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OXFORD, PUBLISHED BY TALBOYS AND WHEELER; AND W. PICKERING, LONDON. MDCCCXXV.
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Prior Congreve Blackmore Fenton Gay Granville Yalden Tickell Hammond Somervile Savage Swift Broome Pope Pitt Thomson Watts A. Philips West Collins Dyer Shenstone Young Mallet Akenside Gray Lyttelton
[Transcriber's Note: "CONTENTS OF THE EIGHTH VOLUME" list of poets was not present in the original text.]
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Matthew Prior is one of those that have burst out from an obscure original to great eminence. He was born July 21, 1664, according to some, at Winburn, in Dorsetshire, of I know not what parents; others say, that he was the son of a joiner of London: he was, perhaps, willing enough to leave his birth unsettled[1], in hope, like Don Quixote, that the historian of his actions might find him some illustrious alliance.
He is supposed to have fallen, by his father's death, into the hands of his uncle, a vintner[2], near Charing-cross, who sent him for some time to Dr. Busby, at Westminster; but, not intending to give him any education beyond that of the school, took him, when he was well advanced in literature, to his own house, where the earl of Dorset, celebrated for patronage of genius, found him by chance, as Burnet relates, reading Horace, and was so well pleased with his proficiency, that he undertook the care and cost of his academical education.
He entered his name in St. John's college, at Cambridge, in 1682, in his eighteenth year; and it may be reasonably supposed that he was distinguished among his contemporaries. He became a bachelor, as is usual, in four years[3]; and two years afterwards wrote the poem on the Deity, which stands first in his volume.
It is the established practice of that college, to send every year to the earl of Exeter some poems upon sacred subjects, in acknowledgment of a benefaction enjoyed by them from the bounty of his ancestor. On this occasion were those verses written, which, though nothing is said of their success, seem to have recommended him to some notice; for his praise of the countess's musick, and his lines on the famous picture of Seneca, afford reason for imagining that he was more or less conversant with that family.