162
NOTES AND Q UERIES. tu s. iv. AUG. * mi.
Dr. Conyers Middleton, who was " head
librarian " of the University Library at
Cambridge* :
" Dorchester, Dorset.
1730, Dec. 7. Cousin Middleton,
Pursuant to your request, I send you here an account of Mr. Prior's parentage, from his father's brother's son Christopher Prior. Mr. Prior's grandfather lived at Godminston (Gpdmanstone), a small village three miles from this town ; he had five sons and one daughter called Mary, married to one Hunt of Lighe, a village eight miles hence. Thomas and George, two of the brothers, were bound apprentice to carpenters at Fordington, joined to this town ; whence they removed to Wimborne. about eighteen miles hence eastward, where Thomas lived and died, and where George the father of Mr. Prior married, but how long he lived there I cannot find, only his wife, Mr. Prior's mother, lies buried at Wimborne, or by it, with whom I heard that Mr. Prior desired to be buried before Westminster Abbey was in his eye. That Mr. Prior was born at or by Wimborne I find because Christopher says he remembers his cousin Matthew coming over to Godwinston [sic] when a boy and lying with him. George, his father, after his wife's death, I suppose, moved to London, encouraged by his brother Arthur, who had succeeded in the world and kept the Rummer Tavern by Charing Cross, the great resort of wits in the latter end of King Charles the Second's reign, and in my remembrance; who took his nephew to wait in the tavern, from which time you know his history."
Arthur Prior, whose will was proved in 1687, left to his " cousin Mathew Prior, now in the University of Cambridge," the sum of 100Z. He left 5Z. to the poor of Godmans- ton, county Dorset, " the parish where I was born."
The Godmanstone parish registers date back to 1650. I am indebted to Dr. Wick- harn Legg for the following Prior extracts from them :
Christopher Pryor and Alice Jankins aforesaid did ioyne in Marriage on the 30th day of June, 1654. And were then declared Man and Wife by Walter Foy.
1655. George Pryor, y e son of Christopher Pryor, Labourer, was borne the 29th of May.
1674. Widdow Pryor was buried.
1675/6. Laurence y e son of Christopher Prior was baptised Jan. 18th (buried Feb. 4).
1686. Christopher, the son of John Hunt of Leigh and M[ary] his wife, was baptised May 7th.
1697. Christopher Prior and Penelope Barret were married July llth.
1705 6. Christopher, y e son of Chris. Prior, Bapt. Jan. 1st.
1712. Mathias, y e son of Christopher Prior, bapt. Aug. 31st.
1715. Thos., y e son of Christopher Prior, Bapt. Apr. 17th.
- See Historical MSS. Commission, Duke
of Portland's MSS. at Welbeck, vol. vi. pp. 33, 34 (A.D. 1901).
1717. Christopher Prior, the son of Christopher
Prior, was buried October 24.
That Matthew Prior was known to be of humble extraction may be inferred from the following letter written by Queen Anne to the Earl of Oxford* :
"1711. Nov. 19 1 have no objection to
Mr. Prior then what I mentioned in my last, for I always thought it very wrong to send people abroad of meane extraction ; but since you think Mr. Prior will be very usefull at this time, I will comply with your desire."
From the following lines in the poet's ' First Epistle to Fleetwood Shepherd * (dated 1689),
So at pure barn of loud Non-con, Where with my grannam I have gone. When Lobb had sifted all his text, And I well hop'd the pudding next : Now TO APPLY, has plagued me more, Than all his villain cant before,
it has been conjectured that Matthew Prior was brought up as a Non -conformist. If so, it might account for his name not appearing in the Wimborne parish registers. This loud-voiced preacher, whose lengthy dis- courses proved to be so wearisome to young Prior, was in all probability the Rev. Stephen Lobb, whose relative was the Rev. John Greene of Wimborne, and who, in 1681, was minister of an Independent congregation in Fetter Lane. (Of. 'Diet. Nat. Biog.,' sub. nom. Stephen Lobb and Theophilus Lobb ; also Hutchins's 'Dorset,' vol. iii., p. 229.)
There has always been a tradition in Wim- borne that Matthew Prior was born here. Priors are not yet quite extinct, and claim relationship. Weld Taylor, in an article in Longman's Magazine for October, 1884,. speaks of an old lady, a Miss Knott, at the time when she gave the information 90 years of age, who told him that her father and grand- father often spoke of the Priors' occupancy of a house (not now existing) in a street originally termed Luke's Lane, but now called Prior's Walk, and of Matthew frequently coming out of the door which there then was in the wall.
The evidence seems to be conclusive that Matthew Prior was a Dorset man, a native of Wimborne Minster, though his- family migrated to London in the days of his boyhood. The mystery which has hitherto been attached to the place of his birth appears to be due to his extreme sensitiveness with regard to the humbleness of his origin, and his consequent reticence respecting his ancestry and the locality of
- Historical MSS. Commission, Marquis of,
Bath's MSS. at Longleat, vol. i.. (.1904), p. 217.
