In two years he was secretary to another embassy at the Treaty of
Ryswick (in 1697), and next year had the same office at the court of
France, where he is said to have been considered with great
distinction. As he was one day surveying the apartments at
Versailles, being shown the "Victories of Louis," painted by Le
Brun, and asked whether the King of England's palace had any such
decorations: "The monuments of my master's actions," said he, "are
to be seen everywhere but in his own house."

The pictures of Le Brun are not only in themselves sufficiently
ostentatious, but were explained by inscriptions so arrogant, that
Boileau and Racine thought it necessary to make them more simple.
He was in the following year at Leo with the king, from whom, after
a long audience, he carried orders to England, and upon his arrival
became Under Secretary of State in the Earl of Jersey's office, a
post which he did not retain long, because Jersey was removed, but
he was soon made Commissioner of Trade.

This year (1700) produced one of his longest and most splendid
compositions, the "Carmen Seculare," in which he exhausts all his
powers of celebration. I mean not to accuse him of flattery; he
probably thought all that he writ, and retained as much veracity as
can be properly exacted from a poet professedly encomiastic. King
William supplied copious materials for either verse or prose. His
whole life had been action, and none ever denied him the resplendent
qualities of steady resolution and personal courage. He was really
in Prior's mind what he represents him in his verses; he considered
him as a hero, and was accustomed to say that he praised others in
compliance with the fashion, but that in celebrating King William he
followed his inclination. To Prior, gratitude would dictate praise,