22 July: Boreham on Matthew Prior

A Gem of Many Facets
Now that we come to think about it, yesterday was the birthday of Matthew Prior, but why mention it? Who, nowadays, reads anything that Prior wrote? Yet he lies at the feet of Spenser in Westminster Abbey. Dr. Johnson said of him that he was one of the few poets of his time in whose work a lady could delight; and, whilst his works lie unread on dusty shelves, we today exult in countless poems that could never have taken so musical and felicitous a form, and that in all probability would never have been written at all, but for the infective example of his charm and genius. Prior's work is largely concerned with men and things that now hold for us no vestige of interest—dead frogs that no longer twitch. But Prior's spirit and Prior's style have been caught and reproduced by poets whose names will be mentioned with reverence, and whose works will be quoted with delight, as long as the world shall stand. In commenting on the tuneful and easy lilt of the lighter poems of Cowper, Byron, Lowell, and Tom Hood, Thackeray declared that Prior deserved immortality for having taught these singers to do such work with grace and dignity.

An exquisite, though unconscious tribute to the value and permanence of Prior's influence is embalmed in those affecting and classical pages in which Lockhart describes the last days of Sir Walter Scott. Sir Walter and his biographer were taking a short stroll, the sick man leaning heavily on Lockhart's shoulder. As they made their way up the hill, they met two crippled soldiers—men who had fought under the great Duke. Sir Walter instantly drew out his purse and lavished his generous bounty on the maimed veterans. One of them recognised him, thanked him by name and went off murmuring a fervent: "God bless you." Bowed on his staff, Sir Walter followed them with his eye till they were out of sight, and then, turning to Lockhart, recited without the slightest break or hesitation, Prior's poem beginning: "Whate'er thy countrymen have done by law and wit, by sword and gun . . ." The verses not only hit off to perfection the immediate situation, but betrayed the extent to which Sir Walter Scott had saturated his mind in the work of that obscure predecessor of his to whom, although dying fifty years before he himself was born, he had so frequently and so generously expressed his obligations.


Potboy, Plenipotentiary, and Poet
Prior's pilgrimage to fame was made along a thorny path. In the 17th Century there was no way by which even the most brilliant versifier could earn his living by his pen. Prior's uncle kept a tavern at Westminster, and engaged Matthew, not only to serve behind the bar, but to make himself generally useful about the place. He did the work for which he was paid, and did it to his uncle's complete satisfaction; but his golden hours were those in which, escaping for a while from his menial duties, he could study the works of Ovid and Horace.

Fortunately for Prior, one or two of the masters of Westminster School were numbered among his uncle's patrons at the tavern. Recognising the boy's extraordinary talent, these gentlemen used their influence to obtain for him the priceless advantage of a university education. But even this boon, gladly as he welcomed it, brought Matthew no nearer to the goal of which he so fondly dreamed. Instead of being a potboy, he became a plenipotentiary. The one was as remote from the realisation of his aspirations as the other; he felt that he could never be satisfied until the world had acclaimed him as a poet. He became Secretary of State for Ireland, Ambassador to the French Court, Commissioner of Trades and Plantations, and the like, and, in each position, he excelled. Indeed, in drafting one of the most delicate and momentous agreements ever negotiated between England and France, one of her statesmen bluntly told Queen Anne that the discussion was foredoomed to failure unless Matthew Prior were invited to a seat at the council table.

Loved Alike By Princes And People
In spite of his triumphs in the halls of diplomacy, however, Prior was secretly eating out his heart. He would infinitely rather write a sheaf of poems that would be read by plough boys and servant girls than cover himself with glory at European Courts. To his chagrin and dismay, he found that the very efficiency with which he discharged the onerous responsibilities of his exalted offices, only strengthened the shackles that bound him to them. In his heart of hearts, he rebelled against the drudgery of it all; he hated the sight of the very parchments that enhanced his renown; he pined, like a caged bird, for some avenue of escape. What he might have achieved had he been free to woo the muse at leisure no man can say. We must be thankful that, in circumstances so unpropitious, he wove so fair a garland.

His tomb in Poets' Corner is adorned by the bust, executed by Coysevox, which was presented to Prior as a token of the esteem of Louis the Thirteenth. That marble says something for the magnanimity of France's monarch, since some of Prior's most audacious witticisms were perpetrated at His Majesty's expense. Louis seems to have relished rather then resented Prior's clever thrusts, for to no other Englishmam did he extend such cordial welcomes or such lavish hospitalities. In the end Prior not only attained a position of such regal authority that kings and statesmen deferred to his counsel, but in addition, won for himself in fullest measure the laurels on which his youthful eyes were so covetously cast. The ornate tomb in Poets' Corner conjures up the vision of the spare, frail, solemn-visaged man, perpetually coughing, who walked up and down the park seeking at one and the same time for poetic inspiration and for physical health; and every such vision compels us to thank him across two and a half centuries for having introduced into our English poetry a sparkle, a vivacity, and a sprightliness that until his day, it never knew.

F W Boreham

Image: Matthew Prior