myself, I had no reason to trust them; for they violated
that promise about five hours after. However, I owned I was there
present. Whether this was wisely done or no, I leave to my friends to
determine."

When he had signed the paper, he was told by Walpole, that the committee
were not satisfied with his behaviour, nor could give such an account of
it to the commons as might merit favour; and that they now thought a
stricter confinement necessary than to his own house. "Here," says he,
"Boscawen played the moralist, and Coningsby the Christian, but both
very awkwardly." The messenger, in whose custody he was to be placed,
was then called, and very decently asked by Coningsby, "if his house was
secured by bars and bolts?" The messenger answered, "No," with
astonishment. At which Coningsby very angrily said, "Sir, you must
secure this prisoner; it is for the safety of the nation: if he escape,
you shall answer for it."

They had already printed their report; and in this examination were
endeavouring to find proofs.

He continued thus confined for some time; and Mr. Walpole, June 10,
1715, moved for an impeachment against him. What made him so acrimonious
does not appear: he was by nature no thirster for blood. Prior was, a
week after, committed to close custody, with orders that "no person
should be admitted to see him without leave from the speaker."

When, two years after, an act of grace was passed, he was excepted, and
continued still in custody, which he had made less tedious by writing
his Alma. He was, however, soon after discharged.

He had now his liberty, but he had nothing else. Whatever the profit of
his employments might have been, he had always spent it; and, at the age
of fifty-three, was, with all his abilities, in danger of penury, having
yet no solid revenue but from the fellowship of his college, which, when
in his exaltation he was censured for retaining it, he said, he could
live upon at last.

Being, however, generally known and esteemed, he was encouraged to add
other poems to those which he had printed, and to publish them by
subscription. The expedient succeeded by the industry of many friends,
who circulated the proposals[7], and the care of some, who, it is said,
withheld the money from him, lest he should squander it. The price of
the volume was two guineas; the whole collection was four thousand; to
which lord Harley, the son of the earl of Oxford, to whom he had
invariably adhered, a