78 THE BIRTHPLACE OF MATTHEW PRIOR. 



That Matthew was, in his childhood, brought up as a Dis- 

 senter has been assumed from the following lines in his " First 

 Epistle to Fleetwood Shepherd " (dated 1689) : 



So at pure barn of loud Non-con, 

 Where with my grarmam I have gone, 

 When Lobb had sifted all his text, 

 And I well hop'd the pudding next ; 

 Now TO APPLY, has plagued me more, 

 Than all his villain cant before. 



This, in all probability, referred to the Rev. Stephen Lobb, 

 who in 1681 settled in London as Independent Pastor of 

 Fetter-lane. He gained some distinction from the accusation 

 brought against him of being concerned in the Rye House 

 Plot, and from his controversy with Stillingfleet. He had 

 three sons, two of whom conformed and became clergymen 

 in the Anglican Church ; the third, Theophilus, was a medical 

 man, and an independent preacher. He was at Shaftesbury 

 from 1706 to 1713. His life was written by his brother-in-law, 

 Rev. John Greene, of Wimborne. But whether Mr. Lobb's 

 lengthy discourses, which the young Prior felt so wearisone, 

 were preached in the neighbourhood of Wimborne, or were 

 delivered in London after the Priors had settled in the metro- 

 polis, in either case it would point to the fact of the family 

 being Dissenters. 



Weld Taylor, in 1884, writes : 



" At one time the name of Prior was common in the neighbourhood (of 

 Wimborne), and several of the name are still living. One Richard Prior 

 was transported and one was drowned in the Stour some years ago. They 

 were all of the poor or labouring class, and they were Nonconformists." 



There is a family residing in Wimborne at the present 

 time which claims relationship with the poet. The wife's 

 maiden name was Prior, and there has always been a 

 tradition in the family that they were connected with the 

 celebrated Matthew Prior, 



