Lives of the Poets | Page 3

idioms
fix our doubtful speech;
That from our writers distant realms may
know

The thanks we to our monarchs owe,
And schools profess our tongue
through every land
That has invoked his aid, or blessed his hand."
Tickell, in his "Prospect of Peace," has the same hope of a new
academy:-
"In happy chains our daring language bound,
Shall sport no more in
arbitrary sound."
Whether the similitude of those passages, which exhibit the same
thought on the same occasion, proceeded from accident or imitation, is
not easy to determine. Tickell might have been impressed with his
expectation by Swift's "Proposal for Ascertaining the English
Language," then lately published.
In the Parliament that met in 1701 he was chosen representative of East
Grinstead. Perhaps it was about this time that he changed his party, for
he voted for the impeachment of those lords who had persuaded the
king to the Partition Treaty, a treaty in which he himself had been
ministerially employed.
A great part of Queen Anne's reign was a time of war, in which there
was little employment for negotiators, and Prior had, therefore, leisure
to make or to polish verses. When the Battle of Blenheim called forth
all the verse-men, Prior, among the rest, took care to show his delight
in the increasing honour of his country by an epistle to Boileau. He
published, soon afterwards, a volume of poems, with the encomiastic
character of his deceased patron, the Earl of Dorset. It began with the
College exercise, and ended with the "Nutbrown Maid."
The Battle of Ramillies soon afterwards (in 1706) excited him to
another effort of poetry. On this occasion he had fewer or less
formidable rivals, and it would be not easy to name any other
composition produced by that event which is now remembered.
Everything has its day. Through the reigns of William and Anne no
prosperous event passed undignified by poetry. In the last war, when
France was disgraced and overpowered in every quarter of the globe,

when Spain, coming to her assistance, only shared her calamities, and
the name of an Englishman was reverenced through Europe, no poet
was heard amidst the general acclamation; the fame of our counsellors
and heroes was entrusted to the Gazetteer. The nation in time grew
weary of the war, and the queen grew weary of her ministers. The war
was burdensome, and the ministers were insolent. Harley and his
friends began to hope that they might, by driving the Whigs from court
and from power, gratify at once the queen and the people. There was
now a call for writers, who might convey intelligence of past abuses,
and show the waste of public money, the unreasonable conduct of the
allies, the avarice of generals, the tyranny of minions, and the general
danger of approaching ruin. For this purpose a paper called the
Examiner was periodically published, written, as it happened, by any
wit of the party, and sometimes, as is said, by Mrs. Manley. Some are
owned by Swift; and one, in ridicule of Garth's verses to Godolphin
upon the loss of his place, was written by Prior, and answered by
Addison, who appears to have known the author either by conjecture or
intelligence.
The Tories, who were now in power, were in haste to end the war, and
Prior, being recalled (1710) to his former employment of making
treaties, was sent (July, 1711) privately to Paris with propositions of
peace. He was remembered at the French court; and, returning in about
a month, brought with him the Abbe Gaultier and M. Mesnager, a
minister from France, invested with full powers. This transaction not
being avowed, Mackay, the master of the Dover packet-boat, either
zealously or officiously, seized Prior and his associates at Canterbury.
It is easily supposed they were soon released.
The negotiation was begun at Prior's house, where the queen's ministers
met Mesnager (September 20, 1711), and entered privately upon the
great business. The importance of Prior appears from the mention made
of him by St. John in his letter to the queen:-
"My Lord Treasurer moved, and all my Lords were of the same opinion,
that Mr. Prior should be added to those who are empowered to sign; the
reason for which is because he, having personally treated with

Monsieur de Torcy, is the best witness we can produce of the sense in
which the general preliminary engagements are entered into; besides
which, as he is the best versed in matters of trade of all your Majesty's
servants who have been trusted in this secret, if you shall think fit to
employ him in the future treaty of commerce, it will be of consequence
that he has been a party concerned in concluding that convention,
which must be the rule of this treaty."
The assembly of this important night