For as our different ages move,
'Tis so ordain'd (would Fate but mend it)
That I shall be past making love,
When she begins to comprehend it.
        (To a Child of Quality, Five Years Old, the Author Suppos'd Forty, 25-28)

1. Horace, Lib. I, Epist. IX, Imitated
2. A Simile
3. To a Child of Quality, Five Years Old, the Author Suppos'd Forty
4. To A Lady
5. To Chloe Jealous

Biographical information

Given name: Matthew
Family name: Prior
Birth date: 21 July 1664
Death date: 18 September 1721
Nationality: English
Family relations
          father: George Prior
Language: English
Education
          Wimborne free grammar school
          Westminster school
          St. John's College, Cambridge (B.A.) to 1686
Politics: Tory: 1702
Honour: M.A., Cambridge
Patron: Lord Dorset
Literary period: Augustan
Occupations
          Member of Parliament
          King William's Ambassador to the Hague
          Secretary in negotiations at the treaty of Ryswick
          Secretary of state in Ireland
          Secretary to the Embassy, Paris
          Commissioner of trade and plantations
Residences
          Holland
          Stephen's Alley, Westminster
          Wimborne Minster, East Dorset: 21 July 1664
          Paris: 1698
          Down Hall, Essex: 1719
Cause of death: Cholera
Buried at: Poets Corner, Westminster Abbey
First RPO edition: 1996-2000