THE BIRTHPLACE OF MATTHEW PRIOR. 75 



not by Dr. Johnson, that tradition says that he (Prior) 

 was educated at the (Grammar) School (in Wimborne). 



It appears that the difficulty in ascertaining where Matthew 

 Prior was born arises entirely from the variations in the entries 

 in the Registers of St. John's College, Cambridge. 



Hutchins, with regard to these statements, says : " The 

 learned Thomas Baker, B.D., once Fellow of St. John's College, 

 Cambridge, informed Mr. Browne Willis that he (Prior) was 

 born here (at Wimborne) of mean parents, to conceal which 

 he entered himself at college as of Wimborne, Middlesex." 



The following paragraph from Hutchins' " History of 

 Dorset " throws a little more light on the subject : 



"About 1727 (i.e., some six years only after the death of the poet), one 

 Prior of Godmaiistone, a labouring man, and living 1755, declared to a com- 

 pany of gentlemen, where Mr. Hutchins was present, that he was Mr. Prior's 

 cousin, and remembered his going to Wimborne to visit him, and afterwards 

 heard that he became a great man." 



There is no doubt that during his lifetime Matthew Prior 

 felt keenly the humbleness of his origin, and that he was reti- 

 cent with regard to his ancestry and the place of his birth. 

 . Amongst the Duke of Portland's MSS. at Welbeck is a letter 

 which was written rather more than nine years after the 

 poet's death by one Conyers Place to his cousin, Dr. Conyers 

 Middle ton, who was the principal librarian of the University 

 library at Cambridge : 



Dorchester, Dorset, 



1730, Dec. 7. 



Cousin Middlotoii, 



Pursuant to your request I send you here an account of Mr. Prior's parent- 

 age, from his father's brother's son Christopher Prior. Mr. Prior's grand- 

 father lived at Godminston (Godmaiistone), a small village three miles from 

 this town ; he had five sons and one daughter called Mary, married to one 

 Hunt of Lighe, a village eight miles hence. Thomas and George, two of the 

 brothers, were bound apprentice to carpenters at Fordington joined to this 

 town ; whence they removed to Wimborne about eighteen miles hence east- 

 ward where Thomas lived and died, and where George the father of Mr. Prior 



