CURRENT LITERATURE.
The Poetical Works of Matthew Prior. A now edition, revised, with Memoir, by Reginald Brimley Johnson. 2 vols. (Bell and Sons.)—The peculiar merit of Prior has been better understood in our century than it was in his own. We read Prior solely for the sake of the " lighter pieces " which Dr. Johnson despised, and no one who has over toiled through his " Solomon " will agree with John Wesley's high estimate of that poem. " Henry and Emma," too, is now utterly dead, although Wesley termed it "inimitable," and Cowper, a far better judge, declared that it was an " enchanting piece." As a writer of occasional verses, the ease and charm of Prior are still perhaps unrivalled. There seems no effort in those vers de soci6M, but there is the perfection of art, and we agree with Mr. Dobson that tho poet is one of the best of English epigrammatists. Mr. Brimley Johnson, who has written a new memoir for Messrs. Bell and Sons' Aldine edition of Prior, shows a mastery of his subject, and has a just perception of the poet's place in literature. He praises his work with judgment, and is sufficiently alive to the defects of his verse and of his character. A redeeming trait in Prior was his love of children and their love for him ; the most striking fact in connection with his career as a poet, is that he received 41,000 for the publication of his poems. Those were the days of Grub Street, but there were prizes to be won in the literary market, as Pope discovered on the publication of his "Homer," There were prizes, too, for men of letters in public life, and of these Prior had his share.
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