Page:The English humourists of the eighteenth century. A series of lectures, delivered in England, Scotland, and the United States of America (IA englishhumourist00thacrich).pdf/177

 seen everywhere except in his own house." Bravo, Mat! Prior rose to be full ambassador at Paris, where he somehow was cheated out of his ambassadorial plate; and in a heroic poem, addressed by him to her late lamented majesty Queen Anne, Mat makes some magnificent allusions to these dishes and spoons, of which Fate had deprived him. All that he wants, he says, is her Majesty's picture; without that he can't be happy.

With that word the poem stops abruptly. The votive tablet is suspended for ever like Mahomet's coffin. News came that the Queen was dead. Stator Jove, and Phœbus, king of verse, were left there, hovering to this day, over the votive tablet. The picture was never