During his two year's imprisonment by the Whigs on a charge of high
treason--from which he was liberated without a trial--he prepared a
collection of his works, for which he obtained a large sum of money. He
then retired from office, but died shortly afterwards in his
fifty-eighth year.
Prior is remarkable for his exquisite lightness and elegance of style,
well suited to the pretty classical affectations of the day. He delights
in cupids, nymphs, and flowers. In two or three places, perhaps, he
verges upon indelicacy, but conceals it so well among feathers and rose
leaves, that we may half pardon it. Although always sprightly he is not
often actually humorous, but we may quote the following advice to a
husband from the "English Padlock"
"Be to her virtues very kind,
And to her faults a little blind,
Let all her ways be unconfined,
And clap your padlock on her mind."
"Yes; ev'ry poet is a fool;
By demonstration Ned can show it;
Happy could Ned's inverted rule,
Prove ev'ry fool to be a poet."
"How old may Phyllis be, you ask,
Whose beauty thus all hearts engages?
To answer is no easy task,
For she has really two ages.
"Stiff in brocade and pinched in stays,
Her patches, paint, and jewels on:
All day let envy view her face,
And Phyllis is but twenty-one.
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