Volume IV Part 4 (1/2)

Numb. 230. All, except the last Letter.

Numb. 231. A Letter on the awe of appearing before public a.s.semblies.

Numb. 237. On Divine Providence.

Vol. IV. Numb. 252. A Letter on the Eloquence of Tears, and fainting fits.

Numb. 302. The Character of Emilia.

Numb. 311. A Letter from the Father of a great Fortune.

Vol. V. Numb. 57. A Picture of Virtue in Distress.

Vol. VII. Numb. 525. On Conjugal Love.

Numb. 537. On the Dignity of Human Nature.

Numb. 541. Rules for p.r.o.nunciation and Action, chiefly collected from Cicero.

Vol. VII. Numb. 554. On the Improvement of the Genius, ill.u.s.trated in the characters of Lord Bacon, Mr. Boyle, Sir Isaac Newton, and Leonardo da Vinci.--We have not been able to learn, what papers in the Guardian were written by him, besides Number 37, Vol. I. which contains Remarks on the Tragedy of Oth.e.l.lo.

In the year 1715 Mr. Hughes published a very accurate edition of the works of our famous poet Edmund Spenser, in six volumes, 12mo. to this edition are prefixed the Life of Spenser; an Essay on Allegorical poetry; Remarks on the Fairy Queen; on the Shepherd's Calendar, and other writings of Spenser; and a Glossary explaining the Old and obsolete Words.

In 1718 he published a piece called Charon, or The Ferry-Boat, a Vision. This, and Mr. Walsh's aesculapius, or Hospital of Fools, are perhaps two of the finest dialogues we have in English, as well as the most lively imitations of Lucian.

Sir Richard Steele, in a paper called The Theatre, No. 15. has paid a tribute to the memory of Mr. Hughes, with which as it ill.u.s.trates his amiable character, we shall conclude his life.

'I last night (says he) saw the Siege of Damascus, and had the mortification to hear this evening that Mr. Hughes, the author of it, departed this life within some few hours after his play was acted, with universal applause. This melancholy circ.u.mstance recalled into my thought a speech in the tragedy, which very much affected the whole audience, and was attended to with the greatest, and most solemn instance of approbation, and awful silence.' The incidents of the play plunge a heroic character into the last extremity; and he is admonished by a tyrant commander to expect no mercy, unless he changes the Christian religion for the Mahometan. The words with which the Turkish general makes his exit from his prisoner are,

Farewel, and think of death.

Upon which the captive breaks into the following soliloquy,

Farewel! and think of death!--was it not so?

Do murtherers then, preach morality?

But how to think of what the living know not, And the dead cannot, or else may not tell!

What art thou? O thou great mysterious terror!

The way to thee, we know; diseases, famine, Sword, fire, and all thy ever open gates, That day and night stand ready to receive us.

But what, beyond them? who will draw that veil?

Yet death's not there.----No, 'tis a point of time; The verge 'twixt mortal, and immortal Being.

It mocks our thought----On this side all is life; And when we've reach'd it, in that very instant, 'Tis past the thinking of----O if it be The pangs, the throes, the agonizing struggle, When soul and body part, sure I have felt it!

And there's no more to fear.

'The gentleman (continues Sir Richard) to whose memory I devote this paper, may be the emulation of more persons of different talents, than any one I have ever known. His head, hand, or heart, was always employed in something worthy imitation; his pencil, his bow (string) or his pen, each of which he used in a masterly manner, were always directed to raise, and entertain his own mind, or that of others, to a more chearful prosecution of what is n.o.ble and virtuous. Peace be with thy remains, thou amiable spirit! but I talk in the language of our weakness, that is flown to the regions of immortality, and relieved from the aking engine and painful instrument of anguish and sorrow, in which for many tedious years he panted with a lively hope for his present condition.' We shall consign the trunk, in which he was so long imprisoned, to common earth, with all that is due to the merit of its inhabitant[A].

[Footnote A: There are several copies of verses written to the memory of Mr. Hughes, prefixed to Mr. Duncomb's edition of his poems, of which one by a lady who has withheld her name, deserves particular distinction.]

MATTHEW PRIOR, Esq;