circumstances as they may, and they are all alike dubious, he was certainly left an orphan at a very early age, and then domesticated with an uncle, who kept the Rummer tavern, in Cockspur-street, Westminster. By the interposition of this relation, he was sent to Westminster School, and had the honour of receiving the light of knowledge through the medium of Dr. Busby's birch, As soon as he had mastered that portion of literature incidental to the school course, he was taken back to his uncle's house, where the Earl of Dorset, celebrated as a patron of literature, one day found him poring over an old copy of Horace. A conversation ensued, and the nobleman was so well pleased with young Prior's knowledge, that he undertook the cost of his academical studies on the spot. Entering his name in the books of St. John's College, Cambridge, in 1682, when he was eighteen years old, he became a Bachelor of Arts, within the term of four years, but did not attain a master's degree until 1700, when it was conferred by mandamus. What his success or reputation were during his College course, has not been particularized; but it is highly probable that he must have been respected.

According to an established custom of St. John's College, Cambridge, some poems on sacred subjects are annually sent to the Earl of Essex, as an acknowledgment of the bounty shown by one of his ancestors to the foundation. Such was the occasion on which, in 1788, Prior's maiden verses entitled the Deity,' were composed, and forwarded to the Earl, who, in all probability, was thus led to favour the writer. The context of the work suffices to evince that he must have had not only a personal acquaintance with the Earl's establishment, but an intimacy with the family. How else could a poet criticise a famous picture, or applaud a lady's music? In the following year 1689, he concurred with Montague, afterwards Earl of Halifax, in ridiculing Dryden's 'Hind and Panther,' by the City Mouse and the Country Mouse,' a performance which attracted considerable applause, and laid a foundation for the political preferment to which both writers subsequently rose; it cannot, however, be regarded as a very clever burlesque, and could only have done good by exploding the unnatural extravagance of fabulous morality,-a desideratum, which, to this day, has not been effected. Montague was the first

of the two who was rewarded by a place, and as he also rose to higher dignity and fortune, is said to have always chagrined his coadjutor.

Prior made his first appearance in a political capacity during the year 1691, when he was attached to the congress at the Hague, as secretary of the British embassy. In this assembly he conducted himself so much to the satisfaction of his associates, and of King William, in particular, that he was made a Gentleman of the Bedchamber upon his return to England. For some time he was enabled to bend with ease over those literary exercises which were so congenial to his taste; and when, in 1695, Queen Mary died, he came forward in concert with all those who could write verse, and offered his tribute to her memory. As he had a double call to sorrow, for he was not only a poet but a courtier, his ode was immensely long, and had the honour of being presented to the King. Thus favourably assiduous, his interests do not seem to have been forgotten, whenever an opportunity presented itself for employing him in that capacity for which he had already displayed an aptitude. In two years afterwards he acted as secretary at the treaty of Ryswick, and in the year following was employed in the same manner at the court of France, where he was received with great distinction by Lewis the XIV. The king attending at Loo, during the following year, he was made the bearer of despatches to the government at home; and there nominated Under Secretary of State, in the Earl of Jersey's office; a post, however, which he did not long retain, because the Earl himself was soon after ejected.

In the year 1700 he eulogised the heroism of King William, and the glories of his reign, in the longest and most showy of his poems-the 'Carmen Seculare.' During the following year he was returned to the House of Commons for the borough of East Grinstead, and gave the first indication of having changed parties, by voting for an impeachment of those Lords who had advised the King to sign the Partition Treaty. This conduct, on his part, was the more inconsistent, because he had been officially employed upon the negociation of the contract. After célebrating the Battle of Blenheim, in a poetical epistle to Boileau, he collected his pieces into a volume, then sung the victory of

Ramilies; and in 1710, resumed his political labours in adjusting the Peace of Utretch. This was an event which elevated him to his highest rank as a statesman, for he spent some time in France, with all the trust and dignity of an ambassador, though he was never formally invested with the title; but so base is fortune, that it also involved the greatest misfortune of his life. In 1714, the Tories were degraded, and the Whigs instituted the most violent proceedings against their adversaries. Prior was recalled from Paris by a warrant, lodged in the custody of the Sergeant-at-Arms, impeached by Walpole; and after a close confinement of two years, excepted from the act of Grace, which passed in 1717. For all this bitterness it is melancholy to state, that no better grounds have appeared than the mere rancour of party spirit. The treaty of Utretch was made the foundation of Prior's persecution; but nothing criminal was ever discovered against him, and at last he was suffered to go at large in silence.

Being thus left in his fifty-third year with no other means of fortune than the revenue of his fellowship at College, his friends proposed a subscription for a complete edition of his poems; and the sum of four thousand guineas was realized by the project. Harley, Earl of Oxford, added another thousand for the purchase of Down Hall, in which he spent the remainder of his days in undisturbed quiet, though, like most men who have ever enjoyed a busy greatness, somewhat dissatisfied with the humility of retirement. He died at Wimpole, a seat of his steady friend and patron, the Earl of Oxford, and was honourably buried in the Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey.

Of Prior's private life but little is known, and of his poems but little need be said, for the era of their popularity seems to have passed away. His habits are said to have been irregular, his relaxations immoral, and his tastes so very gross, that to the last days of his life he would smoke a pipe and drink ale in a public-house with soldiers and loose women. As is commonly the case, when he turned his coat in politics he became remarkable for the acrimony with which he encountered his old friends. great praise of his poetry is, that he writes with plain sense, unaffected ease, and pure nature. From this character, however, his love pieces are to be excepted, for they abound with all the taste

The

lessness of mythology. Wit was his fort: it gave a charm to his conversation, and has more than any other quality preserved his writings from oblivion. Except in the style of his diction, he has little that is original; those finer attributes of poetry, intense feelings, and a rich imagination, delight not in his pages; and numbers generally correct, but seldom sweet, with a meaning always perspicuous, but never ornamental, constitute the distinction of his works.

HENRY PURCELL.

AFFIXED to one of the pillars, behind the screen of the choir, in the north aisle of Westminster Abbey, is an old-fashioned tablet with this short inscription, which, by the by, is now scarcely legible :

The little that is known of some of the most deserving men that have ever existed, has long been a matter of universal regret; and yet, perhaps, the circumstance is not without its charm: for may we not affirm, that as indistinctness is laid down as an indispensable quality of the sublime in nature, so is the imagination reverentially excited by the obscurity which occasionally

hallows the records of genius? If the supposition can at all avail, the subject of this sketch is one to whom it may be specifically applied. Though not according to priority of time, he is at least in primitive genius, the father of English music; and yet we know scarcely any particulars of his life beyond the meagre information supplied in his epitaph, that he died on the 21st day of November, in the thirty-seventh year of his age, and in the year of our Lord 1695. Both his father and a paternal uncle were musicians, and Gentlemen of the Chapel Royal, in which he, too, received his musical education under Humphrey, a master to whom alone he seems to have been indebted for instructions in his art. It is true that this honour has also been claimed for Dr. Blow; but it is probable that he gave him nothing more than a few lessons. Purcell was introduced into the Chapel Royal, during the year 1664, when he was only six years old, and had just lost his father. The sedulous talent with which he cultivated his studies may be inferred from two facts: he brought forward some of the most popular of his anthems, while only a mere chorister; and was chosen organist of Westminster Abbey, at the premature age of eighteen. In his twenty-fourth year he was additionally preferred to the post of organist for the Chapel Royal.

Henceforward he produced with unexampled fertility and applause, and composed alike for the Church, the Theatre, and the Chamber. Being principally distinguished for fugue, canon, and counterpoint, ingenious exercises, which were once the main tests of musical merit, his popularity must be admitted to have, in some measure, declined, as such effusions became unfashionable. But there remain standard qualities in his music, of whatever description, which must ensure him a reputation so long as the art is practised amongst us. When the examples that existed for him to emulate are reviewed, it will be found that he improved upon their greatest excellence in a pre-eminent degree. The expressiveness with which he adapted the accentuations of his airs to the meaning of words; the appropriate tones of sound by which he distinguished written styles; the power of his instrumental accompaniments, and the feeling and ardour of his ballads, all display a depth and variety of attainments exhibited by no previous master.