Lives of the Poets | Page 2

said
of their success, seem to have recommended him to some notice; for
his praise of the countess's music, and his lines on the famous picture of
Seneca, 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 Louis, which at last did not produce effects
proportionate so the magnificence of the
transaction.
The conduct of Prior, in this splendid initiation into public business,
was so pleasing to King William, that he made him one of the
gentlemen of his bedchamber; 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. Mary's praise was
not confined to the English language, but fills a great part of the Musae
Anglicanae.
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 shown the "Victories of
Louis," 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 everywhere 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 Leo 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