In a gay French company, where every one sang a little song or stanza, of which the burden was, "Bannissons la melancolie;" when it came to his turn to sing, after the performance of a young lady that sat next him, he produced these extemporary lines: Mais cette voix, et ces beaux yeux, Font Cupidon trop dangereux; Et je suis triste quand je crie, Bannissons la melancolie. Tradition represents him as willing to descend from the dignity of the poet and the statesman to the low delights of mean company. His Chloe, probably, was sometimes ideal; but the woman with whom he cohabited was a despicable drab[10] of the lowest species. One of his wenches, perhaps Chloe, while he was absent from his house, stole his plate, and ran away; as was related by a woman who had been his servant. Of this propensity to sordid converse I have seen an account so seriously ridiculous, that it seems to deserve insertion[11]. I have been assured that Prior, after having spent the evening with Oxford, Bolingbroke, Pope, and Swift, would go and smoke a pipe, and drink a bottle of ale, with a common soldier and his wife, in Long-acre, before he went to bed; not from any remains of the lowness of his original, as one said, but, I suppose, that his faculties, "Strain'd to the height, In that celestial colloquy sublime, Dazzled and spent, sunk down, and sought repair." Poor Prior! why was he so _strained_, and in such _want_ of _repair_, after a conversation with men, not, in the opinion of the world, much wiser than himself? But such are the conceits of speculatists, who _strain_ their _faculties_ to find in a mine what lies upon the surface. His opinions, so far as the means of judging are left us, seem to have been right; but his life was, it seems, irregular, negligent, and sensual. * * * * * Prior has written with great variety, and his variety has made him popular. He has tried all styles, from the grotesque to the solemn, and has not so failed in any as to incur derision or disgrace. His works may be distinctly considered, as comprising Tales, Love-verses, Occasional Poems, Alma, and Solomon.