On reason's force with beauty's joined?
Could I their prevalence deny,

I must at once be deaf and blind.

Alas! not hoping to subdue,

I only to the fight aspired; To keep the beauteous foe in view, Was all the glory I desired.