but whenever the safety of his country demanded | his assistance, he readily entered into the most ac. tive parts of life, and underwent the greatest dan gers, with a constancy of mind which showed that he had not only read the rules of philosophy, but understood the practice of them.

In the first Dutch war he went a volunteer un der the Duke of York: his behaviour during that campaign was such as distinguished the Sackville descended from that Hildebrand of the name who was one of the greatest captains that came into England with the Conqueror. But his making a song the night before the engagement (and it was one of the prettiest that ever was made) carries with it so sedate a presence of mind, and such an unusual gallantry, that it deserves as much to be recorded as Alexander's jesting with his soldiers before he passed the Granicus, or William I. of Orange giving orders over-night for a battle, and desiring to be called in the morning lest he should nappen to sleep too long.

From hence, during the remaining part of King Charles's reign, he continued to live in honourable leisure. He was of the Bed-chamber to the king, and possessed not only his master's favour, but in a great degree his familiarity, never leaving the Court but when he was sent to that of France, on some short commissions and embassies of compliment; as if the King designed to show the French, (who would be thought the politest nation) that one of the finest gentlemen in Europe was his subject; and that we had a prince who understood his worth so well as not to suffer him to be long out of his presence.

The succeeding reign neither relished my Lord's wit nor approved his maxims; so he retired altogether from Court. But as the irretrievable mistakes of that unhappy government went on to threaten the nation with something more terrible than a Dutch war, he thought it became hin to resume the courage of his youth, and once more to engage himself in defending the liberty of his country. He entered into the prince of Orange's interest, and carried on his part of that great enterprise here in London, and under the eye of the Court, with the same resolution as his friend and fellow patriot the late Duke of Devonshire did in open arms at Nottingham, till the dangers of those times increased to extremity, and just apprehensions arose for the safety of the princess, our present glorious Queen; then the earl of Dorset was thought the properest guide of her necessary flight, and the person under whose courage and direction the nation might most safely trust a charge so precious and important.

After the establishment of their late Majesties upon the throne there was room again at Court for men of my Lord's character, He had a part in the councils of those princes, a great share in their friendship, and all the marks of distinction with which a good government could reward a patriot. He was made Chamberlain of their Majesties' household, a place which he so eminently adorned by the grace of his person, the fineness of his breeding, and the knowledge and practice of what was decent and magnificent, that he could only be rivalled in these qualifications by one great man who bas since held the same staff.

The last honours he received from his sovereign (and indeed they were the greatest which a subject could receive) were, that he was made knight of the garter, and constituted one of the regents of the kingdom during his Majesty's absence. But his health, about that time, sensibly declining, and the public affairs not threatened by any imminent danger, he left the business to those who delighted more in the state of it, and appeared only someimes at council, to show his respect to the commission; giving as much leisure as he could to the relief of those pains with which it pleased God to afflict him, and indulging the reflections of a mind, that had looked through the world with too piercing an eye, and was grown weary of the prospect. Upon the whole, it may very justly be said of this great man, witt. regard to the public, that through the course of his life, he acted like an able pilot in a long voyage; contented to sit quiet in the cabin, when the winds were allayed, and the waters smooth; but vigilant and ready to resume the helm when the storm arose, and the sea grew tumultuous.

I ask your pardon, my Lord, if I look yet a little

more nearly into the late Lord Dorset's character: if I examine it not without some intention of find ing fault, and (which is an odd way of making a panegyric) set his blemishes and imperfections in open view.

The fire of his youth carried him to some excesses; but they were accompanied with a most lively invention, and true humour. The little violences and easy mistakes of a night too gaily spent (and that too in the beginning of life) were always set right the next day, with great humanity, and ample retribution. His faults brought their excuse with them; and his very failings had their beauties. So much sweetness accompanied what he said, and so great generosity what he did, that people were always prepossessed in his favour: and it was in fact true, what the late Earl of Rochester said in jest to King Charles, that he did not know how it was, but my Lord Dorset might do any thing, yet was never to blame.

He was naturally very subject to passion: but the short gust was soon over, and served only to set off the charms of his temper, when more compos ed. That every passion broke out with a force of wit, which made even anger agreeable: while it lasted, he said and forgot a thousand things, which other men would have been glad to have studied and wrote: but the impetuosity was corrected upon a moment's reflection, and the measure altered with such grace and delicacy, that you could scarce perceive where the key was changed.

He was very sharp in his reflections; but never in the wrong place. His darts were sure to wound; but they were sure, too, to hit none but those whose follies gave him very fair aim. And, when he allowed no quarter, he had certainly been provoked by more than common error, by men's tedious and circumstantial recitals of their affairs, or by their multiplied questions about his own; by extreme ignorance and impertinence, or the mixture of these, an ill-judged and never-ceasing civility, or, lastly, by the two things which were his utter aversion, the insinuation of a flatterer, and the whisper of a tale-bearer.

If therefore we set the piece in its worst position, if its faults be most exposed, the shades will still appear very finely joined with their lights, and every imperfection will be diminished by the lustre of some neighbouring virtue: but if we turn the great drawings and wonderful colourings to their true light, the whole must appear beautiful, noble, and admirable.

As

He possessed all those virtues, in the highest degree, upon which the pleasure of society, and the happiness of life, depend: and he exercised them with the greatest decency, and best manners. good-nature is said, by a great author, to belong more particularly to the English, than any other nation; it may again be said, that it belonged more particularly to the late Earl of Dorset, than to any other Englishman.

A kind husband he was, without fondness: and an indulgent father, without partiality. So extraordinary good a master, that this quality ought indeed to have been numbered among his defects; for he was often served worse than became his station, from his unwillingness to assume an authority too severe. And, during those little transports of passion, to which I just now said he was subject, I have known his servants get into his way that they might make a merit of it immediately after; for he that had the good fortune to be chid, was sure of being rewarded for it.

His table was one of the last that gave us an example of the old house-keeping of an English nobleman. A freedom reigned at it, which made every one of his guests think himself at home; and an abundance, which showed that the master's hospitality extended to many more than those who had the honour to sit at table with him.

In his dealings with others, his care and exactness that every man should have his due, was such, that you would think he had never seen a court: the politeness and civility, with which his justice was administered, would convince you he never had lived out of one. He was so strict an observer of his word, that no consideration whatever could make him break it; yet so cautious, lest the merit of his act should arise from that obligation only, that he usually did the greatest favours, without

• Sprat.

And,

on this account, than my Lord Dorset was. without any exaggeration, that prince did not do more good in proportion out of the revenue of the Roman empire, than your father, out of the inco me of a private estate. Let this, my Lord, remain to you and your posterity a possession for ever; to be imitated, and, if possible, to be excelled.

error.

The foundation indeed of these excellent qualities, and the perfection of my Lord Dorset's character, was that unbounded charity which ran through the whole tenour of his life, and sat as visibly predominant over the other faculties of his soul, as she is said to do in heaven above her sister virtues. Crowds of poor daily thronged his gates, expecting thence their bread; and were still lessened by his sending the most proper objects of his bounty to apprenticeships or hospitals. The lazy and the sick, as he accidentally saw them, were removed from the street to the physician; and many of them not only restored to health, but supplied with what might enable them to resume their former callings, and make their future life happy. The prisoner has often been released, by my Lord's paying the debt; and the condemned has been saved, by his intercession with the sovereign, where he thought the letter of the law too rigid. To those whose circumstances were such as made them ashamed of their poverty, he knew how to bestow his munificence, without offending their modesty; and, under the notion of frequent presents, gave them what amounted to a subsistence. Many yet alive know this to be true; though he told it to none, nor ever was more uneasy than when any one mentioned it to him.

We may find among the Greeks and Latins, Tibullus and Gallus, the noblemen that writ poetry; Augustus and Maecenas, the protectors of lean.ing; Aristides the good citizen; and Atticus, the well-bred friend; and bring them in as examples of my Lord Dorset's wit, his judgment, his justice, and his civility. But for his charity, my Lord, we can scarce find a parallel in history itself. Titus was not more the "delicia humani generis,'

As to my own particular, I scarce knew what favour; nor have reason to feel any sorrow so sensibly as that of his death.

Ille dies quem semper acerbum

Semper honoratum (sic Di voluistis) habebo. Eneas could not reflect upon the loss of his own father with greater piety, my Lord, than I must recall the memory of yours, and when I think whose son I am writing to, the least I promise myself from your goodness is an uninterrupted continuance of favour, and a friendship for life; to which that I may with some justice entitle myself, I send your Lordship a Dedication not filled with a long detail of your praises, but with my sincerest wishes that you may deserve them; that you may employ those extraordinary parts and abilities with which Heaven has blessed you to the honour of your family, the benefit of your friends, and the good of your country; that all your actions may be great, open, and noble, such as may tell the world whose son and whose successor you are.

What I now offer to your Lordship is a collection of poetry, a kind of garland of good will. If any verses of my writing should appear in print under another name and patronage than that of an Earl of Dorset, people might suspect them not to be genuine. I have attained my present end, if these poems prove the diversion of some of your youthful hours, as they have been occasionally the amusement of some of mine; and I humbly hope, that, as I may hereafter bind up my fuller sheaf, and lay some pieces of a very different nature (the product of my severer studies) at your Lordship's feet, I shall engage your more serious reflection; happy if, in all my endeavours, I may have contributed to your delight, or to your instruction. am, with all duty and respect,

My Lord,

Your Lordship's most obedient and most humble servant, MATTHEW PRIOR.

I

THE greatest part of what I have written having been already published, either singly or in some of the Miscellanies, it would be too late for me tc make any excuse for appearing in print. But a collection of poems has lately appeared under my name, though without my knowledge, in which the publisher has given me the honour of some things that did not belong to me, and has transcribed others so imperfectly that I hardly knew them to be mine. This has obliged me, in my own defence, to look back upon some of those lighter studies which I ought long since to have quitted, and to publish an indifferent collection of poems, for fear of being thought the author of a worse.

Thus I beg pardon of the public for reprinting some pieces which, as they came singly from their first impression, have (I fancy) lain long and quietly in Mr. Tonson's shop; and adding others to them which were never before printed, and might have lain as quietly, and perhaps more safely, in a corner of my own study.

The reader will, I hope, make allowance for their having been written at very distant times, and on very different occasions; and take them as they happen to come: public panegyrics, amorous odes, serious reflections, or idle tales, the product of his leisure hours, who had business enough upon his hands, and was only a poet by accident.

I own myself much obliged to Mrs. Singer, who has given me leave to print a pastoral of her writing, that poem having produced the verses immediately following it. I wish she might be prevailed upon to publish some other pieces of that kind, in which the softness of her sex, and the fineness of her genius, conspire to give her a very distinguishing character.

patron, have been confirmed by most noble and distinguished first-fruits; and his life is going on towards a plentiful harvest of all accumulated virtues. He has, in fact, exceeded whatever the fondness of my wishes could invent in his favour; his equally good and beautiful lady enjoys in him an indulgent and obliging husband; his children, a kind and careful father; and his acquaintance, a faithful, generous, and polite friend. His fellowpeers have attended to the persuasion of his eloquence; and have been convinced by the solidity of his reasoning. He has long since deserved and attained the honour of the garter. He has managed some of the greatest charges of the kingdom with known ability; and laid them down with entire disinterestment. And as he continues the exercises of these eminent virtues (which that he may to a very old age, shall be my perpetual wish) he may be one of the greatest men that our age, or possibly our nation, has bred; and leave materials for a panegyric, not unworthy the pen of some future Pliny.

From so noble a subject as the Earl of Dorset, to so mean a one as myself, is (I confess) a very Pindaric transition. I shall only say one word, and trouble the reader no further. 1 published my poems formerly, as Monsieur Jourdan sold his silk: he would not be thought a tradesman; but ordered some pieces to be measured out to his particular friends. Now, I give up my shop, and dispose of all my poetical goods at once: I must therefore desire, that the public would please to take them in the gross; and that every body would turn over what he does not like.

POSTSCRIPT.

I MUST help my preface by a postscript, to tell the reader that there is ten years' distance between my writing one and the other; and that (whatever I thought then, and have somewhere said, that I would publish no more poetry) he will find several copies of verses scattered through this edition, which were not printed in the first. Those rela ting to the public, stand in the order they did before, according to the several years in which they were written; however the disposition of our national affairs, the actions or the fortunes of some men, and the opinions of others, may have changed. Prose and other human things may take what turn they can; but poetry, which pretends to have something of divinity in it, is to be more permanent. Odes once printed cannot well be altered, when the author has already said, that he expects his works should live for ever: and it had been very foolish in my friend Horace, if, some years after his "Exegi Monumentum," he should have desired to see his building taken down again.

The dedication likewise is reprinted, to the Earl of Dorset, in the foregoing leaves, without any alteration, though I had the fairest opportunity, and the strongest inclination, to have added a great deal to it. The blooming hopes, which I said the world expected from my then very young

See the following Advertisement.

ADVERTISEMENT

MR. Priors Poems were published, in a handsome folio, in the year 1718, during his own life. After his death, which event happened in Sept. 1721, his Manuscripts, as well of a public as a pri vate nature, were left, by our Author's will, to Lord Harley and Mr. Adrian Drift, his executors, with orders to destroy such as might not be proper for future inspection. In 1733-4. Mr. Samuel Humphreys of Hampstead published the Posthumous Poems of our Author, (probably at the request of his executors) at the same time obliging the world with the life of that excellent man and poet. From 1734 to these times various editions of Prior's Poems have poured from the press, but without any order or method observed in arranging the different pieces; epistles, tales, ballads, odes, epigrams, &c. being indiscriminately jumbled together, circumstances at the same time inconvenient and offensive to the reader of taste and judgment. To obviate a defect so apparent, we have ventured, in this edition of Prior's Works, to depart from the order observed by his former editors, the different pieces being here classed and arranged according to their several kinds, so that the whole of the same species of writing falls under the reader's eye in one and the same department of the book only, in place of many departments, as formerly; an alteration of some convenience to the reader, and such as can reflect no disgrace to the figure of our Author's poems, which here present themselves under a more uniform arrangement than usual.

MAN! foolish man!

Scarce know'st thou how thyself began,
Scarce hadst thou thought enough to prove thou art,
Yet, steel'd with studied boldness, thou darest try
To send thy doubting Reason's dazzled eye
Through the mysterious gulf of vast immensity:
Much thou canst there discern, much thence im-
part.

Vain wretch! suppress thy knowing pride,
Mortify thy learned lust:

Vain are thy thoughts while thou thyself art dust.

Let wit her sails, her oars let wisdom lend,
The helm let politic experience guide;
Yet cease to hope thy short-lived bark shall ride
Down spreading Fate's unnavigable tide.
What though still it farther tend?

Still 'tis farther from its end,

And, in the bosom of that boundless sea,
Still finds its error lengthen with its way.

With daring pride and insolent delight,
Your doubts resolved you boast, your labours
crown'd,

And, ETPHKA your God, forsooth, is found
Incomprehensible and infinite.

But is he therefore found? vain searcher! no:
Let your imperfect definition show

That nothing you, the weak definer, know.

Say, why should the collected main
Itself within itself contain!

Why to its caverns should it sometimes creep,
And with delighted silence sleep

On the loved bosom of its parent deep.

Why should its numerous waters stay
In comely discipline and fair array,

Till winds and tides exert their high commands!
Then, prompt and ready to obey,
Why do the rising surges spread

Their opening ranks o'er earth's submissive head,
Marching through different paths to different

lands?

Why does the constant sun

With measured steps his radiant journeys run?
Why does he order the diurnal hours

To leave earth's other part, and rise in ours?
Why does he wake the correspondent moon,
And fill her willing lamp with liquid light,
Commanding her with delegated powers
To beautify the world, and bless the night?
Why does each animated star

Love the just limits of its proper sphere,
Why does each consenting sign
With prudent harmony combine

In turns to move, and subsequent appear,
To gird the globe, and regulate the year?

Man does with dangerous curiosity
These unfathom'd wonders try:
With fancied rules and arbitrary laws
Matter and motion he restrains:

And studied lines and fictious circles draws:

Then with imagined sovereignty

Lord of his new hypothesis he reigns.

He reigns; how long? till some usurper rise!
And he, too, mighty thoughtful, mighty wise,
Studies new lines, and other circles feigns.
From this last toil again what knowledge flows?
Just as much, perhaps, as shows
That all his predecessor's rules
Were empty cant, all jargon of the schools:
That he on t'other's ruin rears his throne,
And shows his friend's mistake, and thence con-
firms his own.

[press,

On earth, in air, amidst the seas and skies,
Mountainous heaps of wonders rise,
Whose towering strength will ne'er submit
To Reason's batteries or the mines of Wit:
Yet still inquiring, still mistaking man,
Each hour repulsed, each hour dares onward
And, levelling at God his wandering guess,
(That feeble engine of his reasoning war,
Which guides his doubts and combats his despair)
Laws to his Maker the learn'd wretch can give,
Can bound that nature and prescribe that will
Whose pregnant Word did either ocean fill,
Can tell us whence all beings are, and how they
move and live.

Through either ocean, foolish man!
That pregnant Word sent forth again
Might to a world extend each atom there,

For every drop call forth a sea, a heaven for every

star.

Let cunning earth her fruitful wonders hide,
And only lift thy staggering reason up

To trembling Calvary's astonish'd top,

Then mock thy knowledge and confound thy pride.
Explaining how Perfection suffer'd pain,
Almighty languish'd, and Eternal died;

How by her patient victor Death was slain,
And earth profaned, yet bless'd with Deicide.
Then down with all thy boasted volumes, down;
Only reserve the sacred one:
Make thy stubborn knowledge bow;
Low, reverently low,
Weep out thy reason's and thy body's eyes;
Deject thyself that thou may'st rise:

To look to heaven, be blind to all below.

WHILE blooming youth and gay delight Sit on thy rosy cheeks confess'd,

To triumph o'er this destined breast.

A

My reason bends to what thy eyes ordain;
For I was born to love, and thou to reign.

But would you meanly thus rely
On power you know I must obey?
Exert a legal tyranny,

And do an ill because you may?

Still must I thee, as Atheists Heaven, adore;
Not see thy mercy, and yet dread thy power?

Take heed, my dear: youth flies apace;
As well as Cupid, Time is blind:
Soon must those glories of thy face
The fate of vulgar beauty find:

The thousand Loves, that arm thy potent eye,

Must drop their quivers, flag their wings, and die.

Then wilt thou sigh, when in each frown
A hateful wrinkle more appears:
And putting peevish humours on,
Seems but the sad effect of years:
Kindness itself too weak a charm will prove
To raise the feeble fires of aged love.

Forced compliments, and formal bows,
Will show thee just above neglect;
The heat with which thy lover glows,
Will settle into cold respect:

A talking dull Platonic I shall turn:
Learn to be civil, when I cease to burn.

Then, shun the ill, and know, my dear,
Kindness and constancy will prove
The only pillars, fit to bear

So vast a weight as that of love.

If thou canst wish to make my flames endure,
Thine must be very fierce, and very pure.

Haste, Celia, haste, while youth invites,
Obey kind Cupid's present voice;
Fill every sense with soft delights,
And give thy soul a loose to joys:

Let millions of repeated blisses prove

That thou all kindness art, and I all love.

Be mine, and only mine; take care

Thy looks, thy thoughts, thy dreams, to guide
To me alone; nor come so far,

As liking any youth beside:

What men e'er court thee, fly them, and believe
They're serpents all, and thou the tempted Eve.

So shall I court thy dearest truth,
When beauty ceases to engage;
So, thinking on thy charming youth,
I'll love it o'er again in age:

So time itself our raptures shall improve,
While still we wake to joy, and live to love.

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 sustain'd 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 join'd?
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.

But she, howe'er of victory sure,
Contemns the wreath too long delay'd:
And arm'd with more immediate power,
Calls cruel silence to her aid.

Deeper to wound she shuns the fight;
She drops her arms, to gain the field;
Secures her conquest by her flight;
And triumphs, when she seems to yield.

So when the Parthian turn'd his steed,
And from the hostile camp withdrew,
With cruel skill the backward reed
He sent; and, as he fled, he slew.

AN ODE.

THE merchant, to secure his treasure,
Conveys it in a borrow'd name:
Euphelia serves to grace my measure;
But Cloe is my real flame.

My softest verse, my darling lyre,
Upon Euphelia's toilet lay;
When Cloe noted her desire,

That I should sing, that I should play.

My lyre I tune, my voice I raise,
But with my numbers mix my sighs;
And, whilst I sing Euphelia's praise,
I fix my soul on Cloe's eyes.

Fair Cloe blush'd: Euphelia frown'd:
I sung, and gazed: I play'd, and trembled:
And Venus to the Loves around

Remark'd how ill we all dissembled.

AN ODE.

WHILE from our looks, fair nymph, you guess
The secret passions of our mind;
My heavy eyes, you say, confess
A heart to love and grief inclined,

There needs, alas! but little art
To have this fatal secret found;
With the same ease you threw the dart,
"Tis certain you can show the wound.

How can I see you, and not love,
While you as opening east are fair?
While cold as northern blasts you prove,
How can I love, and not despair?

The wretch in double fetters bound
Your potent mercy may release;
Soon, if my love but once were crown'd,
Fair prophetess, my grief would cease.

AN ODE TO A LADY.

She refusing to continue a Dispute with me, and

leaving me in the Argument.

SPAFE, generous victor, spare the slave,
Who did unequal war pursue;

That more than triumph he might have,
In being overcome by you.

AN ODE.

PRESENTED TO THE KING,

On his Majesty's arrival in Holland, after the Queen's death,-1695.

Quis desiderio sit pudor aut modus Tam cari capitis? præcipe lugubres Cantus Melpomene.

AT Mary's tomb (sad sacred place!) The Virtues shall their vigils keep, And every Muse and every Grace In solemn state shall ever weep.

The future pious mournful fair,
Oft as the rolling years return,
With fragrant wreaths and flowing hair
Shall visit her distinguish'd urn.

For her the wise and great shall mourn,
When late records her deeds repeat;
Ages to come and men unborn
Shall bless her name and sigh her fate.

Fair Albion shall, with faithful trust,
Her holy Queen's sad relics guard,
Till Heaven awakes the precious dust,
And gives the saint her full reward.