Matthew Prior (1664–1721) was an English poet and diplomat.
Born in Wimborne, Dorset, Prior was educated at Westminster School and St John’s College, Cambridge. He was first employed as secretary to the ambassador to The Hague. During Queen Anne’s regime, he turned Tory and was influential in bringing about the Treaty of Utrecht (1713.) After the queen’s death, he was imprisoned for two years. His Tory friends recovered his fortunes by subscribing generously to a folio edition of his works (1719,) produced at the suggestion of Alexander Pope.
Prior was a master of colloquial, epigrammatic verse. His first work, a collaboration with Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, was The Hind and the Panther Transvers’d to the story of the Country and the City Mouse (1687.) It was a witty satire on John Dryden’s Hind and the Panther (1685.)
Prior is best known as a poet of occasional light verse-mock-lyrics such as “A Better Answer (to Chloe Jealous,)” and more seriously, “Lines Written in the Beginning of Mezeray’s History of France.” He also wrote largescale didactic poems such as Solomon, or The Vanity of the World (1718.) ‘Henry and Emma’ (1709) is a sentimental parody of the old ballad ‘The Nut-Brown Maid.’
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Matthew Prior
And ’tis remarkable that they talk most who have the least to say.
—Matthew Prior
Topics: Speakers, Boredom, Talking, Speaking, Bores
Human science is an uncertain guess.
—Matthew Prior
Topics: Science
Hopes are but the dreams of those that wake.
—Matthew Prior
Topics: Dreams, Hope
The ends must justify the means.
—Matthew Prior
For, when with beauty we can virtue join, We paint the semblance of a form divine.
—Matthew Prior
Forbear to mention what thou canst not praise.
—Matthew Prior
Topics: Tact
To John I owed great obligation; but John, unhappily, thought fit to publish it to all the nation: Sure John and I are more than quit.
—Matthew Prior
Topics: Debt
Fantastic tyrant of the amorous heart. How hard thy yoke, how cruel thy dart. Those escape your anger who refuse your sway, and those are punished most, who most obey.
—Matthew Prior
Topics: Love
Who walks the fastest, but walks astray, is only furthest from his way.
—Matthew Prior
Topics: Goals
The end must justify the means.
—Matthew Prior
They never taste who always drink; they always talk who never think.
—Matthew Prior
Topics: Conversation
Be to her virtues very kind,
Be to her faults a little blind.
—Matthew Prior
Topics: Marriage, Women
For hope is but the dream of those that wake.
—Matthew Prior
Topics: Dreams, Hope
Odds life! must one swear to the truth of a song?
—Matthew Prior
Topics: Singing
Cured yesterday of my disease, I died last night of my physician.
—Matthew Prior
Topics: Doctors
Variety alone gives joy; the sweetest meats the soonest cloy.
—Matthew Prior
The daily showers rejoice the thirsty earth, and bless the flowery buds.
—Matthew Prior
Topics: Rain
In argument similes are like songs in love; they describe much, but prove nothing.
—Matthew Prior
Topics: Arguments, Argument
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