it, and grew petulant when Pope declined to praise it as a masterpiece. 'Indeed, poor Solomon in rhyme Was much too grave to be sublime,' exclaimed its disappointed author in his last-published piece of The Conversation. Another long poem, the frigid paraphrase of the fine old ballad of The Not-Browne Maid to which he gave the title of 'Henry and Emma,' although it contains the oft-quoted (and mis-quoted) 'Fine by degrees, and beautifully less,' is almost equally unendurable. Nor are the official performances of Prior,— the Carmen Seculare and the rest, always excepting the clever skit upon Boileau's pompous Ode sur la prise de Namur, likely to attract the modern reader. His distinctive and personal note is to be found in one only of his longer pieces, and in his vivacious tales, songs, epigrams and familiar verses. This long poem is Alma, written in 1715 and 1716 while the author lay in prison under suspicion of high treason. It is a whimsical and delightfully vagrant dialogue between Mat (Prior) and Dick (his friend Mr. Shelton) upon the various speculations of philosophers as to the relations of the soul and the body, and full of fine caprices and fitful fresh departures. Plan there is little or none; but the wayward turns of the humour lure the reader from page to page with all the fascination of a Will o' the Wisp. We suspect, however, that in spite of its many good things, Alma is more quoted than read. With Prior's minor pieces the case is different. In these he exhibits all the verbal fitness and artful ease of such Latins as Horace and Martial, with both of whom he has considerable affinity. But his continental residence had also made him familiar with their Gallic imitators, and added a French grace and lightness to his already unencumbered muse. In his treatment of love and women he thoroughly follows his masters. However ardent, his adoration of the other sex is always conventional, while his appreciation of their foibles is keen even to malice. He seldom or never writes of them with real respect and deep feeling. What interests him most, it is clear, is not the tender passion in its more refined conditions, but those pretty episodes and accidents at which, they say, Dame Venus laughs,— ' rident Simplices Nymphae, ferus et Cupido Cote cruenta.' That is to say, his favourite poetical attitude is rather cynical than enthusiastic-rather material than ideal. Now and then, as in the verses To a Child of Quality five years old, he can assume a playful gravity which is altogether charming; but it is in such pieces as The Merchant, to secure his treasure, A Better Answer, A Song, that he shines most equably. As a tale-teller he comes near to La Fontaine for ease of narrative and careless finish; although his themes, like those of his model, are generally more witty than delicate. In his Epistles and pieces like The Secretary and A Simile he is delightful. As an epigrammatist he is unrivalled in English. But however much one might attempt to define the work of Prior, there would always be a something left undefined,—a something that animates the whole and yet defies the critic, who falls back upon the old threadbare devices for describing the undescribable. His is the 'nameless charm' of Piron's epigram,-that fugitive je ne sais quoi of gaiety, of wit, of grace, of audacity, it is impossible to say what, which eludes analysis as the principle of life escapes the anatomist. In the present case it lifts its possessor above any other writer of familiar verse; but it is a something to which we cannot give a name, unless, indeed, we take refuge in paradox, and say that it is.... MATTHEW PRIOR. AUSTIN DOBSON. THE SECRETARY. [Written at the Hague, in the year 1696.] While with labour assiduous due pleasure I mix, On my left hand my Horace, a Nymph on my right; Nor the long-winded cant of a dull refugee : This night and the next shall be hers, shall be mine, I drive on my car in processional state. To think what Anacreon or Sappho would say, That, search all the province, you'll find no man Lols is TO A CHILD OF QUALITY FIVE YEARS OLD. Lords, knights, and 'squires, the numerous band, My pen among the rest I took, Lest those bright eyes that cannot read Should dart their kindling fires, and look The power they have to be obeyed. Nor quality, nor reputation, Forbid me yet my flame to tell, For, while she makes her silk-worms beds She may receive and own my flame, For, though the strictest prudes should know it, Then too, alas! when she shall tear For, as our different ages move, 'Tis so ordained, (would Fate but mend it!) That I shall be past making love, When she begins to comprehend it. A SONG. In vain you tell your parting lover, That bear me far from what I love? Be gentle, and in pity choose TO A LADY: she refusing to continue a dispute with me, and leaving me in the argument. Spare, generous Victor, spare the slave, That more than triumph he might have, In the dispute whate'er I said, My heart was by my tongue belied; You, far from danger as from fear, For seldom your opinions err; Your eyes are always in the right. |