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Prior (MATTHEW an English poet born)

MATTHEW, an English poet; born in Wimborne-Minster, England, July 21, 1644; educated at Westminster School School and Cambridge. At college he contracted an intimacy with Charles Montagu, afterward Earl of Halifax, with whom, in 1687, he composed the "Country Mouse and City Mouse"-a parody on Dryden's "Hind and Panther."

This work brought him fame, and in 1690 he was appointed secretary to the English embassy at The Hague. In 1697 he was nominated secretary to the plenipotentiaries who concluded the Peace of Ryswick, and on his return was made secretary to the lord-lieutenant of Ireland. In 1701 he entered Parliament as a Whig, but soon after changed his politics and joined the Tory party.

In 1711 he was employed in secretly negotiating at Paris the terms of the treaty of Utrecht, and he remained in France Vol. VII-Cyc PRIPET MARSHES till 1714, at first as secret agent, afterward as ambassador. On the accession of George I., he was kept in custody on a charge of high treason for two years.

During his imprisonment he wrote "Alma, or the Progress of the Mind," MATTHEW PRIOR which with his most ambitious work, "Solomon," was published in 1718. He died in Wimpole, Sept. 18, 1721.