John Hughes (born 1677, died 1720) was educated at a Dissenter’s College in London; wrote a poem in 1697 on “The Triumph of Peace, occasioned by the Peace of Ryswick,” and afterwards several odes, papers in the “Tatler” and in the “Spectator,” translations from Fontenelle, and several plays. He had a situation in the Ordnance Office; was made afterwards, by Lord-Chancellor Cowper, Secretary to the Commissions of the Peace; and died of consumption on the first night of his most successful play, “The Siege of Damascus.”
General
His head, hand, or heart was always employ’d in something worthy imitation; his pencil, his bow-string, or his pen, each of which he us’d in a masterly manner, were always directed to raise and entertain his own mind, or that of others, to a more cheerful prosecution of what was noble and virtuous.
He is too grave a poet for me, and I think among the mediocribus in prose as well as verse.
To answer your question as to Mr. Hughes, what he wanted as to genius he made up as an honest man; but he was of the class you think him.
His last work was his tragedy, “The Siege of Damascus,” after which a Siege became a popular title. 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 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.
Hughes was a man of good sense, and well versed in some branches of learning. He had applied himself to the study of the classics, especially the Greek and Roman poets, with diligence and success. He perceived and felt the beauties with which they abound…. Hughes was ambitious to distinguish himself in heroic odes and tragedy. As he neither excelled in sublimity or in pathos, he did not succeed in either. As an essayist, his observations are just and judicious, and expressed in suitable language…. On the whole, Hughes was a man better qualified to excel in the lower than in the higher kinds of composition. In operas, songs, and translations, he succeeded very well; in attempting heroic odes and tragedy, he seems not to have remembered, or not to have applied his favourite Horace’s advice to poets, to consider quid ferre recusant; quid valeant humeri; “what weight their talents can bear, or what exceeds their strength.”—Though not entitled to the character of a very great poet, he deserved a still high praise, he was an upright, benevolent, religious man.
The only piece, however, which can with any propriety claim for Hughes the appellation of a poet, is “The Siege of Damascus.” Of this Drama, which is still occasionally acted, the sentiments and morality are pure and correct, the imagery frequently beautiful, and the diction and versification for the most part clear and melodious. It is defective, notwithstanding, in the most essential quality of dramatic composition, the power of affecting the passions; and is, therefore, more likely to afford pleasure in the closet than on the stage…. On the prose of Hughes I am inclined to bestow more praise than on his poetry…. Hughes has more merit as a translator of poetry, than as an original poet…. All the periodical essays of Hughes are written in a style which is, in general, easy, correct, and elegant: they occasionally exhibit wit and humour; and they uniformly tend to inculcate the best precepts, moral, prudential, and religious.
Hughes was a ready and smooth versifier; but nothing that he wrote rose above mediocrity, if it ever reached it.
