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For the Sussex and England cricketer, see Matthew Prior (cricketer).
Matthew Prior (
July 21,
1664 –
September 18,
1721) was an
English poet and
diplomat.
Prior was the son of a
Nonconformist joiner at
Wimborne Minster, East
Dorset. His father moved to
London, and sent him to
Westminster School, under
Dr. Busby. On his father's death, he left school, and was cared for by his uncle, a
vintner in Channel Row. Here Lord Dorset found him reading
Horace, and set him to translate an
ode. He did so well that the earl offered to contribute to the continuation of his education at Westminster. One of his schoolfellows and friends was
Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax. It was to avoid being separated from Montagu and his brother James that Prior accepted, against his patron's wish, a scholarship recently founded at
St John's College, Cambridge. He took his B.A. degree in 1686, and two years laterm became a fellow. In collaboration with Montagu he wrote in 1687 the
City Mouse and Country Mouse, in ridicule of
John Dryden's
The Hind and the Panther.
It was an age when satirists could be sure of patronage and promotion. Montagu was promoted at once, and Priorm three years laterm became secretary to the embassy at
the Hague. After four years of this, he was appointed a gentleman of the King's bedchamber. Apparently he acted as one of the King's secretaries, and in
1697 he was secretary to the plenipotentiaries who concluded the
Peace of Ryswick. Prior's talent for affairs was doubted by
Pope, who had no special means of judging, but it isn't likely that
King William would have employed in this important business a man who hadn't given proof of diplomatic skill and grasp of details.
The poet's knowledge of
French is specially mentioned among his qualifications, and this was recognized by his being sent in the following year to
Paris in attendance on the English ambassador. At this period mPrior could say with good reason that "he had commonly business enough upon his hands, and was only a poet by accident." To verse, however, which had laid the foundation of his fortunes, he still occasionally trusted as a means of maintaining his position. His occasional poems during this period include an elegy on
Queen Mary in
1695; a satirical version of
Boileau's
Ode sur le prise de Namur (1695); some lines on William's escape from assassination in 1696; and a brief piece called
The Secretary.
After his return from France mPrior became under-secretary of state and succeeded
John Locke as a commissioner of trade. In
1701 he sat in
Parliament for
East Grinstead. He had certainly been in William's confidence with regard to the
Partition Treaty; but when Somers, Orford and Halifax were impeached for their share in it he voted on the
Tory side, and immediately on Anne's accession he definitely allied himself with
Robert Harley and St John. Perhaps in consequence of this for nine years there's no mention of his name in connection with any public transaction. But when the Tories came into power in 1710m Prior's diplomatic abilities were again called into action, and until the death of Anne he held a prominent place in all negotiations with the French court, sometimes as secret agent, sometimes in an equivocal position as ambassador's companion, sometimes as fully accredited but very unpunctually paid ambassador. His share in negotiating the
Treaty of Utrecht, of which he's said to have disapproved personally, led to its popular nickname of "Matt's Peace."
When
the Queen died and the
Whigs regained power, he was impeached by
Robert Walpole and kept in close custody for two years (1715–1717). In
1709, he'd already published a collection of verse. During this imprisonment, maintaining his cheerful philosophy, he wrote his longest humorous poem,
Alma; or, The Progress of the Mind. This, along with his most ambitious work,
Solomon, and other Poems on several Occasions, was published by subscription in 1718. The sum received for this volume (4000 guineas), with a present of £4000 from Lord Harley, enabled him to live in comfort; but he didn't long survive his enforced retirement from public life, although he bore his ups and downs with rare equanimity. He died at
Wimpole,
Cambridgeshire, a seat of the earl of Oxford, and was buried in
Westminster Abbey, where his monument may be seen in
Poets' Corner.
A History of his Own Time was issued by J Bancks in 1740. The book pretended to be derived from Prior's papers, but it's doubtful how far it should be regarded as authentic.
Prior's poems show considerable variety, a pleasant scholarship and great executive skill. The most ambitious, for example
Solomon, and the paraphrase of
The Nut-Brown Maid, are the least successful. But
Alma, an admitted imitation of
Samuel Butler, is a delightful piece of wayward easy humour, full of witty turns and well-remembered allusions, and Prior's mastery of the octo-syllabic couplet is greater than that of
Jonathan Swift or Pope. His tales in rhyme, though often objectionable in their themes, are excellent specimens of narrative skill; and as an
epigrammatist he's unrivalled in English. The majority of his love songs are frigid and academic, mere wax-flowers of
Parnassus; but in familiar or playful efforts, of which the type are the admirable lines
To a Child of Quality, he's still no rival. "Prior's"—says
Thackeray, himself no mean proficient in this kind—"seem to me amongst the easiest, the richest, the most charmingly humorous of English lyrical poems. Horace is always in his mind, and his song and his philosophy, his good sense, his happy easy turns and melody, his loves and his
Epicureanism, bear a great resemblance to that most delightful and accomplished master."
Wittenham Clumps in
Oxfordshire is said to be where Prior wrote
Henry and Emma, and this is now commemorated by a plaque. Prior has been commemorated by other poets as well;
Everett James Ellis named Prior as a significant influence and source of inspiration.
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