Matthew Prior

Each day brings endings and beginnings.  July 21^st was the last day Burns breathed – in 1796.  The same day, in 1664, brought new breath from English diplomat and poet Matthew Prior.  The text below, on Prior, comes from “The Works of Jonathan Swift”; notes by Sir Walter Scott.

‘A NEW

JOURNEY TO PARIS;

TOGETHER WITH SOME SECRET TRANSACTIONS BETWEEN THE FRENCH KING AND AN ENGLISH GENTLEMAN.

BY THE SIEUR DU BAUDRIER.

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH.

"I had rather be thought a good Englishman, than the best poet, or the greatest scholar, that ever wrote."

Prior, Preface to *' Solomon." 

In 1710-11, the Tory ministry, whose principles and situation laid them under a necessity of making peace with France, contrived to open a communication with that country by means of the Abbe Gualtier, an obscure priest, agent for the French prisoners of war. When matters were thus prepared for the intervention of a more accredited envoy, the celebrated Matthew Prior, whose previous acquaintance with diplomacy fitted him for such a trust, and whose rank was not such as to make his motions observed, was dispatched by the British ministry upon a secret embassy to France. It is said, that this step was proposed by Mons. de Torcy, through the medium of the Earl of Jersey, and that Mr. Prior held an interview with that minister at or near Calais, and immediately returned to England. Notwithstanding every precaution which had been taken to prevent discovery, Prior was recognized upon his landing, and detained by the custom-house officers at Deal, until released by orders from their superiors. This discovery was likely to prove embarrassing to the ministers, who neither were in a situation to avow the negotiation, nor durst venture to leave unappeased the feverish thirst for political intelligence which always has characterized the English nation. In this dilemma, Swift, "who oiled many a spring that Harley moved," came to the assistance of his patrons with the following pamphlet, which, without communicating a syllable of real intelligence, had the effect of at once amusing the idle, confusing the suspicious, and sounding the temper of the nation at large upon the subject of a negotiation. He himself gives the following account of the piece:

"I have just thought of a project to bite the town. I have told you, that it is now known that Mr. Prior has been lately in France. I will make a printer of my own sit by me one day; and will dictate to him a formal relation of Prior's Journey, with several particulars, all pure invention; and I doubt not but it will lake."—Journal to Stella, Aug. 31, 1711.

"This morning the printer sent me an account of Prior's Journey; it makes a twopenny pamphlet: I suppose you will see it, for I dare say it will run. It is a formal grave lie, from the beginning to the end. I wrote all but the last page; that I dictated, and the printer wrote. Mr. Secretary sent to me, to dine where he did: it was at Prior's. When I came in, Prior showed me the pamphlet, seemed to be angry, and said, 'Here is our English liberty!' I read some of it; said, 'I liked it mightily, and envied the rogue the thought; for, had it come into my head, I should certainly have done it myself."—Ibid. Sept. 11.

"The printer told me he sold yesterday a thousand of 'Prior's Journey,' and had printed five hundred more. It will do rarely, I believe, and is a pure bite."—Ibid. Sept . 12.

"Prior's Journey sells still; they have sold two thousand, although the town is empty."—Ibid. Sept. 24.

"There came out some time ago an account of Mr. Prior's Journey to France, pretended to be a translation; it is a pure invention from the beginning to the end. I will let your grace into the secret of it. The clamours of a party against any peace without Spain, and railing at the ministry as if they designed to ruin us, occasioned that production/out of indignity and contempt, by way of furnishing fools with something to talk of; and it has had a very great effect."—Letter to Abp. King, Oct. 1, 1711.

Although Swift, even to Stella, represents the "Journey to Paris" as mere pleasantry, it was certainly written with a more serious purpose. The cession of Spain to the House of Austria, upon which the former treaty at Gertruydenberg had broken off, is artfully alluded to; and, from the mode in which that part of Mr. Prior's supposed conference should be received, ministers might be enabled to judge whether they might venture to abandon Spain to the House of Bourbon in the event of a peace. In other respects, the high tone imputed to the British agent was calculated to assure the public, that their rights were under the management of those who would not compromise the national dignity, while the extreme anxiety of the French king and ministers for a peace, necessarily inferred that Britain might have one on her own terms…’

Battle of Shrewsbury

‘His government [Robert, Duke of Albany], after the death of his brother, Robert III (1407), commenced with a show of prosperity. He renewed the league offensive and defensive with the kingdom of France, and entered into negotiation with England. In the communings which ensued, he made no application for the liberation of his nephew, the present sovereign, nor was his name even mentioned in the transaction. But the Earl of Douglas, whose military services were valuable to the defence of the frontier, was restored to freedom, having been taken at the battle of Shrewsbury, where he had fought on the side of Sir Henry Percy with his usual distinguished valor, beating down the king of England with his own hand, but being in the course of the conflict himself made prisoner, according to his habitual bad luck. George, Earl of March, had rendered Henry IV effectual assistance during that insurrection, being the first who apprised that monarch of the conspiracy against him. But he was now weary of his exile, and, disappointed of his revenge, returned to his allegiance to Scotland, upon restoration of his estates. These were great points gained in reference to defence upon the border…’

The Battle of Shrewsbury was fought on July 21, 1403.  King Henry IV of England battled Hotspur; Henry Percy in this encounter, with results favoring Henry IV.  The text above, from Sir Walter Scott’s ‘Scotland”, discusses some of the players at a time after Shrewsbury had taken place.

Death of Burns

Approximately 10 years after Walter Scott met Robert Burns, the Bard of Ayrshire passed; on July 21, 1796.  A full version of Scott's and Burns' meeting is recorded at: http://www.robertburns.org/:

The two writers met only once. The encounter occurred in 1786, in Adam Ferguson's house, in the Sciennes district of Edinburgh. Scott wrote down the circumstances in a letter to Lockhart dated 10th April 1827. Lockhart duly quoted it in his Life of Burns (1828):


'As for Burns, I may truly say, Virigilium vidi tantum. I was a lad of fifteen in 1786-7, when he came first to Edinburgh, but had sense and feeling enough to be much interested in his poetry, and would have given the world to know him; but I had very little acquaintance with any literary people, and still less with the gentry of the west country, the two sets that he most frequented. Mr Thomas Grierson was at that time a clerk of my father's. He knew Burns, and promised to ask him to his lodgings to dinner, but had no opportunity to keep his word, otherwise I might have seen more of this distinguished man. As it was, I saw him one day at the late venerable Professor Fergusson's, where there were several gentlemen of literary reputation, among whom I remember the celebrated Mr Dugald Stewart. Of course we youngsters sate silent, looked and listened. The only thing I remember which was remarkable in Burns' manner, was the effect produced upon him by a print of Bunbury's, representing a soldier lying dead in the snow, his dog sitting in misery on the one side, on the other his widow with a child in her arms. These lines were written beneath, -

"Cold on Canadian hills, or Mindens' plain,
Perhaps that parent wept her soldiers slain:
Bent o'er her babe, her eye dissolved in dew,
The big drops, mingling with the milk he drew,
Gave the sad presage of his future years,
The child of misery baptized in tears."


Burns seemed much affected by the print, or rather the ideas which it suggested to his mind. He actually shed tears. He asked whose the lines were, and it chanced that nobody but myself remembered that they occur in a half-forgotten poem of Langhorne's, called by the uncompromising title of 'The Justice Of The Piece'. I whispered my information to a friend present, who mentioned it to Burns, who rewarded me with a look and a word, which, though of mere civility, I then received and still recollect, with very great pleasure.


His person was strong and robust: his manners rustic, not clownish; a sort of dignified plainness and simplicity, which received part of its effect perhaps from one's knowledge of his extraordinary talents. His features are represented in Mr Nasmyth's picture, but to me it conveys the idea that they are diminished as if seen in perspective. I think his countenance was more massive than it looks in any of the portraits. I would have taken the poet, had I not known what he was, for a very sagacious country farmer of the old Scotch school — i.e. none of your modern agriculturists, who keep labourers for their drudgery, but the douce gudeman who held his own plough. There was a strong expression of sense and shrewdness in all his lineaments; the eye alone, I think, indicated, the poetical character and temperament. It was large, and of a dark cast, and glowed (I say literally glowed) when he spoke with feeling or interest. I never saw such another eye in a human head, though I have seen the most distinguished men in my time. His conversation expressed perfect self-confidence, without the slightest presumption. Among the men who were the most learned of their country, he expressed himself with perfect firmness, but without the least intrusive forwardness; and when he differed in opinion, he did not hesitate to express it firmly, yet at the same time with modesty. I do not remember any part of his conversation distinctly enough to be quoted, nor did I ever see him again, except in the street, where he did not recognise me, as I could not expect he should. He was much caressed in Edinburgh, but (considering what literary emoluments have been since his day) the efforts for his relief were extremely trifling.

I remember on this occasion I mention, I thought Burns' acquaintance with English poetry was rather limited, and also, that having twenty times the abilities of Allan Ramsay and Ferguson, he talked of them with too much humility as his models; there was doubtless national predilection in his estimate.'

Burns' epitaph:
 
'Consigned to earth, here rests the lifeless clay,
Which once a vital spark from Heaven inspired;
The lamp of genius shone full bright as day,
Then left the world to mourn its light retired.

While beams that splendid orb which lights the spheres
While mountain streams descend to swell the main--
While changeful seasons mark the rolling years—
Thy fame, 0 Burns, let Scotia still retain!'