mind what he represents him in his verses; he considered him as a hero, and was accustomed to say, that he praised others in compliance with the fashion, but that in celebrating king William he followed his inclination. To Prior gratitude would dictate praise, which reason would not refuse.
Among the advantages to arise from the future years of William’s reign, he mentions a Society for useful Arts, and among them
Some that with care true eloquence shall teach,
And to just idioms fix our doubtful speech.
That from our writers distant realms may know
The thanks we to our monarchs owe,
And schools professour tongue through every land,
That has invok’d his aid or bless’d his hand.
Tickell, in his Prospect of Peace, has the same hope of a new academy:
In happy chains our daring language bound,
Shall sport no more in arbitrary sound.
Whether the similitude of those passages which exhibit the same thought on the same occasion proceeded from accident or intimation, is not easy to determine. Tickell might have been
