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General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1906 Original Publisher: G. Bell and sons Subjects: English literature Literary Criticism / General Literary Criticism / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh Poetry / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missin... More

General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1906 Original Publisher: G. Bell and sons Subjects: English literature Literary Criticism / General Literary Criticism / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh Poetry / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER H. PEIOK, GAT, YOUNG, BLAIR, THOMSON. The ease with which the Queen Anne wits obtained office and rose to posts of high trust through the Matthew Prior , , , . ,- (1664 1721) pleasant art or verse-making, is conspicuous in the career of Prior. His parents are unknown, the place of his birth is somewhat doubtful, although he is claimed by Wimborne-Minster, in Dorsetshire, and the first trustworthy facts recorded of his early career are that he was a Westminster scholar when the famous Dr. Busby, whose discipline was physical as well as mental, presided over the school. His father died, and his mother being no longer able to pay the school fees, Prior was placed with an uncle who kept the Rhenish Wine Tavern in Westminster. His seat was in the bar, and there the Earl of Dorset (1637-1705-6), a small poet, but a generous patron of poets, found the youth reading Horace, and, pleased with his ' parts,' sent him back to Westminster, whence he went up to Cambridge as a scholar at St. John's, the college destined a century later to receive one of the greatest of English poets. Charles Montague, afterwards Earl of Halifax (1661- 1715), the son of a younger son of a nobleman, was also a Westminster scholar. He entered Trinity College in 1679, and like Prior appears to have owed his good fortune to the rhymer's craft. 'At thirty,' writes LordMacaulay, ' he would gladly have given all his chances in ...

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