On thy misfortunes, sought thee in thy miseries, All I received, in surety for thy truth, Were unregarded oaths, and this, this dagger, Given with a worthless pledge, thou since hast stolen: Swearing by all those powers which thou hast violated, Take it-farewell-for now I owe thee nothing. Pierre. For my life, dispose it Just as thou wilt. Because 'tis what I'm tired with. Pierre. No more. Jaff. My eyes won't lose the sight of thee, But languish after thine, and ache with gazing. Pierre. Leave me :-Nay, then, thus I throw thee from me; And curses, great as is thy falsehood, catch thee! Jaff. He's gone, my father, friend, preserver; And here's the portion he has left me; This dagger. Well remembered! With this dagger, Parted with this, and Belvidera together. Have a care, mem'ry, drive that thought no farther : Where it may grow acquainted with my heart, That, when they meet, they start not from each other. Oh for a long sound sleep, and so forget it !2 [Exit. Act IV. Sc. 2. Jaffier's wife, Belvidera, whom he had given to the conspirators as a hostage for his fidelity. This passage does not exhibit the strength of the genius of Otway, which lies in the representation of emotions of a deeper character than those displayed in the text; but it is difficult to take from his plays an available extract of any length. [In approaching the age of Queen Anne and George I. space again compels us to drop many names of great or of respectable merit. The poetry of this period is peculiarly that of artificial life, and holds a much lower estimation in public opinion than it retained down to the times subsequent to the writings of Cowper. Among the omitted names are those of Rowe, Philips, Walsh, Tickell, Garth, Duke, Blackmore, Halifax, Congreve, &c.] MATTHEW PRIOR. (1664-1721.) PRIOR is supposed to have been born in 1664, at Winburn in Dorsetshire, or, as some allege, in London. He furnishes no intelligence respecting his obscure origin. Shortly after leaving Westminster School, while residing with a relation in London, he attracted the notice of the Earl of Dorset, who sent him to Cambridge. The publication, with Montague, of the " City Mouse and the Country Mouse," in ridicule of Dryden's "Hind and Panther," seems to have opened to the young poet the road of preferment. He obtained the secretaryship of the English Embassy in the congress at the Hague in 1691. From this period till the end of the reign of Queen Anne, he was employed by the government in high official situations. On the accession of the queen he had changed his politics; he became the intimate friend of Bolingbroke and Oxford, the chiefs of the Tory party. In 1712, at the conclusion of the Spanish Succession War, he acted under the English ambassador at the French court, for the speedier arrangement of the peace between England and France, which the tardy conferences at Utrecht were slow in effecting. In 1713, on the return of the Duke of Shrewsbury from France, Prior enjoyed till the following year the dignity of ambassador at Paris. The death of the queen leading to the fall of the Tory party, he was recalled, and shared in the hardships of impeachment and imprisonment, with which their opponents visited the friends of Bolingbroke and Oxford. On his release in 1717 he was in distressed circumstances, but he realized a considerable sum by the publication of his collected works; and the gratitude of Lord Oxford's son purchased an estate for his father's friend. He did not long enjoy the tranquillity of old age after his busy life. He died in 1721, at Wimpole, a seat of the Earl of Oxford. He left L.500 to build him a monument in Westminster. Prior is a lively and graceful writer, sometimes far from pure in sentiment; never rising to passion or sublimity; but moving in a round of elegant and sparkling, though common thought. "His diction," says Johnson, "is more his own than that of any among the successors of Dryden." "His diligence has justly placed him amongst the most correct of the English poets." His poems consist of Epistles, Humorous Tales, Fables, Epigrams, Ödes in honour of his patrons William and Anne, Songs, &c. His longer works are "Henry and Emma," a frigid paraphrase of the beautiful old ballad, the "Nutbrown Maid ;" "Solomon on the Vanity of the World," in heroic rhyme ; and “ Alma, or the Progress of the Mind," a humorous philosophical piece in the style of Hudibras. WILLIAM III. OF ENGLAND AND LOUIS XIV. OF FRANCE CONTRASTED. Virtue to verse immortal lustre gives, Each by the other's mutual friendship lives; Eneas suffered, and Achilles fought, The hero's acts enlarged the poet's thought, Or Virgil's majesty, and Homer's rage, With drums' alarms, and trumpets' sounds; He bribes close murder against open war: In vain you Gallic muses strive With laboured verse to keep his fame alive : Meat offered to Prometheus' man, That had no soul from heaven. Against his will, you chain your frighted king And mock your hero, whilst ye sing On its own worth true majesty is rear'd, On life or death, a prison or a crown. When bound in double chains poor Belgia lay, Whilst one good man buoy'd up her sinking state, When fortune basely with ambition join'd, Just ready the torn vessel to o'erwhelm, But against charms, and threats, and hell, he stood, Then had no trophies justified his fame, No poet blest his song with Nassau's name. I Prior displays the most unrelenting contempt for the poetical flatterer of Louis. A SIMILE. Dear Thomas, did'st thou never pop Mov'd in the orb, pleas'd with the chimes, So fares it with those merry blades, They tread on stars, and talk with gods; Still pleas'd with their own verses' sound; CHARITY. A PARAPHRASE OF THE 13TH CHAPTER OF THE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. Did sweeter sounds adorn my flowing tongue Soft peace she brings wherever she arrives; Each other gift, which God on man bestows, In happy triumph shall for ever live, And endless good diffuse, and endless praise receive. Our eye observes the distant planets pass, A little we discover, but allow That more remains unseen, than art can show: So, whilst our mind its knowledge would improve (Its feeble eye intent on things above), High as we may, we lift our reason up, Dawning of beams, and promises of day. Heaven's fuller effluence mocks our dazzled sight; Then constant faith and holy hope shall die, Shalt stand before the host of heaven confest, SOLOMON'S CONTEMPLATION OF THE FUTURE STATE OF THE WORLD. How can he bind or limit his decree, By what our ear has heard, or eye may see? 1 This is a violation of the sense of the text; neither faith nor hope are said to die in the future world. 2 The Mediterranean. |