afterwards taken home by his uncle, in order to be bred to his trade however, at leifure hours he pursued the study of the Claffics, on which account he was soon taken notice of by the polite company, who reforted to his uncle's house. It happened one day, that the earl of Dorfet and other gentlemen being at this tavern, the difcourfe turned upon a paffage in an ode of Horace, who was Prior's favorite author; and the company being divided in their fentiments, one of the Gentlemen faid, "I find we are not like to agree in our "criticisms: but if I am not mistaken, there is a young fel"low in the houfe, who is able to fet us all right." Upon which he named Matt. Prior, who being called in, gave the company the fatisfaction they wanted.

Lord Dorfet, exceedingly ftruck with his ingenuity and learning, from that moment determined to remove him from the station he was in, to one more fuitable to his fine parts and accomplishments; and accordingly procured him to be fent, in 1682, to St. John's College, in Cambridge, where he proceeded bachelor of arts, in 1686, and was fhortly after chofen fellow. During his residence in the university, he contracted an intimate friendship with Charles Montague of Trinity College, afterwards earl of Halifax and Mr. Dryden having published in 1686, his poem, called, "The Hind and the "Panther," our Poet, joined with Mr. Montague in writing that humorous piece, intitled, "The Hind and the Panther "tranfverfed to the ftory of the Country-Moufe and the City"Mouse," which was published in 1687. Upon the Revolution, he was brought to court by his great patron, the earl of Dorfet; and by his intereft introduced to business, for which, as well as for poetry, of which he had already given noble specimens, he was well formed. In 1690, he was made secretary to the plenipotentiaries in the congress at the Hague; and acquitted himself so much to the fatisfaction of king William, that, in the resolution to keep him near his person, he appointed him a gentleman of his bedchamber. This fituation afforded him leisure to indulge his genius for poetry; and he then compofed several of his poems. He was again employed as fecretary to the English negotiations at the treaty of Ryfwick, in 1697, having been nominated the fame year principal fecretary of state in Ireland. In 1698, he

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went fecretary to the embaffy in France; in which poft he continued, during the fucceffive embassies of the earls of Portland and Jersey. While he was in France, one of the officers of the king's houfhold, fhewing him the royal apartments and curiofities of Versailles, and among them the paintings of Le Brun, in which the victories of Lewis XIV. are defcribed, asked him, whether king William's actions were to be seen alfo in his palace? No, anfwered the English fecretary, "the monuments of my master's actions are to be seen every "where but in his own house.

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In 1699, he went to king William at Loo in Holland, whence, after a long and particular audience with his majesty, he departed by way of the Hague for England, and immediately was made under-fecretary in the office of the earl of Jerfey. In a few days, being a great favorite with the French king, he was ordered back to Paris, to affift the ambassador in the affair of the partition-treaty; and, having dispatched the bufine's to the fatisfaction of both fovereigns, returned with great quickness to London. The fame year, he printed his celebrated poem, called, Carmen Sæculare. In 1700, he was appointed one of the lords commiffioners of trade and plantations, upon the refignation of Mr. Locke; and was elected a reprefentative for Eaft Grinstead in Suffex, in the new parliament of that year, where he voted for impeaching the feveral lords, charged with advifing the partition-treaty.

Upon the fuccefs of the war with France, after the acceffion of queen Anne, Mr. Prior exerted his poetical talent, in honor of his country: firft, in his "Letter to Mr. Boileau, "on the victory at Blenheim, in 1704;" and again, in his "Ode on the glorious Succefs of her Majesty's Arms, in "1706." Yet he afterwards concurred with those, who ftrove for a peace; and, in 1711, when the queen determined to treat with France, was pitched upon to carry her majefty's demands. For this purpose, he was appointed plenipotentiary to that court; having been made one of the commiffioners of the customs just before. He was much employed, and intimately concerned, in the bufinefs of the peace; and, after returning, was fent again to France in August 1712, to accommodate fuch matters, as then remained unfettled in the

con

congress at Utrecht. From the end of this month, he had the appointments and authority of an ambassador; and fo continued as long as queen Anne lived. He remained at Paris alfo in the character of a public minifter, fome months after the acceffion of George I. and then was fucceeded by the earl of Stair. The great change, that happened in the public affairs at that time, occafioned Mr. Prior to be detained in France; and upon his arrival in England, the 25th of March 1715, he was immediately taken up by an order of the house of commons, and foon after examined by a committee of the privy council. On the 10th of June, Robert Walpole, efq; moved the house for an impeachment against him; and on the 17th, Mr. Prior was ordered into close cuftody, and no person admitted to fee him without leave of the speaker. In 1717, an act of Grace paffed, but he was one of the perfons excepted out of it; however, at the close of the year, he was difcharged from his confinement.

He spent the remainder of his days, retired from business, at Down-Hall, a fmall villa, in the county of Effex. Having finished his "Solomon, on the Vanity of the World," he made a collection of all his poems, and published them in one volume folio, with an elegant dedication to the prefent duke of Dorfet. Some time after, he formed a design of writing an Hiftory of his own Time; but had made very little progrefs in it, when a lingering fever carried him off, the 18th of September 1721, in the 58th year of his age. He died at Wimpole, then a feat of the earl of Oxford, fon to the lord treasurer, not far from Cambridge; and his corps was interred in Westminster-Abbey, where a monument was erected at his own charge, 500l. having been fet apart by him for that purpose, and an infcription put upon it, written by Dr. Robert Friend, mafter of Westminster-fchool. After his death, more of his poems were published; and fince came out, in 1740, "The Hiftory of his own Time, compiled from his "original Manufcripts:" a piece little worthy of him, and undoubtedly little of it his.

It should be remembered, that he was concerned in fome of the firft papers of the "Examiner ;" and was fupposed to be the author of a criticism in it, upon a poem of Dr. Garth to the earl of Godolphin: which criticism expofed him to the severity

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Latin.

Præfat. in

lib. II. Elegant.

feverity of Mr. Addison, in the firft No. of his "
Examiner."

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Whig

Mr. Prior, notwithstanding the many high posts and lucrative employments he had poffeffed, died at laft fellow of St. John's College in Cambridge. He was often told, that a fellowship was too trifling a thing for him to keep, and even improper for his character: but he replied, that "every thing "he had befides was precarious, and when all failed, that "would be bread and cheese; on which account he did not "mean to part with it." However, to make the society some amends for this humor, he left them books to the value of 200l. to be chosen by them out of his Library; and also his picture done by La Belle in France, which had been a prefent to him from Lewis XIV.

PRISCIANUS, an eminent grammarian of antiquity, who was born at Cæfarea, and afterwards went to ConstantiFabric. Bibl. nople; where he taught the principles of his art, and was in highest repute about the year 525. Donatus, Servius, and Prifcian, are called triumviri, in Re Grammatica by Laurentius Valla; who thinks them all excellent, and that none of the ancients, who wrote after them upon the Latin tongue, are fit to be mentioned with them. Prifcian composed a work De Arte Grammatica, which was first printed by Aldus, at Venice, in 1476: it is addreffed to Julianus, not the emperor, as fome have erroneously fuppofed, but the conful. He wrote a book, De Naturalibus Quæftionibus, which he dedicated to Chofroes, king of the Perfians. He tranflated Dionyfius's Defcription of the World, into Latin verse: it is printed with the edition of that author, at Oxford 1697, in 8vo. Some have pretended, that this grammarian was firft a christian, and afterwards a pagan : but there is no foundation for this opinion. Hadrianus Valerius relates, that his name, in a very ancient and correct manufcript, is written Præfcianus. A person who writes false Latin, is proverbially faid to break Prifcian's head."

In Valefianis.

PROCLUS, an eminent philofopher among the later Fabric.Bibl. platonifts, was born at Conftantinople in the year 410, of parents who were both able and willing to provide for his in

Græc. v. 8.

ftruction

ftruction in all the various branches of learning and knowledge. He was first sent to Xanthus, a city of Lycia, to learn grammar; from thence to Alexandria, where he was under the best masters in rhetoric, philosophy, and mathematics; and from Alexandria he removed to Athens, where he heard the younger Plutarch and Syrian, both of them celebrated philofophers. He fucceeded the laft in the rectorship of the Platonic-school at Athens; where he died in the year 485. Marinus of Naples, who was his fucceffor in the school, wrote his life; the first perfect copy of which was published, with a Latin verfion and notes, by Fabricius, at Hamburgh 1700, in 4to. and afterwards fubjoined to his Bibliotheca Latina, printed at London 1703, in 8vo.

He wrote a vast number of works in various ways; many of which are loft, fome are published, and a few remain still in manuscript only. Of the published, there are four very elegant hymns; one to the Sun, two to Venus, and one to the Mufes. There are commentaries upon feveral pieces of Plato, upon the four books of Claudius Ptolemæus de judiciis aftrorum, upon the firft book of Euclid's Elements, and upon Hefiod's Opera & Dies. There are alfo works of Proclus upon philosophical and astronomical subjects; particularly the piece de Sphæra, which was published 1620 in 4to. by Bainbridge, the Savilian professor of astronomy at Oxford. Lastly, we must not forget to mention his Argumenta XVIII adverfus Christianos; which though the learned Cave supposed to be loft, is ftill extant. Cave, concluding too much from the Hift. Litetitle of this piece, and from what Suidas fays of Proclus, was led to rank him with Celfus, Julian, Porphyry, as a professed and bitter adversary of christianity: whereas Proclus only attacks the christians upon this fingle dogma, "whether the "world be eternal," the affirmative of which, he attempts to prove against them by these eighteen arguments. Joannes Philoponus refuted these arguments of Proclus, with eighteen arguments for the negative: and both the one and the other, for they are interwoven, have been printed more than once with Latin verfions.

The character of Proclus is that of all the latter platonifts, who were in truth much greater enthufiafts and madmen, than the chriftians their contemporaries, whom they represen

rar. v. I.