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His tales, he observes, replying seriatim to the criticisms of Johnson,
are certainly the best told of any in the English tongue.
"Never man
wrote with more tenderness. Witness the preface to Henry and Emma,
with the whole inimitable poem." And as for the Doctor's complaint
of the tediousness of Solomon, "I should as soon think," says Wesley,
"of tediousness in the second or sixth Eneid!" And Prior had the
honour-no slight honour surely-of being warmly praised by Cowper,
who wrote of Henry and Emma, of which we shall have something to
say presently, as an "enchanting piece," to which few readers of poetry
have not given a consecrated place in their memories, and of Prior
generally as a poet "who with much labour, but with admirable success,
has embellished all his poems with the most charming ease."

In this criticism Cowper has hit upon the most striking charac- |
teristic of Prior's verse, its "charming ease." His poetry contains, no
doubt, a large amount of mythological rubbish. Such rubbish was the
product of the age, and Prior wrote as he lived, after the fashion of his
time. But as a lyric poet, whose genius is stimulated by social gaiety, and
whose wit is ready at command, he has no rival in his century. His
position may not be a lofty one, but he fills it perfectly. As an epigram-
matist he is admirable; as a writer of humorous and not over-modest
tales he is excelled only by La Fontaine; his love-verses, although desti-
tute of soul and passion, as might be expected from a man living loose
upon the town, are remarkable for gracefulness and felicity of expression.
He was the Thomas Moore-too often, indeed, the Tom Little-of his
age, and marks of his influence may readily be traced in the sparkling
effusions of the Irish poet.
It may be as well to add, what some of our
readers will doubtless remember, that Dr. Johnson's opinion of Prior's
amorous verses differs considerably from ours. He declares that they
have neither nature nor passion, gallantry nor tenderness; that they
have the coldness of Cowley without his wit, and are the dull exercises
of a skilful versifier trying to be amorous by dint of study. Passion
they no doubt lack, and tenderness also; but they have a lightness of
touch, a gallantry of tone, and, to quote the phrase aptly applied to
them by Hazlitt, a mischievous gaiety," which entitles them, we think,
to a high place amongst occasional verses. It must be allowed, however,
that the pieces meriting this praise are but few in number, and that the
best of these are tainted with immodesty, and will not admit of quota-
tion. If poets and versemen like Prior would but remember that by the
abnegation of purity they exile themselves from the best society and the
most appreciative readers in the world, they might be led to watch over
their words more strictly, even if no nobler motive kept them from
transgressing. A century and a half ago, however, the risk of being
banished from the boudoir for over-plain speaking, and for double
entendre,was a very slight risk indeed, and Prior's contemporaries and im-
mediate successors, in attempting lively, society verses, were not less gross,
and far less felicitous. Gay and Somerville, for instance, are often
VOL. XXXIII-Xo, 193,

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coarser than Prior, but they are by no means so sparkling. Pope, the greatest poet of the age, transgresses in a manner more offensive than witty, and Swift, who possessed "the best brains in the nation," wrote the nastiest verses to be found in our language. But it is time to give an illustration or two of Prior's sportive ease and grace as a lyric poet. Thomas Moore, writing to Lord Lansdowne, alludes to one of Prior's pieces, and observes that nothing could be more gracefully light and gallant. No wonder that it pleased the Irish poet, for the conceit in it is so like some of his own that anyone ignorant of the authorship would at once credit Moore with the production. Listen only to the two last

stanzas :

The god of us versemen (you know, child), the sun,
How after his journeys he sets up his rest;
If at morning o'er earth 'tis his fancy to run,
At night he declines on his Thetis's breast.

So, when I am wearied with wandering all day,
To thee, my delight, in the evening I come;
No matter what beauties I saw in my way,

They were but my visits, but thou art my home.

In an ode to a lady who declines to dispute any longer with the poet, and "leaves him in the argument," he sings in language which is as free from an antique flavour, as if it had been produced yesterday :

In the dispute, whate'er I said,

My heart was by my tongue belied;
And in my looks you might have read
How much I argued on your side.

Alas! not hoping to subdue,

I only to the fight aspired;
To keep the beauteous foe in view
Was all the glory I desired.

But she, howe'er of victory sure,

Contemns the wreath too long delayed;
And, armed with more immediate power,
Calls cruel silence to her aid.

Deeper to wound she shuns the fight;

She drops her arms to gain the field:

Secures her conquest by her flight,

And triumphs when she seems to yield.

The qualities of vivacity and ease are well displayed in the following description of A Lover's Anger :—

As Cloe came into the room t'other day,

I peevish began, "Where so long could you stay?
In your lifetime you never regarded your hour;
You promised at two, and (pray look, child) 'tis four.
A lady's watch needs neither figures nor wheels;
'Tis enough that 'tis loa led with baubles and seals.

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As a song-writer Prior never excels, and sometimes fails ignominiously. He wrote twenty-eight songs, of which the greater number were "set to music by the most eminent masters." They are sad rubbish, although now and then a happy phrase or lively fancy reminds us that they are not the compositions of a commonplace writer. If Dr. Johnson had been thinking of these pieces when he wrote of Prior's amorous poems as the "dull exercises of a skilful versifier," we should not quarrel with his judgment, although we might complain of his indifference and forgetfulness in estimating the poet's love-verses by the least significant productions of his pen. From the context, however, it is evident he had in his mind certain of the love-pieces which do not rank under the category of songs, and he hits, as an adverse critic naturally would do, on some which are over-weighted with mythological imagery. Prior had, no doubt, as we have before observed, the poetical disease of the day, but he took it in a mild form, and manages in one or two cases, which unfortunately we cannot quote, to turn this sort of machinery to skilful account. Throughout the criticism on Prior it seems to us that Johnson dispenses his praise as well as his blame wrongly. He cannot see the consummate charm of many of Prior's occasional verses, and he praises as "eminently beautiful" a watery paraphrase of St. Paul's noble utterances upon charity. Imagine any reader turning from the 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians to find beauty in lines like these:

Each other gift which God on man bestows,
Its proper bounds and due restriction knows;
To one fixt purpose dedicates its power,
And finishing its act, exists no more.

Thus, in obedience to what Heaven decrees,
Knowledge shall fail, and prophecy shall cease;
But lasting Charity's more ample sway,

Nor bound by time nor subject to decay,

In happy triumph shall for ever live,

And endless good diffuse, and endless praise receive.

How differently the poet could write when he found a congenial topic may be seen from the bright and graceful lines he addresses To a Child of Quality. In reading them it may be well to remember the report that has been handed down to us of Prior's genial nature, and how when staying in Lord Oxford's house he made himself beloved by every living

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thing-master, child, servants; human creature or animal. When the poem was written, the child was five years old and the author forty.

Lords, knights, and squires, the numerous band

That wear the fair Miss Mary's fetters,
Were summon'd by her high command
To show their passion by their letters.

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 obey'd.

Nor quality nor reputation

Forbid me yet my flame to tell;
Dear five years old befriends my passion,
And I may write till she can spell.

For while she makes her silkworms beds
With all the tender things I swear;
Whilst all the house my passion reads
In papers round her baby's hair;

She may receive and own my flame,

For, though the strictest prudes should know it,
She'll pass for a most virtuous dame,
And I for an unhappy poet.

Then, too, alas! when she shall tear

The lines some younger rival sends,
She'll give me leave to write, I fear,
And we shall still continue friends.

For as our different ages move,

'Tis so ordain'd (would Fate but mend it!) That I shall be past making love

When she begins to comprehend it.

This is not richly imaginative verse, but of its kind it is perfect; nothing could be more felicitous in feeling or in phrase, and there are few readers that will not appreciate its charm. "Prior's serious poetry," says Hazlitt, "is as heavy as his familiar style was light and agreeable." No doubt he was more of a wit than a poet, and his happiest pieces are epigrams and society verses. Many of these read as if they had been composed impromptu; and that the poet had this readiness in composition we know from the fact that in a company of Frenchmen he produced on one occasion some pretty extempore lines in French. No notice of Prior can be satisfactory without a specimen or two of his craft as an epigrammatist. Here is a picce entitled The Remedy worse than the Disease:

I sent for Ratcliffe; was so ill

That other doctors gave me over;
He felt my pulse, prescribed his pill,
And I was likely to recover.

But when the wit began to wheeze,
And wine had warm'd the politician,
Cured yesterday of my disease,

I died last night of my physician.

If Prior owes the suggestion of the following to a far greater epigrammatist, it must be allowed that he puts the thought suggested by the Latin poet into admirable shape :

:

To John I owed great obligation,

But John unhappily thought fit

To publish it to all the nation;

Sure John and I are more than quit.

And here is one expressed with similar felicity:--

Yes, every poet is a fool;

By demonstration Ned can show it;
Happy, could Ned's inverted rule

Prove every fool to be a poet.

The following, written in a lady's copy of Milton, is also good, and has received high praise-higher, perhaps, than it merits :

With virtue strong as yours had Eve been armed,

In vain the fruit had blushed, or serpent charmed;
Nor had our bliss by penitence been bought,
Nor had frail Adam fall'n, nor Milton wrote.

Take another, not a little severe upon Pope's friend, Atterbury, who, it may be remembered, was accused, probably with injustice, of infidelity. The lines refer to the funeral of the Duke of Buckingham, at which the Bishop officiated :—

"I have no hopes," the duke he says, and dies;
"In sure and certain hopes," the prelate cries:
Of these two learned peers, I prithee say, man,
Who is the lying knave, the priest or layman?

The duke he stands an infidel confest,

"He's our dear brother," quoth the lordly priest;

The duke, though knave, still "brother dear," he cries;

And who can say the reverend prelate lies?

The Rev. Henry Dodd, in his valuable work The Epigrammatists, has made two mistakes with regard to Prior. He observes that he ranks "among the greater poets," which is assuredly not true; and that "with a few exceptions his epigrams are of the very lowest type," which we venture to think is a blunder also. Most readers will prefer Mr. Thackeray's judgment that they have "the genuine sparkle."

A fine specimen of Prior's skill as a poetical wit is the famous burlesque on Boileau's ode on Namur, and that he does sometimes succeed in grave and thoughtful verse is proved by his ode addressed to the Hon. Charles Montagu, a poem highly praised by Warton. Warton finds also much tenderness and pathos in Prior's Henry and Emma, a poem which strikes us as false in conception and feeble and verbose in execution.

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