Part 56 (2/2)
His acquaintance with the great writers of his time appears to have been very general; but of his intimacy with Addison there is a remarkable proof. It is told, on good authority, that Cato was finished and played by his persuasion. It had long wanted the last act, which he was desired by Addison to supply. If the request was sincere, it proceeded from an opinion, whatever it was, that did not last long; for when Hughes came in a week to show him his first attempt, he found half an act written by Addison himself.
He afterwards published the works of Spenser, with his life, a glossary, and a discourse on allegorical poetry; a work for which he was well qualified as a judge of the beauties of writing, but, perhaps, wanted an antiquary's knowledge of the obsolete words. He did not much revive the curiosity of the publick; for near thirty years elapsed before his edition was reprinted. The same year produced his Apollo and Daphne, of which the success was very earnestly promoted by Steele, who, when the rage of party did not misguide him, seems to have been a man of boundless benevolence.
Hughes had hitherto suffered the mortifications of a narrow fortune; but, in 1717, the lord chancellor Cowper set him at ease, by making him secretary to the commissions of the peace; in which he afterwards, by a particular request, desired his successor, lord Parker, to continue him.
He had now affluence; but such is human life, that he had it when his declining health could neither allow him long possession, nor quick enjoyment.
His last work was his tragedy, the Siege of Damascus, after which, a Siege became a popular t.i.tle. This play, which still continues on the stage, and of which it is unnecessary to add a private voice to such continuance of approbation, is not acted or printed according to the author's original draught, or his settled intention. He had made Phocyas apostatize from his religion; after which the abhorrence of Eudocia would have been reasonable, his misery would have been just, and the horrours of his repentance exemplary. The players, however, required, that the guilt of Phocyas should terminate in desertion to the enemy; and Hughes, unwilling that his relations should lose the benefit of his work, complied with the alteration.
He was now weak with a lingering consumption, and not able to attend the rehearsal; yet was so vigorous in his faculties, that only ten days before his death he wrote the dedication to his patron lord Cowper. On February 17, 1719-20, the play was represented, and the author died.
He lived to hear that it was well received; but paid no regard to the intelligence, being then wholly employed in the meditations of a departing Christian.
A man of his character was, undoubtedly, regretted; and Steele devoted an essay, in the paper called the Theatre, to the memory of his virtues.
His life is written in the Biographia with some degree of favourable partiality; and an account of him is prefixed to his works by his relation, the late Mr. Buncombe, a man whose blameless elegance deserved the same respect.
The character of his genius I shall transcribe from the correspondence of Swift and Pope.
”A month ago,” says Swift, ”were sent me over, by a friend of mine, the works of John Hughes, esquire. They are in prose and verse. I never heard of the man in my life, yet I find your name as a subscriber. He is too grave a poet for me; and I think among the mediocrists, in prose as well as verse.”
To this Pope returns: ”To answer your question as to Mr. Hughes; what he wanted in genius, he made up as an honest man; but he was of the cla.s.s you think him[206].”
In Spence's Collections Pope is made to speak of him with still less respect, as having no claim to poetical reputation but from his tragedy.
[Footnote 205: He was educated in a dissenting academy, of which the reverend Mr. Thomas Rowe was tutor; and was a fellow-student there with Dr. Isaac Watts, Mr. Samuel Say, and other persons of eminence. In the Hora Lyricae of Dr. Watts, is a poem to the memory of Mr. Rowe. H.]
[Footnote 206: This, Dr. Warton a.s.serts, is very unjust censure; and in a note in his late edition of Pope's works, asks if ”the author of such a tragedy as the Siege of Damascus was one of the _mediocribus_? Swift and Pope seem not to recollect the value and rank of an author who could write such a tragedy.”]
SHEFFIELD DUKE OF BUCKINGHAMs.h.i.+RE.
John Sheffield, descended from a long series of ill.u.s.trious ancestors, was born in 1649, the son of Edmund, earl of Mulgrave, who died in 1658[207]. The young lord was put into the hands of a tutor, with whom he was so little satisfied, that he got rid of him in a short time, and, at an age not exceeding twelve years, resolved to educate himself. Such a purpose, formed at such an age, and successfully prosecuted, delights as it is strange, and instructs as it is real.
His literary acquisitions are more wonderful, as those years in which they are commonly made were spent by him in the tumult of a military life, or the gaiety of a court. When war was declared against the Dutch, he went, at seventeen, on board the s.h.i.+p in which prince Rupert and the duke of Albemarle sailed, with the command of the fleet; but, by contrariety of winds, they were restrained from action. His zeal for the king's service was recompensed by the command of one of the independent'
troops of horse, then raised to protect the coast.
Next year he received a summons to parliament, which, as he was then but eighteen years old, the earl of Northumberland censured as at least indecent, and his objection was allowed. He had a quarrel with the earl of Rochester, which he has, perhaps, too ostentatiously related, as Rochester's surviving sister, the lady Sandwich, is said to have told him with very sharp reproaches.
When another Dutch war, 1672, broke out, he went again a volunteer in the s.h.i.+p which the celebrated lord Ossory commanded; and there made, as he relates, two curious remarks.
”I have observed two things, which I dare affirm, though not generally believed. One was, that the wind of a cannon bullet, though flying never so near, is incapable of doing the least harm; and, indeed, were it otherwise, no man above deck would escape. The other was, that a great shot may be sometimes avoided, even as it flies, by changing one's ground a little; for, when the wind sometimes blew away the smoke, it was so clear a suns.h.i.+ny day, that we could easily perceive the bullets, that were half-spent, fall into the water, and from thence bound up again among us, which gives sufficient time for making a step or two on any side; though, in so swift a motion, 'tis hard to judge well in what line the bullet comes, which, if mistaken, may, by removing, cost a man his life, instead of saving it.”
His behaviour was so favourably represented by lord Ossory, that he was advanced to the command of the Catharine, the best second-rate s.h.i.+p in the navy.
He afterwards raised a regiment of foot, and commanded it as colonel. The land-forces were sent ash.o.r.e by prince Rupert; and he lived in the camp very familiarly with Schomberg. He was then appointed colonel of the old Holland regiment, together with his own; and had the promise of a garter, which he obtained in his twenty-fifth year. He was, likewise, made gentleman of the bedchamber. He afterwards went into the French service, to learn the art of war under Turenne, but staid only a short time.
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