'Whilst the Court was here I took the boldness to represent to my Lord Portland and Mr Blathwayt that whenever his Majesty pleased to supply the ministry here, I had no other pretension than that of throwing myself in the packet-boat and making the best of my way for England; that, if I was to be left here, it was no way proper for me in this post to scramble at ordinaries with Switzers or French Protestants; that a little house this winter would be convenient in so cold a country as Holland; that it was not handsome for me to go to the Pensioner or Secretaries on foot, whilst they sent their clerks back again in coaches; and that myself and servants could not subsist with any tolerable credit upon twenty shillings a day, which tallies and the change of money hardly bring beyond eighteen; that the public Ministers, owning me with regard to the title I was commanded to take of the King of England's Secretary, came to visit me, and that I could not go to them or to Court when I was too dirty.'* Portland agreed that Prior's claims were rather founded on reason than vanity'; but, when the Court embarked for England, nothing had been done to improve his position. In England, however, the Duke of Shrewsbury, Secretary of State, and James Vernon, his assistant, were doing their best for him. They came to the conclusion that it would be easier to add to the secretary's extraordinary expenses than to increase the regular allowance. In this, in a letter to Vernon, Prior rather ruefully acquiesced. As he wrote to his friend George Stepney, he regarded it as a pis-aller. I am very infinitely obliged to my Lord Duke's goodness and Mr. Vernon's intercession; and have read Seneca too often to be discouraged at the disappointment. I am too old to cry for a coach, and too young to have a real want of one; and ought to be satisfied with my pension, if the Government is satisfied with my service; if I consider that I have less than I desired and more than I deserved. 'Quando id quod velis non possis, velis id quod possis: so to show you that I am not out of humour, I remember that 1007. in a bill of extraordinaries is very like 1007. by a privy seal. I hope, therefore, a coach, to be hired when I have business, may be allowed; else, take five gilders from ten gilders and there remain but five, and consequently I must fast those days in which I give in memorials or pay visits. * To the Duke of Shrewsbury, Nov. 9 (n.s.), 1694. Longleat Mss, iii, 34. The small equipage of three rascals may come in likewise, and the house-rent for reasons not unlike the former.' For all his philosophy, he had moments of depression when he reflected how much brisker were his creditors than the Treasury. There is a great correspondence between the stomach and the heart,' he writes; 'one is out of humour commonly when one is hungry; and it is time to think what friends I have at Whitehall when Famine sits triumphant on the cheeks of my two footmen and the ribs of my two horses.'† These personal notes are but postscripts and paragraphs in the voluminous letters which Prior wrote at this period. For those, however, who are more concerned with the man himself than with the public events in which he played a part, they are the most interesting feature of the correspondence. Nevertheless it must be understood that Matthew was not entirely preoccupied with his private troubles and ambitions. The death of Queen Mary at the end of 1694 seems genuinely to have distressed him. The news' dazed him into the colic'; and, although he displayed much anxiety to know whether he must wear a long trailing cloak, the letter to Dorset in which he gives his reasons for not writing a poem on the occasion is stamped with sincerity. 'We have had nothing new for some months but volumes of bad poetry upon a blessed Queen. I have not put my mite into this treasury of nonsense, having been too truly afflicted by the subject to say anything upon it, besides that memoirs, letters, accounts Dutch and French, and, what is a worse plague than all this, very long and impertinent visits are great incumbrances on an English Muse who in her perfect liberty was but indifferent, though my Lord Dorset's kindness brought her up, and his example taught her.' § Students of Prior know that the resolution of silence expressed in this letter was not kept. Prior had already a considerable reputation as a poet, and his voice was missed from the chorus of mourners. On April 29, 1695, Vernon wrote to him, *Dec. 4-14, 1694. Longleat мss, iii, 36. + To Sir William Trumbull, Dec. 11-21, 1694. Ib. iii, 39, § March 8-18, 1694-5, Įb. iii, 49, 'I could only tell you by the last post that I had received your medals, and I can now satisfy you they are distributed; and must further acquaint you, if you think this will acquit you from the expectations people have of a poem from you, you will be mistaken, for they say you are not to come off with a posey and a shred of Horace; and they further desire, if you write anything in memory of the Queen, that you will take a little more notice of her than you do in her stamp, where she is neither represented by the effigies or the motto. I know not how you will like it, I should tell you what the critics say; but they say some poets and painters have placed themselves behind a curtain on purpose to lie perdu for censures.' The mention of the medals is interesting. We know nothing of Prior as draughtsman or designer, but it seems clear from other letters, as well as from Vernon's, that he was in some way responsible for the piece at which Vernon cavils. Be that as it may, he wrote the required poem and presented it to the King on his arrival at The Hague. Meanwhile, there was talk of the appointment of Lord Villiers as ambassador at The Hague. Prior expected his dismissal, and once more grew anxious as to his future. The general opinion, among himself and his friends, seems to have been that his next employment would be at Ratisbon, though Venice was also mentioned. The King decreed that he should remain, for a time at least, as secretary to Villiers; but this did not set Prior's mind at rest. He wrote several times to Villiers himself on the absorbing topic, but his case is most clearly and eloquently put in a letter to Keppel, who was then busy at the siege of Namur. ... After having hoped, feared, been promised and (which is worst) congratulated for Ratisbon, the King thinks there is not enough for a minister to do there. 'Tis true His Majesty knows best, for he is as evidently the most experienced man of our age, as he is the best Prince; and if he had been born a private man, he would have made a greater Ambassador than any State ever employed; yet I have one objection that * Longleat Mss, iii, 50. † Among the many medals struck to commemorate Mary's death described in Hawkins's Medallic Illustrations,' there is only one (William III and Mary, No. 361) which has a quotation from Horace and no portrait of the Queen. It would be interesting to know whether this was Prior's invention, could puzzle him, which is, that though Ratisbon may not want a resident, his Secretary at the Hague will soon want a residence; and though His Majesty have small use for a scribbling servant, I have great occasion for the bounty of a Royal Master. Wherever he pleases to send me, I am ready to go; where, if there be not much business, I shall apply myself to those studies that may make me capable of doing his business when there is any; and when there is nothing to be written for his service in prose, I will write his conquests and glories in verse. A resident or envoy may in some small time be sent to Venice, another to Florence; be it at either of these two places, at Ratisbon, Berlin (where, may be, His Majesty may send rather a resident than an envoy), at Stockholm, Copenhagen, or even Moscow, it is well, provided I may serve my King, my hero and my master; but it is a sad reflection for me to think of going home as if I were disgraced, after having served here five years with some credit, and spent my little all in order to my being fit for something hereafter; and I take the boldness to protest to you I cannot think of returning to my College, and being useless to my country, to make declamations and theses to doting divines there, having drawn up memorials to the States General in the name of the greatest king in Europe.'* 6 But Prior was not to be sent to represent his king in any of the more distant courts of Europe; still less was he to be gently laid on the shelf in England. The new ambassador spoke on his behalf to William, who had a very good opinion of Prior, with the result that the poet, who in spite of his worries wrote at this time his highspirited parody of Boileau's Taking of Namur,' was to keep his secretaryship until something better was found for him. There was, moreover, some talk of doubling his allowance of 20s. a day; but this the King vetoed. These matters were settled in the autumn of 1695. A year later, negotiations for a peace were being talked of; and Prior was appointed secretary to the English ambassadors. He announces this fact, and that of the King's continued satisfaction with his services, in a letter to his friend Charles Montagu, which also furnishes another striking picture of the straits to which he was reduced in trying to uphold the credit of England on a pound a day and reasonable extraordinaries.' * Aug. 3 (n.s.), 1695. Longleat мss, iii, 61. As no man ever had so good a patron, so certainly no man had ever such occasion for him as I at this time. My tallies I cannot sell under thirty per cent. loss; my aunt will not send me one farthing; the chain and medal the States gave me is at pawn; I have but two pistoles in the house or (to say plainly) in the world, and I have every morning a levée (God be thanked for the respite of Sunday) of postmen, stationers, tailors, cooks and wine-merchants, who have not been paid since last December. This is the state of the matter; there needs no great oratory to engage your affections and raise your compassion. If you can get me any ready money, it would be more charity than to give an alms to the poorest dog that ever gave you a petition; if not, patience is a virtue, and a scrap or two of Horace must be my consolation. It is as good starving in employment as out, so I have used my friends' interest to get to be Secretary to the Embassy to this Peace of which we are all talking; and I have got it with the advantage of having the King say that he was satisfied with my service, and thought my requests reasonable. I am infinitely obliged to my Lord Duke of Shrewsbury in this affair, and I wish you, dear Master, would let His Grace know as much.'* Prior was now busy enough; and his letters to the Secretaries of State and to his friends are both important and entertaining. As the negotiations, however, seemed to be drawing to a close, the fear of unemployment again came over him. Sir James Rushout, the envoy at Lisbon, was moved to Constantinople and Prior thought that he might learn Portuguese, and get two thousand pounds in three years.' The idea attracted him, but, before he had seriously pursued it, something which appeared even better fell to his lot. Villiers, his chief and his very good friend, was made a justice of Ireland, and used his influence to get Prior appointed secretary to himself and his colleagues in that office. This meant 1000l. a year and a couple of visits to England; and the poet, exiled seven years at The Hague, was delighted. He did not know that the post was to prove both fruitful of vexation and disappointing as regarded profit. This vexation and disappointment arose from the fact Sept. 1696. Longleat Mss, iii, 86. For correspondence between Shrewsbury and Prior at this time, see Hist. MSS Comm. Buccleuch MSS (Montagu House), ii, 391-409. † To Charles Montagu, May 3 (n.s.), 1697. Longleat Mss, iii, 113. |