of ^taff^ew "gfrior, 

 SCHOLAR, POET, AND DIPLOMATIST. 



By the Rev. JAS. M. J. FLETCHER, M.A. 



(Read Dec. 14th, 1909.) 



To Matthew Prior, Poet and Scholar, 

 Born at Eastbrook in this Town 

 Anno 1664. Died September 18, 1721, 

 In the Fifty Seventh Year of His Age, 

 Weld Taylor, Esq., has placed this Brass 



To His Memory. 

 (Perennis et Fragrans.) 



runs the inscription on a modern brass, which 

 was placed against the South Wall of the 

 West Porch, beneath the Belfry, at Wimborne 

 Minster, some quarter of a century ago, by 

 Mr. Weld Taylor, an artist, who for a long 

 period acted as drawing master at Wimborne 

 Grammar School. An article by him in 

 '' Longman's Magazine " for October, 1884, 

 entitled " Was Matthew Prior a Dorsetshire 

 Man ? " may be known to some of our members. 



There has, we believe, always been a tradition in Wimborne 

 that Matthew Prior was a native of the town, and that his 

 father was a carpenter. Various houses or sites are pointed 

 out as places where at one time or other his parents lived, or 



