He wrote the following impromptu epitaph on himself—
"Nobles and heralds by your leave,
Here lies what once was Matthew Prior,
The son of Adam and of Eve,
Can Bourbon or Nassau go higher."
But he does not often descend to so much levity as this, his wing is generally in a higher atmosphere. Sir Walter Scott observes that in the powers of approaching and touching the finer feelings of the heart, he has never been excelled, if indeed he has ever been equalled.
Prior wrote a parody called "Erle Robert's Mice," but Pope is more prolific than any other poet in such productions. His earlier taste seems to have been for imitation, and he wrote good parodies on Waller and Cowley, and a bad travesty on Spencer. "January and May" and "The Wife of Bath" are founded upon Chaucer's Tales. Pope did not generally indulge in travesty, his object was not to ridicule his original, but rather to assist himself by borrowing its style. His productions are the best examples of parodies in this latter and better sense. Thus, he thought to give a classic air to his satires on the foibles of his time by arranging them upon the models of those of Horace. In his imitation of the second Satire of the second Book we have—
"He knows to live who keeps the middle state,
And neither leans on this side nor on that,
Nor stops for one bad cork his butler's pay,
Swears, like Albutius, a good cook away,
Nor lets, like Nævius, every error pass,
The musty wine, foul cloth, or greasy glass."
There is a slight amount of humour in these adaptations, and it seems to have been congenial to the poets mind. Generally he was more turned to philosophy, and the slow measures he adopted were more suited to the dignified and pompous, than to the playful and gay. Occasionally, however, there is some sparkle in his lines, and, we read in "The Rape of the Lock"—
"Now love suspends his golden scales in air,
Weighs the men's wits against the lady's hair,
The doubtful beam long nods from side to side,
At length the wits mount up, the hairs subside."
Again, his friend Mrs. Blount found London rather dull than gay—
"She went to plain work and to purling brooks,
Old-fashioned halls, dull aunts, and croaking rooks,
She went from opera, park, assembly, play,
To morning walks and prayers three hours a day,
To part her time 'twixt reading and bohea,
To muse and spill her solitary tea,
Or o'er cold coffee trifle with a spoon,
Count the slow clock, and dine exact at noon,
Divert her eyes with pictures in the fire,
Hum half a tune, tell stories to the Squire,
Up to her Godly garret after seven,
There starve and pray—for that's the way to Heaven."
He was seldom able to bring a humorous sketch to the close without something a little objectionable. Often inclined to err on the side of severity, he was one of those instances in which we find acrimonious feeling associated with physical infirmity. "The Dunciad" is the principal example of this, but we have many others—such as the epigram: