Phyllis, let you and I agree
To make him so with reason."
But it would be a mistake to think that Matthew Prior was altogether incapable of writing in a more moral vein. His book of poems ends with the epitaph he composed for the tomb of Sir Thomas Powys.
"Here lies Sir Thomas Powys Knight. . . .
What by example he taught throughout his life
At his death he recommended to his family and friends:
'To fear God, and live uprightly'
Let who ever reads this stone
Be wise, and be instructed."
It is, however, unlikely that the author of the inscription, gave, if the truth were known, very much attention to this death-bed exhortation, any more, with shame be it spoken, than does up to the present time the author of this Essay—the humblest and least punctilious of the large and graceless brood which owes its existence to the pious and potent loins of the Knight of Lilford Hall.
"To the grave with the dead
And the living to the bread."
With the money he derived from his book and with the gift of the house in Essex that he had from Lord Oxford, Matthew Prior proposed to spend the last years of his life happily enough. He had grown a little deaf for no other reason, as he explained, than that "he had not thought of taking care of his ears, while not sure of his head." But apparently this slight physical handicap in no way interfered with his relish for life. We hear of him planting quincunxes in the garden of his manor, or spending long happy months at Wimple, Oxford's country seat, delighted as much by the grace of the little Lady Margaret as he had before been by the manners "wild as colt untam'd" of the high-spirited Kitty, afterwards to become the famous Duchess of Queensbury whom Beau Nash is said to have treated so roughly and who living to the lat-
