irrational entertainment, which has been always combated, and always has prevailed. His reputation was now so far advanced, that the public began to pay reverence to his name; and he was solicited to prefix a preface to the translation of Boccalini, a writer whose satirical vein cost him his life in Italy, and who never, I believe, found many readers in this country, even though introduced by such powerful recommendation. He translated Fontenelle's Dialogues of the Dead;' and his version was perhaps read at that time, but is now neglected; for by a book not necessary, and owing its reputation wholly to its turn of diction, little notice can be gained but from those who can enjoy the graces of the original. To the Dialogues of Fontenelle he added Two composed by himself; and, though not only an honest but a pious man, dedicated his work to the earl of Wharton. He judged skilfully enough of his own interest; for Wharton, when he went lord lieutenant to Ireland, offered to take Hughes with him, and establish him; but Hughes, having hopes or promises, from another man in power, of some provision more suitable to his inclination, declined Wharton's offer, and obtained nothing from the other. He translated the 'Miser' of Moliere, which he never offered to the stage; and occasionally amused himself with making versions of favourite scenes in other plays. 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 public; 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. Being now received as a wit among the wits, he paid his contributions to literary undertakings, and assisted the His last work was his tragedy, The Tatler, Spectator, and Guardian. In Siege of Damascus,' after which a Siege 1712 he translated Vertot's History of the became a popular title. This play, which Revolution of Portugal;' produced an still continues on the stage, and of which 'Ode to the Creator of the World,' from it is unnecessary to add a private voice the Fragments of Orpheus; and brought to such continuance of approbation, is upon the stage an opera called 'Calypso not acted or printed according to the and Telemachus,' intended to show that author's original draught, or his settled the English language might be very hap-intention. He had made Phocyas apospily adapted to music. This was impudently opposed by those who were employed in the Italian opera; and, what cannot be told without indignation, the intruders had such interest with the duke of Shrewsbury, then lord chamberlain, who had married an Italian, as to obtain an obstruction of the profits, though not an inhibition of the performance. There was at this time a project formed by Tonson for a translation of the Pharsalia by several hands; and Hughes englished the tenth book. But this design, as must often happen when the concurrence of many is necessary, fell to the ground; and the whole work was afterwards performed by Rowe. His acquaintance with the great writers tatize from his religion; after which the abhorrence of Eudocia would have been reasonable, his misery would have been just, and the horrors 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 A month ago," says Swift, 66 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 class you think him." In Spence's Collection, Pope is made to speak of him with still less respect; as having no claim to poetical reputation, but from his tragedy. SHEFFIELD, DUKE OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE. JOHN SHEFFIELD, descended from a long "I have observed two things, which I series of illustrious ancestors, was born in dare affirm, though not generally be1649, the son of Edmund earl of Mul-lieved. One was, that the wind of a grave, who died in 1658. 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 ship 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 ship which the celebrated Lord Ossory commanded; and there made, as he relates, two curious remarks: 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 sunshiny 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 ship in the navy. He afterwards raised a regiment of foot, and commanded it as colonel. The land forces were sent ashore 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. Being by the duke of Monmouth opposed in his pretensions to the first troop of horse-guards, he, in return, made Monmouth suspected by the duke of York. He was not long after, when the unlucky Monmouth fell into disgrace, recompensed with the lieutenancy of Yorkshire, and the government of Hull. Thus rapidly did he make his way both to military and civil honours and employments: yet, busy as he was, he did not neglect his studies, but at least cultivated poetry; in which he must have been early considered as uncommonly skilful, if it be true which is reported, that, when he was yet not twenty years old, his recommendation advanced Dryden to the laurel. The Moors having besieged Tangier, he was sent (1680) with two thousand men to its relief. A strange story is told of the danger to which he was intentionally exposed in a leaky ship, to gratify some resentful jealousy of the king, whose health he therefore would never permit at his table till he saw himself in a safer place. His voyage was prosperously performed in three weeks; and the Moors without a contest retired before him. In this voyage he composed the 'Vision; a licentious poem, such as was fashionable in those times, with little power of invention or propriety of senti ment. At the succession of King James, to whom he was intimately known, and by whom he thought himself beloved, he naturally expected still brighter sunshine; but all know how soon that reign began to gather clouds. His expectations were not disappointed; he was immediately admitted into the privy-council, and made lord chamberlain. He accepted a place in the high commission, without knowledge, as he declared after the Revolution, of its illegality. Having few religious scruples, he attended the king to mass, and kneeled with the rest; but had no disposition to receive the Romish faith, or to force it upon others; for when the priests, encouraged by his appearances of compliance, attempted to convert him, he told them, as Burnet has recorded, that he was willing to receive instruction, and that he had taken much pains to believe in God who had made the world and all men in it; but that he should not be easily persuaded "that man was quits, and made God again." A pointed sentence is bestowed by successive transmission to the last whom it will fit; this censure of transubstantiation, whatever be its value, was uttered long ago by Anne Askew, one of the first sufferers for the Protestant religion, who, in the time of Henry VIII. was tortured in the Tower; concerning which, there is reason to wonder that it was not known to the Historian of the Reformation. In the Revolution he acquiesced, though he did not promote it. There was once a design of associating him in the invitation of the prince of Orange; but the earl of Shrewsbury discouraged the attempt, by declaring that Mulgrave would never concur. This King William afterwards told him; and asked what he would have done if the proposal had been made? "Sir," said he,' I would have discovered it to the king whom I then served." To which King William replied, "I cannot blame you.' He Finding King James irremediably excluded, he voted for the conjunctive sovereignty, upon this principle, that he thought the title of the prince and his consort equal, and it would please the prince their protector to have a share in the sovereignty. This vote gratified King William; yet, either by the king's distrust, or his own discontent, he lived some years without employment. looked on the king with malevolence, and, if his verses or his prose may be credited, with contempt. He was, notwithstanding this aversion or indifference, made marquis of Normanby (1694), but still opposed the court on some important questions; yet at last he was received into the cabinet council, with a pension of three thousand pounds. At the accession of Queen Anne, whom he is said to have courted when they were both young, he was highly favoured. Before her coronation (1702) she made him lord privy seal, and soon after lord lieutenant of the North Riding of Yorkshire. He was then named commissioner for treating with the Scots about the Union; and was made next year, first, duke of Normanby, and then of Buckinghamshire, there being suspected to be somewhere a latent claim to the title of Buckingham. Soon after, becoming jealous of the duke of Marlborough, he resigned the privy-seal, and joined the discontented Tories in a motion, extremely offensive to the queen, for inviting the princess Sophia to England. The queen courted him back with an offer no less than that of the chancellorship; which he refused. He now retired from business, and built that house in the Park which is now the queen's, upon ground granted by the Crown. When the ministry was changed (1710), he was made lord chamberlain of the household, and concurred in all transactions of that time, except that he endea voured to protect the Catalans. After | so that there is scarcely any poem to be the queen's death, he became a constant found of which the last edition differs opponent of the court; and, having no more from the first. Amongst other public business, is supposed to have changes, mention is made of some comamused himself by writing his two trage-positions of Dryden, which were written dies. He died February 24, 1720-21. after the first appearance of the Essay. At the time when this work first appeared, Milton's fame was not yet fully established, and therefore Tasso and Spenser were set before him. The two last lines were these. The Epic Poet, says he, He was thrice married; by his two first wives he had no children; by his third, who was the daughter of King James by the countess of Dorchester, and the widow of the earl of Anglesey, he had, besides other children that died early, a son born in 1716, who died in 1735, and put an end to the line of Sheffield. It is observable, that the duke's three wives were all widows. The duchess died in 1742. Must above Milton's lofty flights prevail, Succeed where great Torquato, and where greater Spenser, fail. The last line in succeeding editions was Must above Tasso's lofty flights prevail, His character is not to be proposed as worthy of imitation. His religion he may be supposed to have learned from Hobbes; and his morality was such as naturally proceeds from loose opinions. His sentiments with respect to women he picked up in the court of Charles; and his principles concerning property were such as a gaming-table supplies. He was censured as covetous, and has been defended by an instance of inattention to his affairs; as if a man might not at once be corrupted by avarice and idleness? He is said, however, to have had much tender- A faultless monster which the world ne'er ness, and to have been very ready to apologise for his violences of passion. He is introduced into this collection only as a poet; and, if we credit the testimony of his contemporaries, he was a poet of no vulgar rank. But favour and flattery are now at an end; criticism is no longer softened by his bounties, or awed by his splendour, and, being able to take a more steady view, discovers him to be a writer that sometimes glimmers, but rarely shines, feebly laborious, and at best but pretty. His songs are upon common topics; he hopes, and grieves, and repents, and despairs, and rejoices, like any other maker of little stanzas; to be great, he hardly tries; to be gay, is hardly in his power. In the Essay on Satire' he was always supposed to have had the help of Dryden. His Essay on Poetry' is the great work for which he was praised by Roscommon, Dryden, and Pope; and doubtless by many more whose eulogies have pe rished. rowed. The Essay calls a perfect cha One celebrated line seems to be bor racter saw. labe monstrum. Sheffield can scarcely Scaliger, in his poems, terms Virgil sine be supposed to have read Scaliger's poetry; perhaps he found the words in a quotation. exalted so highly, it may be justly said, 'Tis epigram, 'tis point. 'tis what you will; Who would not suppose that Waller's His verses are often insipid; but his memoirs are lively and agreeable; he Upon this piece he appears to have had the perspicuity and elegance of an set a high value; for he was all his life-historian, but not the fire and fancy of a time improving it by successive revisals, poet. MATTHEW PRIOR is one of those that have burst out from an obscure original to great eminence. He was born July 21, 1664, according to some, at Winborn in Dorsetshire, of I know not what parents; others say, that he was the son of a joiner of London: he was perhaps willing enough to leave his birth unsettled *, in hope, like Don Quixote, that the historian of his actions might find him some illustrious alliance. He is supposed to have fallen, by his father's death, into the hands of his uncle, a vintner+ near Charing Cross, who sent him for some time to Dr. Busby, at Westminster; but, not intending to give him any education beyond that of the school, took him, when he was well ad vanced in literature, to his own house, where the earl of Dorset, celebrated for patronage of genius, found him by chance, as Burnet relates, reading Horace, and was so well pleased with his proficiency, that he undertook the care and cost of his academical education. He entered his name in St. John's College at Cambridge in 1682, in his eighteenth year; and it may be reasonably supposed that he was distinguished among his contemporaries. He became a Bachelor, as is usual, in four years; and two years afterwards wrote the poem on the DEITY, which stands first in his volume. It is the established practice of that College, to send every year to the earl of Exeter some poems upon sacred subjects, in acknowledgment of a benefaction en The difficulty of settling Prior's birth place is great. In the register of his College he is called, at his admission by the Presi-joyed by them from the bounty of his dent, Matthew Prior of Winborn in Middlesex; by himself next day, Matthew Prior, of Dorsetshire, in which county, not in Middlesex, Winborn, or Winborne, as it stands in the Villare, is found. When he stood candidate for his fellowship, five years afterwards, he was registered again by himself as of Middlesex. The last record ought to be preferred, because it was made upon oath. It is observable, that, as a native of Winborne, he is styled Filius Georgii Prior, generosi; not consistently with the common account of the meanness of his birth. DR. J. + Samuel Prior kept the Rummer Tavern, near Charing Cross, in 1685. ancestor. On this occasion were those verses written, which, though nothing is said of their success, seem to have recommended him to some notice; for his praise of the countess's music, and his afford reason for imagining that he was lines on the famous picture of Seneca, more or less conversant with that family. The same year he published the City He was admitted to his Bachelor's degree in 1686; and to his Master's, by mandate in 1700. |