PREFATORY NOTE. IN an Appendix to his Essay on Pope, Joseph Warton makes mention of an unpublished account of Prior by Sir James Montague, then in the possession of the Duchess of Portland. Shortly after the completion, for the New Princeton Review, of the paper which forms the Introduction to the following pages, I was favoured, by the kindness of a friend, with a transcript of the document indicated by Warton. It is not a memoir: but it gives particulars of Prior's boyhood, his connection with The Country-Mouse and the City-Mouse, and his conduct in respect to the Partition Treaty. Sir James Montague was Prior's school-fellow at Westminster, and their friendship (he says) 2 66 'never ceased till death parted them." Notwithstanding the ingratitude with which minor biographical rectifications are generally received, I have adopted Sir James's account of Prior's youth, and I have incorporated most of his remaining memoranda into the longer notes which conclude the volume. With two exceptions, the poems are arranged in the order of publication, as far as I have been able to ascertain it. Of excision and suppression I have been sparing; and I trust I shall be acquitted of the impertinence of improving Prior, if I admit that, in a couple of instances, I have ventured to make slight alterations (in one case involving only the addition of a letter) which have enabled me to print two pieces that must otherwise have been withheld. EALING, AUSTIN DOBSON. November, 1889. A Song ("In vain you tell," etc.). To a Lady ("Spare, gen'rous Victor," etc.). |