forsook the whigs [8], under whose patronage he first
entered the world, he became a tory, so ardent and determinate, that he
did not willingly consort with men of different opinions. He was one of
the sixteen tories who met weekly, and agreed to address each other by
the title of _brother_; and seems to have adhered, not only by
concurrence of political designs, but by peculiar affection, to the earl
of Oxford and his family. With how much confidence he was trusted has
been already told.

He was, however, in Pope's[9] opinion, fit only to make verses, and less
qualified for business than Addison himself. This was, surely, said
without consideration. Addison, exalted to a high place, was forced into
degradation by the sense of his own incapacity; Prior, who was employed
by men very capable of estimating his value, having been secretary to
one embassy, had, when great abilities were again wanted, the same
office another time; and was, after so much experience of his knowledge
and dexterity, at last sent to transact a negotiation in the highest
degree arduous and important; for which he was qualified, among other
requisites, in the opinion of Bolingbroke, by his influence upon the
French minister, and by skill in questions of commerce above other men.

Of his behaviour in the lighter parts of life, it is too late to get
much intelligence. One of his answers to a boastful Frenchman has been
related; and to an impertinent he made another equally proper. During
his embassy, he sat at the opera by a man, who, in his rapture,
accompanied with his own voice the principal singer. Prior fell to
railing at the performer with all the terms of reproach that he could
collect, till the Frenchman, ceasing from his song, began to expostulate
with him for his harsh censure of a man who was confessedly the ornament
of the stage. "I know all that," says the ambassador, "mais il chante si
haut, que je ne saurais vous entendre."

In a gay French company, where every one sang a little song or stanza,
of which the burden was, "Bannissons la melancolie;" when it came to his
turn to sing, after the performance of a young lady that sat next him,
he produced these extemporary lines:

Mais cette voix, et ces beaux yeux,
Font Cupidon trop dangereux;
Et je suis triste quand je crie,
Bannissons la melancolie.

Tradition represents him as willing to descend from the dignity of the
poet and the statesman to the low delights of mea