THE 
MONTHLY MAGAZINE. 
No. 371.] 
AUGUST I, 1822. 
[1 of Vol. 54. 
PRIOR’s RESIDENCE AT DOWN-HALL. 
Prior, after filling the high employment of ambassador at the court of Louis the 
Fourteenth, and negotiating the Treaty of Utrecht, was, by the change of parties on 
the accession of the Guelphs, thrown out of his public employments, with their emolu- 
ments, and left to shift for himself, on the profits of a subscription for a folio edition 
of his Poems. This however was so liberal, and he was so generously aided by Harley 
earl of Orford, the last British statesman who supported men of letters, that he was 
enabled to purchase Down-Hall, near Harlow, to which place he retired, and there 
spent the evening of his active life. It is still standing, but has for some years been 
occupied merely as a farm-house, though some original portraits continue to deco- 
rate its walls. 
For the Monthly Magazine. 
LETTER from an ENGLISH OFFICER 
during a recent OVERLAND JOURNEY 
to INDIA. 
Y route lay through Berlin, Bres- 
lau in Silesia, Cracow, Lem- 
berg in Gallicia, Odessa on the Black 
Sea, Taganroe on the sea of Asaph, 
Stawrapol and Mosdok. ‘To the Jat- 
ter we travelled by post-horses, in a 
carriage, small but strongly built, pur- 
chased at Hamburg; the road-dis- 
Montury Mac. No. 371. 
tance about 2,300 miles from the latter 
place. 
At Georgiefok, near Mosdok, Gen. 
Stahl gave us an order for a guard of 
twenty-five infantry, ten cossacks, and 
a six-pounder field-piece; to enable 
us to make our way through Circassia 
and over the Caucasus. This we 
effected in safety, and in seven days 
reached Teflis, the capital of Georgia, 
The country we traversed is beauti- 
fully romantic ; the soil of the vallies 
B fertile 
