[65] It is probable that Prior’s parents were Nonconformists. We are told that before a dissenting chapel was built in the town the people met for worship in a barn in the neighbouring hamlet of Cowgrove. To this Prior seems to allude in his epistle to Fleetwood Shepherd:
At pure Barn of loud Non-con
Where with my granam I have gone.
[66] He wrote occasional verse, and when Young addressed his third satire to Dodington, he received verses from Dodington in return.
[67] Christopher Pitt (d. 1748) was rector of Pimperne, not far from Eastbury. He translated the Æneid.
[68] At Eastbury he slept on a bed encanopied with peacocks’ feathers, “in the style of Mrs. Montague.”—Cumberland’s Memoirs.
[69] This was pulled down in 1835, and rebuilt.
[70] Hutchins writes that “the house where Oliver lived seemed to accord with Fielding’s description,” and an old woman who remembered Oliver said “that he dearly loved a bit of good victuals and a drop of drink.”—History of Dorset.
[71] William Crowe (1745-1829). In 1782, on the presentation of New College, he was admitted to the rectory of Stoke Abbot, in Dorset, which he exchanged for Alton Barnes, in Wiltshire, in 1787. Lewesdon Hill lies near his Dorset benefice. The first edition of Lewesdon Hill was published anonymously in 1788.
[72] Thomas Fuller was presented to the rectory of Broadwindsor by his uncle, Bishop Davenant. He was ousted at the Rebellion; but he returned to it at the Restoration, and held the living until his death in 1661.
[73] At Racedown, Wordsworth finished Guilt and Sorrow, composed the tragedy called The Borderers, and some personal satires which he never published. Lastly, he wrote The Ruined Cottage, now incorporated in the first book of The Excursion.