PRI'OR, :MATTHEW ). An English poet and diplomatist. born July 21. 1664. prob ably in Wimborne. Doiset,hire. where his father was a joiner. The family moved to London, and the young Prior was placed in Westminster School. where he formed a life-long friendship with Charles Montagu. afterwards Earl I )f Hali fax. He graduated B.A. from Saint -John's Col lege. Cambridge (1686), and was elected fellow ( P188): through the influence of the Earl of Dorset he was made secretary to lord Dursley, Ambassador to The where he remained several years. enjoying the friendship of King• William Ill.; secretary in the negotiations at the Treaty of Ryswick (1697) ; secretary to the Embassy at Paris (169S) ; secretary to the Board of Trade (1699) ; sat in Parliament (1701) ; and soon after forsook the Whigs for the Tories. Ile had a hand in the negotiations preliminary to the Peace of Utrecht, and was for it short period Ambassador at Paris; on the ad vent of the Whigs to power he was impeached and imprisoned for two years (1715-17). Ilis last years were passed at Down-Hall, in Essex. He died September 18, 1721, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
Prior gained recognition among the wits by The Country-Mouse and the City-Mouse (1687), written in conjunction with Charles Montagu. It is a readable travesty on Dryden's Iliad and Panther. In 1700 lie published a panegyric on King William, called Carmen Seeulare. While in prison lie amused himself with a long whim sical poem, entitled Alma • or the Progress of the Mind. A collection of his poems appeared in 1709, and another in 1718; the latter brought him four thousand guineas. Prior's short poems, comprising odes, epistles, and epigrams, are among the choicest specimens of English occa sional verse. We may cite "To a Child of Qual ity Four Years Old," "The Merchant." "A Better Answer," "A Song," "To a Lady," and "For My Own Tomb-Stone." His verse tales have perfect grace. Consult the Selected Poems, ed. by Dob son, Parchment Library (London, 18S9) ; and the edition by Johnson in the Aldine series (London, 1892) ; and Thackeray's English Humorists (London, 1S53).