olution at this crisis."

Prior's publick dignity and splendour commenced in August, 1713, and
continued till the August following; but I am afraid that, according to
the usual fate of greatness, it was attended with some perplexities and
mortifications. He had not all that is customarily given to ambassadors;
he hints to the queen, in an imperfect poem, that he had no service of
plate; and it appeared, by the debts which he contracted, that his
remittances were not punctually made.

On the 1st of August, 1714, ensued the downfal of the tories, and the
degradation of Prior. He was recalled; but was not able to return, being
detained by the debts which he had found it necessary to contract, and
which were not discharged before March, though his old friend Montague
was now at the head of the treasury.

He returned then as soon as he could, and was welcomed, on the 25th of
March, 1715, by a warrant, but was, however, suffered to live in his own
house, under the custody of the messenger, till he was examined before a
committee of the privy council, of which Mr. Walpole was chairman, and
lord Coningsby, Mr. Stanhope, and Mr. Lechmere, were the principal
interrogators; who, in this examination, of which there is printed an
account not unentertaining, behaved with the boisterousness of men
elated by recent authority. They are represented as asking questions
sometimes vague, sometimes insidious, and writing answers different from
those which they received. Prior, however, seems to have been
overpowered by their turbulence; for he confesses that he signed what,
if he had ever come before a legal judicature, he should have
contradicted or explained away. The oath was administered by Boscawen,
a Middlesex justice, who, at last, was going to write his attestation
on the wrong side of the paper.

They were very industrious to find some charge against Oxford; and asked
Prior, with great earnestness, who was present when the preliminary
articles were talked of or signed at his house? He told them, that
either the earl of Oxford or the duke of Shrewsbury was absent, but he
could not remember which; an answer which perplexed them, because it
supplied no accusation against either. "Could any thing be more absurd,"
says he, "or more inhuman, than to propose to me a question, by the
answering of which I might, according to them, prove myself a traitor?
And notwithstanding their solemn promise, that nothing which I could say
should hurt