VOL. II. CHAPTER IV. MATTHEW PRIOR. HIS CAREER AND POEMS. MOUSE MONTAGUE. HIS PROPOSAL FOR THE NATIONAL DEBT. PROJECTS THE BANK OF ENGLAND, AND A NEW EAST INDIA COMPANY.-HIS SUCCESS IN LIFE. HIS ABJURATION OF POETRY.-MONTAGUE'S PASSION FOR MRS. BARTON, THE NIECE OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON. PRIOR'S 'NUT-BROWN MAID.' 83 CHAPTER IV. PRIOR'S 'Nut-Brown Maid' was the delight of our grandmothers; ladies, coeval with the young Pretender, were still proud to repeat it; it conveyed the true, proper, orthodox sentiment. of woman to man; of undeviating fidelity, not to say subserviency to the half indifferent. It embodied the sentimental rule which the licentious moral condition of the court of Charles the Second had somewhat set aside; for that court was certainly 'le paradis des femmes ;' the bad among them especially. At a reasonable age each girl was supposed to have committed the 'Nut-Brown Maid' to memory. We have an impression that some part of it was set to music, the last test of popularity. Prior was, in fact, one of the most fashionable poets among those who frequented Knowle Park, and who experienced, not only the hospitality but the kindness of its owner. For to the bounty of the Earl of Dorset he owed most of the prosperity of a chequered life. Matthew Prior, who afterwards figured so admirably as a diplomatist, was the son of a joiner in the City of London. His father dying early, he was left to the guardianship of an uncle, who, fortunately for the boy, was no private individual but who exercised the public function of a vintner at Charing 84 PRIOR IN WILL'S COFFEE HOUSE. Cross. Endowed with sufficient judgment to appreciate the advantages of education, this excellent man placed his nephew at Westminster School, where he was so fortunate as to be under the tuition of Dr. Busby. Matthew soon rose to the upper forms of the school; but, as in Ben Jonson's case, his circumstances were adverse to learning, and he was recalled, at an early age, from Westminster to follow his uncle's business as a vintner. He still found leisure to pursue his classical studies-Horace in particular. Matthew's uncle was the 'mine host' of all the wits of the day; we all know how different taverns and tavern life were then to our own politer age, in which we should indeed wonder, if we heard of our prime wits and politicians-the Earl of Stanhope, for instance, our excellent historian, or the Earl of Carlisle, or any other nobleman who cherishes letters-we should, indeed, wonder if we heard of their spending evening after evening by a tavern fireside, inviting the intimacy of young poets and dramatists; but it was otherwise then. Poets, wits, essayists, mixed even with bishops, as well as with peers, round the table of Will's and of other similar establishments. It happened, then, one day when Lord Dorset, an habitué of the tavern, was there amidst the circle of a coterie of men of rank, who were reputed scholars and wits, that the conversation turned upon Horace. A dispute on a particular passage arose between them, when one of the gentle men said: 'I find we are not like to agree in our criticisms; but, if I mistake not, there is a young fellow in the house who is able to set us right.' Matthew, or, as he was called, Matt, was instantly sent for ; and he construed the passage referred to with so much exactness, and yet with so engaging a degree of modesty, that Lord Dorset resolved to remove him from the tavern, and to place him at St. John's College, Cambridge, that he might better pursue his studies. Bishop Burnet-famous for putting things in a disagreeable |