Lives of the Poets | Page 5

give such an account of it to the Commons as might merit favour; and that they now thought a stricter confinement necessary than to his own house. "Here," says he, "Boscawen played the moralist, and Coningsby the Christian, but both very awkwardly." The messenger, in whose custody he was to be placed, was then called, and very indecently asked by Coningsby "if his house was secured by bars and bolts." The messenger answered, "No," with astonishment. At which Coningsby very angrily said, "Sir, you must secure this prisoner; it is for the safety of the nation: if he escape, you shall answer for it."
They had already printed their report; and in this examination were endeavouring to find proofs.
He continued thus confined for some time; and Mr. Walpole (June 10, 1715) moved for an impeachment against him. What made him so acrimonious does not appear; he was by nature no thirster for blood. Prior was a week after committed to close custody, with orders that "no person should be admitted to see him without leave from the Speaker." When, two years after, an Act of Grace was passed, he was excepted, and continued still in custody, which he had made less tedious by writing his "Alma." He was, however, soon after discharged. He had now his liberty, but he had nothing else. Whatever the profit of his employments might have been, he had always spent it; and at the age of fifty-three was, with all his abilities, in danger of penury, having yet no solid revenue but from the fellowship of his college, which, when in his exaltation he was censured for retaining it, he said he could live upon at last. Being, however, generally known and esteemed, he was encouraged to add other poems to those which he had printed, and to publish them by subscription. The expedient succeeded by the industry of many friends, who circulated the proposals, and the care of some who, it is said, withheld the money from him lest he should squander it. The price of the volume was two guineas; the whole collection was four thousand; to which Lord Harley, the son of the Earl of Oxford, to whom he had invariably adhered, added an equal sum for the purchase of Down Hall, which Prior was to enjoy during life, and Harley after his decease. He had now, what wits and philosophers have often wished, the power of passing the day in contemplative tranquillity. But it seems that busy men seldom live long in a state of quiet. It is not unlikely that his health declined, he complains of deafness; "for," says he, "I took little care of my ears while I was not sure if my head was my own."
Of any occurrences of his remaining life I have found no account. In a letter to Swift, "I have," says he, "treated Lady Harriet, at Cambridge (a Fellow of a College treat!) and spoke verses to her in a gown and cap! What, the plenipotentiary, so far concerned in the damned peace at Utrecht; the man that makes up half the volume of terse prose, that makes up the report of the committee, speaking verses! Sic est, homo sum."
He died at Wimpole, a seat of the Earl of Oxford, on the 18th of September, 1721, and was buried in Westminster; where on a monument, for which, as the "last piece of human vanity," he left five hundred pounds, is engraven this epitaph:-
Sui Temporis Historiam meditanti,?Paulatim obrepens Febris?Operi simul et Vitae filum abrupit,?Sept. 18. An. Dom. 1721. AEtat. 57.?H.S.E.?Vir Eximius Serenissimis?Regi GULIELMO Reginaeque MARIAE?In Congressione Foederatorum?Hagae anno 1690 celebrata,?Deinde Magnae Britanniae Legatis?Tum iis,?Qui anno 1697 Pacem RYSWICKI confecerunt,?Tum iis,?Qui apud Gallos annie proximis Legationem obierunt?Eodem etiani anno 1657 in Hibernia?SECRETARIUS;?Necnon in utroque Honorabili consessu?Eorum,?Qui anno 1700 ordinandis Commercii negotiis,?Quique anno 1711 dirigendis Portorii rebus,?Praeidebant,?COMMISSIONARIUS;?Postremo ab ANNA,?Felicissimae memoriae Regina,?Ad LUDOVICUM XIV. Galliae Regem?Missus anno 1711?De Pace stabilienda?(Pace etiam num durante?Diuque ut boni jam omnes sperant duratura),?Cum sunma potestate Legatus;?MATTHAES PRIOR Armiger?Qui?Hos omnes, quibus cumulates est, Titulos?Humanitatis, Ingenii, Ereditionis laude?Superavit;?Cui enim nascenti faciles arriserant Mesae.?Hunc Puerum Schola hic Regia perpolivit;?Jevenem in Collegio S'ti Johannis?Cantabrigia optimis Scientiis instruxit;?Virum denique auxit, et perfecit,?Multa cum viris Principibus censuetudo;?Ita natus, ita institutus,?A Vatam Choro avelli numquam potuit,?Sed solebat saepe rerum civilium gravitatem?Amoeniorum Literarum Studiis condire:?Et cum omne adeo Poetices genus?Haud infeliciter tentaret,?Tum in Fabellis concinne lepideque texendis?Mirus Artifex?Neminem habuit parem.?Haec liberalis animi oblectamenta:?Quam nullo illi labore constiterint,?Facile ii perspexere, quibus usus est Amici;?Apud quos Urbanitatem et Leporum plenus?Cum ad rem, quaecunque forte inciderat,?Apte varie copioseque alluderet,?Interea nihil quaesitum, nihil vi expressum?Videbatur,?Sed omnia ultro effluere,?Et quasi jugi e foote affatim exuberare,?Ita suos tandem dubios reliquit,?Essetne in Scriptis, Poeta Elegantior,?An in Convictu, Comes Jocundior.
Of Prior, eminent as he was, both by his abilities and station, very few memorials have been left by his