PRIOR, MATTHEW (1664-1721) , English poet and diplo matist, was the son of a Nonconformist joiner at Wimborne Minster, East Dorset, and was born on July 21, 1664. His father moved to London, and sent him to Westminster, where he was enabled by the earl of Dorset to continue his education after his father's death. At Westminster he made friends with Charles Montagu, afterwards earl of Halifax. It was to avoid being sep arated from Montagu and his brother James that Prior accepted, against his patron's wish, a scholarship recently founded at St. John's college. He took his B.A. degree in 1686, and two years later became a fellow. In collaboration with Montagu he wrote in 1687 the City Mouse and Country Mouse, in ridicule of Dry den's Hind and Panther. The satire made the fortune of both authors. Montagu was promoted at once, and Prior three years later was gazetted secretary to the embassy at The Hague. After four years of this employment he was appointed one of the gen tlemen of the king's bedchamber. In 1697 he was secretary to the plenipotentiaries who concluded the Peace of Ryswick, and in 1698 he was sent to Paris in attendance on the English ambas sador. At this period Prior could say with good reason that "he had commonly business enough upon his hands, and was only a poet by accident." His occasional poems during this period include an elegy on Queen Mary in 1695; a satirical version of Boileau's Ode sur le prise de Namur (1695); some lines on William's es cape from assassination in 1696; and The Secretary.
After his return from France Prior became under-secretary of state and succeeded Locke as a commissioner of trade. In 1701 lie sat in parliament for East Grinstead. He had certainly been in William's confidence with regard to the Partition Treaty; but when Somers, Orford and Halifax were impeached for their share in it he voted on the Tory side, and immediately on Anne's accession he definitely allied himself with Harley and St. John.
After the return of the Tories to power in 1710, Prior was again employed, and until Anne's death he shared in all negotiations with the French court, sometimes as secret agent, sometimes in an equivocal position as ambassador's companion, sometimes as fully accredited but very unpunctually paid ambassador. His share in negotiating the treaty of Utrecht, of which he is said to have disapproved personally, led to its popular nickname of "Matt's Peace." When the queen died and the Whigs regained power he was impeached by Sir Robert Walpole and kept in close custody for two years (1715-1717). In 1709 he had already pub lished a collection of verse. During this imprisonment, main taining his cheerful philosophy, he wrote his longest humorous poem, Alma; or, The Progress of the Mind. This, with his most ambitious work, Solomon, and other Poems on several Occasions, was published by subscription in 1718. Prior died at Wimpole, Cambridgeshire, a seat of the earl of Oxford, on Sept. 18, 1721, and was buried in Westminster abbey, where his monument may be seen in Poet's Corner. A History of his Own Time was issued by J. Bancks in 174o. The book pretended to be derived from Prior's papers, but it is doubtful how far it is authentic.