"Are not Boileau and Corneille paid They know how heroes may be made The correspondence of Bolingbroke, on the return of the latter to England, throws light upon the poet's character in this the most exalted scene of his career. He was On his own account he was acceptable to come the sport and excitement for a numLouis and his court. The monarch had the ber of leaders of society - the plotters in generosity, or prudence, to forget, if he had drawing-rooms as well as in cabinets. But ever heard, as well certain other verses, as the interests with which they played and the advice how without risk to earn the coquetted were national; the heart of a laurels of a martial king:whole people was the source on which they depended, and the throb and flutter of the pulse of ministries. But the very universality of the excitement destroyed the ease and freedom of society, while it infused a tone of hurry and agitation. Many instrudemands of national and party enterprises, ments and agents were required to meet the and each claimed, and, from the nature of the warfare, in which the engines were secret allowed an equal footing in society. But history and personalities, was necessarily that perfect reciprocity of sympathy and even prejudices, that feeling that the relations of the writer and reader are settled once for all, whether they be those of mutual equality, or the reverse, and that rank and position are recognized and certain, all necessary conditions of perfection in a correthe tradesman's son and the masters of spondence, were altogether wanting between. Mortimer and Battersea. Hence,, in these letters of Prior to St. John, there is something of an appearance of effort at freedom in the familiarity. It is only when he talks. of common acquaintances that this vanishes. not a great master of the art of letter-writing, but neither were his immediate coevals. It is noteworthy that, as his age was the age of epigrams, so it was reserved for the next, which had lost this secret (for we find a bluntness even in Pulteney's bon mots), to excel in epistolography. Nowhere can be discovered more exquisite models of this branch of literature than in the correspondence of Pope, and Lady Mary Wortley Montague, (both, though contemporaries of Prior, in a literal sense, belonging more properly to the era of the Georges), Gray, and Horace Walpole. The letters of the famous men of Anne's reign, of Swift, and Bolingbroke, and Prior, are stiff and spoiled by classical quotations, and stilted attempts the business of the representative of a Otherwise, they are curious records of now and then at being lively, while their powerful nation in these days of intrigue. epigrams and sayings are pointed and as They throw much light on the real functions happy as can be. The distinction was owing to the influence of the social element all, pending the negotiations for a great of a plenipotentiary in that age, if not in in both epochs, and to its having been called out and developed at the respective periods dependence of the minister at Paris for inEuropean peace. The proofs of the servile for different objects. A good epigram is, structions from home on every single point, in its own way, as certain evidence of the however trivial, diminish our wonder at the prominence of the social phase of an age as a picturesque style in letter-writing. Its phenomenon of so unstatesmanlike a persmartness and pungency require a highly sonage as the poet, having been placed in educated audience. That is not enough by short intervals, when Bolingbroke and the so important a station. He was, with two itself. The audience must be composed of Duke of Shrewsbury were at Paris, minispersons living so familiarly together, as at ter plenipotentiary. On the departure of once and simultaneously to catch the glanc- the latter he actually assumed the public ing of an insinuation. Again, as has been character of ambassador; nevertheless, his already suggested, a perfect epigramatic style implies, as precedent to its formation, correspondence with the Secretary of State style implies, as precedent to its formation, is filled throughout the entire period with large enough an audience and keen enough details of petty vexations, little triumphs, an interest in their neighbours' concerns, to and little duties. The letters chiefly refer reward the inventor's pains. The age of Marlborough, and Addison, Wharton, and to events subsequent to his visit to England Bolingbroke, was such. Politics were be * A remark of Voltaire (Lettres sur les Anglais) suggests a simple, though less pleasing explanation of the king's magnanimity, viz., that, up to the time of the poet's last visit to France, Paris was not aware that he had ever written verses. It is, how ever, hard to reconcile this with other facts. in October 1712. We hear incidentally about that visit, that stocks rose on his arrival, and that he went up to Cambridge to display the plenipotentiary to his wondering brother-fellows, and how the Master of St. John's, to show he at least was not dazzled, let the minister stand before his elbow chair, and how the minister, in his indignation, indited an epigram to the effect that the dignitary should not have his interest for a bishopric. the necessity of keeping "ten horses in his stables, and knaves in proportion," while we know that no part of all this splendour was as yet paid for, even the salaries of the State messengers being in arrears. He returned to France, to be harassed with a whole host of minute perplexities. His complaints that his salary was always His public business consisted mainly of in arrear, and the murmurs at the ambi- learning and transmitting the propositions guity of his position, as envoy with full of the French ministry, not in discussing powers at one time, and at another (during, or arguing on them. His less mechanical i.e., Shrewsbury's residence in Paris) having duties, besides the constant source of emno definite name, though with a public com- ployment and meditation which his unsatismission, are quite distressing. Along with fied wants in the way of services of plate nearly every official despatch to the Secre- and coaches supplied him with, concerned tary of State, is an epistle from "Matt to the maintenance of the national glory, by Harry," detailing his embarrassment from hospitality to foreigners and Englishmen, want of equipages. Every now and then the transaction of Bolingbroke's private busihe affects to despise the parade of a public ness at the French court, and the distribuentry into Paris, except for the honour of tion of his presents to the ladies and others England and the Queen's commission. In of his acquaintance, or the care of providMarch all his querulous questions are an- ing truffles for the Queen's kitchen. The swered by Lord Dartmouth, the Secretary latter subject is most prolific of ministerial of State for France, with a reproof of his despatches. The history of the truffles was craving to be made part of the spectacle on this: Mme. de Tencin had sent some to the the entry of the Duke of Shrewsbury. He Secretary of State through the agency of had been allowed a sum of money for equi- Prior. St. John, knowing the Queen's taste, page when only secretary to the Earl of loyally transferred them to the royal cook Portland, at the peace of Ryswic; he is in the plenipotentiary's name, on which now censured for supposing his commission event we have the mysterious announcegives him any representative character, and ment in an epistle from him: "the Queen informed, that he need only assist at the liked them, wished them marbré within; I ceremonial as a private gentleman. "Did give you the hint." Hence more truffles, I ever desire to be a lion in Arabia," he and fervent thanks from Paris for "the hint cries to St. John, in a burst of hurt pride as to the marbré in truffles; non sunt conand indignation, "any more than to be an temnenda quasi parva sine quibus magna ambassador at Paris?" His friend "Harry," constare non possunt." Prior recompensed who to every disappointed applicant for his friend's kind offices in this negotiation Government patronage was always profuse in his expressions of sympathy and readiness to aid, were it not for the senior partner in the firm (Harley), had often reiterated, "My friendship, dear Matt, shall never fail thee; employ it all, and continue to love Bolingbroke." Now, he advised him not to ask for such things, but to get them on credit. Poor Matthew did this to his cost. finding on the fall of his patrons, that he was held personally liable. In April 1713, however, the old querulousness breaks out. "Those people, you know," he writes, "who are curious and impertinent enough upon to make that of this cargo!" such heads, begin to question me so closely, His interest with great men was doomed that I sometimes wish I knew how to turn to be short-lived. A blight was about to the discourse;" and in July he feelingly fall upon all his political prospects. Harley complains, that "if he be left plenipoten- and St. John had quarrelled; and the hopes tiary, he must have a house and a parson." of foes and fears of friends rose to a treHis troubles were considerably lessened in mendous height. Prior had often vaunted September, for his friend had now become his preference of "some small establishSecretary of State for the half of Europe, in ment at home" to all his ministerial grandwhich France was included, and the envoy eur, and indulged in affected regrets for the seems to have been told, in St. John's mag- modest poverty of Duke Street. Still the nificent way, to get all that he wanted on, Queen's illness, in January 1716, had struck credit, for he bemoans, with manifest vanity, him with a panic, and induced the trite but D-15 VOL. XXVII. with the sovereign's palate, by undertaking the apportionment of the former's gifts among his fair or political allies in France. There is much correspondence on the im. portant subject, the cargo being composed of honey-water, sack, and "eau de Barbade," and several high dames having, it appears, equal claims in a share of the "Nectareous liquor eau de Barbade" (King's Toast), known to us under a less recondite name. "I protest," writes St. John, "I contributed to make the partition of Europe without being so much at a loss as I should be how well-founded foreboding-" if the prospect "beautiful daughter, the peace," to be lookbe dreadful to the masters of Mortemared upon as a traitor for the very treaty Castle, Hinton St. George, Stanton Har- which he had proposed should be depicted court, and Bucklebury, what must it be to on medals, impersonated, and enthroned in friend Matt!" No sooner had this danger a triumphal car, as "Pax missa per ordisappeared, than lo! in the very next bem." At last he was relieved from the month came the terrible rumour of a schism legatine pillory by the arrival of Lord Stair in the Tory party. "We have reports as his successor, and the tardy payment of here," he says, on March 3, 1716, "that his debts, not the less tardy that Lord Hafrighten me all day, and keep me awake all lifax, his old schoolfellow, and who still night;" and which compelled him "to put called himself his friend, was King George's his mind into 10,000 postures, as the caprice first Commissioner of the Treasury. of every man that comes from the enchant- No bells were rung or bonfires lighted, ed island (England) requires." Then again, on this occasion, on his arrival at Whiteignoring his old cravings for a lowly retreat, hall; but men's eyes were not the less fixed he encourages himself and his chief to de- upon him with eager expectation. Without termine to make their retreat, respectively, having ever been notorious for perfidy or to Bucklebury and St. John's, "as late as caprice, still his political career had scarcely possible," while he urges upon the Secre- given evidence of any rigidity of principle. tary, that," though it may look like a baga- His partisanship had always seemed rather telle, what is to become of a philosopher, the result of personal connections and friendwhen that philosopher is Queen's plenipo- ships than principle. His disposition was tentiary and on such an occasion, and friend cold, and his intimates appear to have conof one of the greatest men in England, one sidered him, though careless, selfish. Eneof the finest heads in Europe," he should mies could not be blamed for hoping to innot be left to the ostentatious patronage of timidate or corrupt such a character, and a Frenchman (de Torcy, who had offered to they adapted their measures for both asremind "Robin and Harry" of his claims). pects of his temperament, committing him He disdains the Baden legation, and even a to the loose custody of a messenger in his Commissionership of Trade, "having been own house, and inviting him to dinner at put above himself, and not liking to return the house of Walpole. The most terrible to himself." In vain did his friend reiterate evidence of the common opinion, even of that, "though he laugh at the knave and the his friends, as to his weakness of will, or fool who is advanced, he will never go about bad faith, was that conveyed in the flight of to disturb the only administration he ever Bolingbroke the very same night on which liked, the only cause he ever can like." In the news of this certainly most suspicious vain did Prior urge the scandal of open entertainment reached him. We are glad quarrels between his masters at Whitehall, to find strong reasons for believing that his and bemoan his own ruin as involved in terror was groundless. Prior, if indeed he them; "Am I to go to Fontainebleau? Am had really led the Whigs to hope anything I to come home? Am I to hang myself? from his confessions, only pretended readiFrom the present prospect of things, the ness to turn king's evidence to concentrate latter begins to look most eligible.' The on himself exclusively their expectations of rupture was to be; St. John was to snatch startling disclosures. He calculated that, the crown of victory from his, rival Harley's if he, the confidant of the late cabinet in all hands, and find it transmuted in his own to a mere bunch of withered weeds. the inmost mysteries of negotiation, should, when discovering all that he knew, be found In less than a month all the fears of the to have revealed no plan bordering upon party were realized, the Tories convulsed treason, the party would be cleared of criby an internal revolution, and the Queen minality in the eyes of the nation. The dead. Well might Prior have exclaimed details of the rage of the Whigs on discowith Lord Bolingbroke, "What a world is vering the trick played upon them, as furthis! and how does Fortune banter us!"nished by the pen of the poet himself, are He lingered in Paris till March in the next year, in a sort of amphibious condition, between an ambassador and a political refugee, harassed by debts contracted to support the dignity of his station, and watched by his own countrymen as, perhaps, now already intriguing with the Pretender. It was a sad reverse, after having so gaily congratulated himself and the ministry on St. John's amusing and piquant. They vented their wrath on the author of the failure of the mighty secret committee, by voting him the honour of an impeachment. Perhaps for the humble poet and diplomatist this was the acmé of his glory. Still, though he never was in any fear for his life, notwithstanding his own account of the rise of his deafness, that "he had not thought of taking care of his ears, while not sure of his head," | was proposed by Lewis and Arbuthnot, and the wreck of his hopes as a politician, and strenuously furthered by Swift, Pope, and the cloud under which he lay, seem to have Gay. "No advertisements," writes the weighed upon his spirits. first mentioned," are to be published, and He remained under surveillance over two the whole affair will be managed in a manyears, being discharged shortly after the ner the least shocking to the dignity of a passing of the Act of Grace in 1717, from plenipotentiary." Besides the "Alma," "Not e'en the Phoenix scaped" (!) which, however, he was excepted by name. the collection contained another new work, At first he had attempted to make light of the fruit also of his imprisonment, "Solohis misfortunes; the clever but unsystema- mon," his chief pride and boast, but, spite tic "Alma" was the production of this pe- of Cowper's approbation, and some few digriod; but the permanence of his equivocal nified passages, an attempt quite beside, position, aggravated by a constitutional perhaps, beyond his powers. The design cough, produced great dejection. In Octo- itself wants system, the poem being a sort ber 1716, he writes to Sir Thomas Han- of endeavour to embody "Proverbs" and mer, his steady friend, and too moderate a Ecclesiastes" in a romance, embellished Tory, to have been dangerously implicated with lively scenes and high-wrought descripin the plots of his brother ministers :-"Itions of banquets so complete, that have been for the last two years a stranger to health and pleasure ;" and, in November of the same year, "Melancholy I can't help indulging even to stupidity." In fact, he Its great defects arise from the bard having had never been a sufficiently bold or earnest no heart in what he portrayed, and, perpolitician to be properly impressed with the haps, but little comprehension of the grangrandeur of being a martyr to his mainte- deur of the sentiments he aspired to versify. nance of the tenets of the October Club, so The enterprise was undertaken in rivalry of long as the dignity interfered with his per- Pope; and it is amusing to remark how sonal ease and comfort. His circumstances, petulantly he rejected the latter's preference besides, were bad, most of his little savings of the Hudibrastic Alma. Pope judged from official salaries having been swept rightly; he could also praise discreetly :— away in 1711 in the failure of Stratford's bank. He was forced to meditate selling his house and effects. His friends, however, on hearing of his necessities, exerted themselves nobly. They were a numerous body. and even the jealous author could, at times, The correspondence with Bolingbroke had, criticise impartially, and in the same spirit, indeed, never been renewed. In the dark the child of his matured abilities— suspicious mind of St. John, an impression once planted unfavourable to a friend grew "Our friend Don Prior told, you know, A tale extremely à propos;" "Indeed, poor Solomon in rhyme Was much too grave to be sublime." and grew till it overshadowed all his reminiscences of ancient kindness. His rage The collection produced L.4000, which, against the memory of Pope evinced this with the addition of the same sum lent by phenomenon of temperament. He seems, Lord Harley, in whom the estate, subject in the same manner, always to have recol- to the poet's life interest, was vested, purlected, with resentment, that the fear of chased Down Hall in Essex. Prior's disclosures was the immediate cause He did not spend much of his time there. of his own rash and ill-judged flight. But He divided his time, thenceforward till his the closeness of the relations between Prior death, chiefly between "the little house and Lord Harley, his rival's son, kept his close to the noise of the Court of Requests," anger fresh. Swift and Pope might remain the mansions of Lords Harley and Bathurst, on a friendly footing with the house of Ox- and St. John's. He had steadily refused to ford, yet be his friends; but the poet-diplo- resign his fellowship in the height of his formatist, always a sort of client of the fallen tunes (though making over the emoluments Lord Treasurer, was now become his at- most generously to a deprived fellow, the tached and regular retainer. With the rest learned Baker), replying to the railleries of of the party, however, Whig persecution friends on his pluralities, that it would prowas accepted as sufficient testimony to the cure him "bread and cheese at the last." constant good faith, as well of Prior, as of The event had justified his prudence. the family of Harley. The halo of an im- The "Brothers" still met occasionally, peachment hid all shortcomings. and he with them; but beclouded with Instead of a subscription, which would thoughts of the "great Dean" fretting his now be the course, an edition of his poems soul away in Ireland, and of their founder, the aspiring secretary, an exile, and with the highest perfection, reckoned by Pope, who bar of treason on his scutcheon, treason to disliked him because of his quarrel with St. the king of the Whigs and the king of the John and Atterbury, along with Shakspeare, Tories, the society pined and at length died Spenser, and Dryden, among the eight "auout. Prior did not keep up his intimacy thorities for poetical language," vindicated with the more professed political followers fiercely by the truthful and natural Cowper of St. John, such as Wyndham; but a from Johnson's "rusty fusty" remarks on warm friendship subsisted between him, Henry and Emma, and honoured in having and, not only Hanmer, a type of the Hano- furnished large stores of poetry to the teyerian Tories, whose Conservatism was nacious memory of Scott, his claims to a based on a firm acquiescence in the Revo- lofty poetic fame have been disallowed by lution, as "un fait accompli," but even with the popular judgment of posterity, and his that most learned and sagacious of plotters, most epigramatic love-odes neglected. Bishop Atterbury. The comfort and con- Without thought or passion, no writer can sideration which attended him at this period long keep his rank among poets. He was of his life, we might have anticipated would more regularly engaged in politics than have satisfied the vanity and tone of epi- Swift. Some of his bon-mots, Hazlitt says, cureanism in his disposition. It certainly are the best that are recorded-yet who approached what he had himself often re- would dream of comparing the author of presented to his friends as his ideal of hap Drapier's Letters and Gulliver, with Prior, piness. Nevertheless, we can detect, in his as a politician, or even as a wit. In poetry, correspondence, the shadow of a lingering he was no less famous in his own day than hope that he might once more rise into po- Pope; but thousands, it may be said withlitical consideration, not through any exer- out exaggeration, read and know Pope for tions of his own, or even the agency of the one who has glanced through Prior. Even Tory party, but in the train of Lord Ox- in the brilliant social epoch of Queen Anne's ford. The South Sea bubble, indeed, at one reign, he occupies no special, no individual time so endangered the credit of certain of position among the Dorsets, Montagues, the Whig ministers, that there grew up a and St. Johns, with whom he familiarly asvague anticipation of the late Lord Trea- sociated. Scarcely an idea has been handed surer's restoration to his old authority. down to us of his very demeanour and gePrior hoped to share in his patron's prospe- neral appearance. He did, said, and wrote rity, though not entertaining the same opin- many things, which are remembered; but ion with the public of that statesman's cha- he himself is not. racter. The contrast he draws between the He died in 1721. He was attended to popular explanation of all Lord Oxford's the grave by the cold regret of his once enconduct as ruled by the laws of a profound thusiastic friend, Lord Bolingbroke, at his cunning, and the fact known to his friends, having been left by his wealthy patrons to that the apparent caution and astuteness comparative poverty, and by Atterbury's was nothing but dilatoriness and indecision, is grotesque but true. The crisis passed by, and the rumoured sagacity had no opportunity for display. The ex-diplomatist's regrets and longings, his querulousness at straitened means, and determination to enjoy to the full the pleasures within his reach, lasted till his death, which occurred shortly after this final dis excuses for being kept away by a cold. He had himself to remind posterity by a bequest for a sumptuous monument in the Abbey, who he was, and what he was. appointment. He left behind him the brief ART. IV.-1. Account of the Life and Writ 2. ings of Thomas Brown, M.D. By Rev. D. WELSH. 1825. Edinburgh University Essays, 1856. Art. VII. Sir William Hamilton. By THOMAS SPENCER BAYNES, LL.B. memory of a very every-day character, most remarkable in its contrast, with the grandeur of the scenes and circumstances in which he had figured as a principal agent. Both parties in turn reckoned him an active ally. He was the favourite, as a negotiator, of two sovereigns; one his own, the other an enemy. Yet, notwithstanding all IN the edition of the "Encyclopædia Brithis, he was no statesman. In the golden tannica" now in the course of publication, age of our literature most eminent among there is a continuation of the Historical Dispoets, in his own day, confessedly, the first sertations on the Progress of Natural Phiwho introduced that more polished rhythm losophy; but, as yet, there has been no conwhich the Rape of the Lock displays in its tinuation of the Dissertations on the Pro |