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that the English language might be very happily | on the stage, and of which it is unnecessary to adapted to music. This was impudently op- add a private voice to such continuance of apposed by those who were employed in the Italian probation, is not acted or printed according to opera; and, what cannot be told without indig- the author's original draught or his settled innation, the intruders had such interest with the tention. He had made Phocyas apostatize from Duke of Shrewsbury, then lord-chamberlain, his religion; after which the abhorrence of who had married an Italian, as to obtain an ob- Eudocia would have been reasonable, his misery struction of the profits, though not an inhibition would have been just, and the horrors of his reof the performance. pentance exemplary. The players, however, required that the guilt of Phocyas should ter minate in desertion to the enemy; and Hughes, unwilling that his relations should lose the benefit of his work, complied with the alteration.

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 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 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. Duncombe, a man whose blameless elegance deserv

The character of his genius I shall transcribe from the correspondence of Swift and Pope.

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 writ-ed the same respect. ing, 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 LordChancellor 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 title. This play, which still continues

"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 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.

This, Dr. Warton asserts, 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."—C.

SHEFFIELD,

DUKE OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE.

JOHN SHEFFIELD, descended from a long series of illustrious ancestors, was born in 1649, the son of Edmund, earl of Mulgrave, 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 gayety 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:

"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 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, it is 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 Catherine, the best second-rate ship in the navy.

he was yet not twenty years old, his recomme dation advanced Dryden to the laurel.

The Moors having besieged Tangier, he va sent (1680) with two thousand men to its rele A strange story is told of the danger to wa he was intentionally exposed in a leaky ship gratify some resentful jealousy of the King whose health he therefore would never pe at his table till he saw himself in a safer plat His voyage was prosperously performed in tr weeks; and the Moors without a contest retr before him.

In this voyage he composed "The Vision": licentious poem; such as was fashionable those times, with little power of invention propriety of sentiment.

At his return he found the king kind, w perhaps had never been angry; and he castnued a wit and a courtier as before.

At the succession of King James, to whom le was intimately known, and by whom he thou himself beloved, he naturally expected s brighter sunshine; but all know how soon that reign began to gather clouds. His expectat were not disappointed; he was immediately a mitted into the privy-council, and made lere chamberlain. He accepted a place in the commission, without knowledge, as he declared after the Revolution, of its illegality. Having few religious scruples, he attended the King mass, and kneeled with the rest, but had no d position to receive the Romish faith, or to fore it upon others; for when the priests, encouraged by his appearances of compliance, attempted b convert him, he told them, as Burnet has corded, that he was willing to receive instru tion, and that he had taken much pains to b lieve in God who had made the world and men in it; but that he should not be easi persuaded that man was quits, and made Go again.

A pointed sentence is bestowed by successiv transmission to the last whom it will fit th censure of transubstantiation, whatever be t value, was uttered long ago by Anne Asker, one of the first sufferers for the protestant r gion, who, in the time of Henry VIII. was tes tured in the Tower; concerning which there is reason to wonder that it was not known to the historian of the Reformation.

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 In the Revolution he acquiesced, though be the camp very familiarly with Schomberg. He did not promote it. There was once a desig was then appointed colonel of the old Holland associating him in the invitation of the Prace regiment, together with his own, and had the of Orange; but the Earl of Shrewsbury promise of a garter, which he obtained in his couraged the attempt, by declaring that Ma twenty-fifth year. He was likewise made gen-grave would never concur. This King Wil tleman of the bedchamber. He afterwards went into the French service to learn the art of war under Turenne, but stayed only a short time. Being by the Duke of Monmouth opposed in his pretensions to the first troop of horseguards, 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.

afterwards told him; and asked him what 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 voted for the conjunctive sovereignty, Finding King James irremediably excluded this principle, that he thought the title of the Prince and his Consort equal, and it wond Thus rapidly did he make his way both to please the prince, their protector, to have a share military and civil honours and employments; yet, William; yet, either by the king's distrust, or busy as he was, he did not neglect his studies, his own discontent, he lived some years without but at least cultivated poetry; in which he must employment. He looked on the king m I have been early considered as uncommonly malevolence, and, if his verses or his prose may skilful, if it be true, which is reported, that when be credited, with contempt. He was, notwith

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standing 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.

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 his "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 perished.

Upon this piece he appears to have set a high value; for he was all his lifetime improving it by successive revisals, so that there is scarcely Soon after, bceoming jealous of the Duke of any poem to be found of which the last edition Marlborough, he resigned the privy-seal, and differs more from the first. Amongst other pined the discontented tories in a motion, ex- changes, mention is made of some compositions tremely offensive to the Queen, for inviting the of Dryden, which were written after the first Princess Sophia to England. The Queen court-appearance of the essay. ed 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 endeavoured to protect the Catalans. After the Queen's death he became a constant opponent of the court; and, having no public business, is supposed to have amused hmself by writing his two tragedies. He died February 24, 1720-21.

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 dutchess died in 1742.

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,

Must above Milton's lofty flights prevail,
Succeed where great Torquato, and where greater
Spenser fail.

The last line in succeeding editions was short-
ened, and the order of names continued: but
now Milton is at last advanced to the highest
place, and the passage thus adjusted :

Must above Tasso's lofty flights prevail, Succeed where Spenser, and ev'n Milton fail. Amendments are seldom made without some token of a rent; lofty does not suit Tasso so well as Milton.

One celebrated line seems to be borrowed. The Essay calls a perfect character

A faultless monster which the world ne'er saw.

Scaliger, in his poems, terms Virgil sine labe to have read Scaliger's poetry; perhaps he monstrum. Sheffield can scarcely be supposed found the words in a quotation.

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 opi-highly, it may be justly said that the precepts Of this Essay, which Dryden has exalted so nions. His sentiments with respect to women he picked up at 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 tenderness, and to have been very ready to apologize 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

are judicious, sometimes new, and often happily expressed; but there are, after all the emenda. tions, many weak lines, and some strange ap laws of elegy, he insists upon connexion and pearances of negligence: as when he gives the coherence; without which, says he,

'Tis epigram, 'tis point, 'tis what you will: But not an elegy, nor writ with skill, No Panegyric, nor a Ccoper's Hill. Who would not suppose that Waller's "Panegyric" and Denham's "Cooper's Hill" were elegies?

His verses are often insipid, but his memoirs are lively and agreeable; he had the perspicuity and elegance of an historian, but not the fire and fancy of a poet.

PRIOR.

MATTHEW PRIOR is one of those that has burst out from an obscure original to great eminence. He was born July 21, 1664, according to some, at Winburn, 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 advanced 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.

envy raised by superior abilities every day gra. tified: when they are attacked, every one hopes a to see them humbled: what is hoped is readily believed, and what is believed is confidently told. Dryden had been more accustomed to hostilities than that such enemies should break his quiet; and if we can suppose him vexed, it would be hard to deny him sense enough to conceal his uneasiness.

The "City Mouse and Country Mouse" pro cured its authors more solid advantages than the pleasure of fretting Dryden; for they were both speedily preferred. Montague, indeed, obtained the first notice, with some degree of discontent, as it seems, in Prior, who probably knew that his own part of the performance was the best. He had not, however, much reason to complain; for he came to London, and obtained such no tice, that (in 1691) he was sent to the Con. gress at the Hague as secretary to the embassy. In this assembly of princes and nobles, to which Europe has perhaps scarcely seen any thing equal, was formed the grand alliance against Louis, which at last did not produce effects proportionate to the magnificence of the transaction.

The conduct of Prior in this splendid initiation into public business, was so pleasing to King William, that he made him one of the gentlemen of his bedchamber; and he is supposed to have passed some of the next years in the quiet cultivation of literature and poetry.

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 enjoyed by them from The death of Queen Mary (in 1695) produced the bounty of his ancestor. On this occasion a subject for all the writers; perhaps no funeral were those verses written, which, though no- was ever so poetically attended. Dryden, inthing is said of their success, seem to have re-deed, as a man discountenanced and deprived, commended him to some notice; for his praise of the Countess's music, and his lines on the famous picture of Seneca, afford reason for imagining that he was more or less conversant with that family.

The same year he published the "City Mouse and Country Mouse," to ridicule Dryden's "Hind and Panther," in conjunction with Mr. Montague. There is a story§ of great pain suffered, and of tears shed, on this occasion, by Dryden, who thought it hard that "an old man should be so treated by those to whom he had

always been civil.” By tales like these is the

was silent; but scarcely any other maker of verses omitted to bring his tribute of tuneful sorrow. An emulation of elegy was universal. Maria's praise was not confined to the English language, but fills a great part of the "Musa Anglicana."

Prior, who was both a poet and a courtier, was too diligent to miss this opportunity of respect. He wrote a long ode, which was presented to the King, by whom it was not likely to be ever read.

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 The difficulty of settling Prior's birthplace is great. France, where he is said to have been consi In the Register of his College he is called, at his admis-dered with great distinction. sion by the President, Matthew Prior, of Winburn, 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, be

cause 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 Cha

ring Cross, in 1685. The annual feast of the nobility and gentry living in the parish of St. Martin in the Fields was held at his house, October 14, that year.-N. He was admitted to his bachelor's degree in 1686; and to his master's, by mandate, in 1700.-N.

Spence.

As he was one day surveying the apartment at Versailles, being shown the victories of Louis painted by Le Brun, and asked whether th King of England's palace had any such decora tions: "The monuments of my master's actions, said he, " are to be seen every where but in h own house."

The pictures of Le Brun are not only themselves sufficiently ostentatious, but we explained by inscriptions so arrogant, that Bo

He received, in September, 1697, a present of guineas from the lords justices, for his trouble in brin ing over the treaty of peace.-N.

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PRIOR.

leau and Racine thought it necessary to make them more simple.

He was in the following year at Loo 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 wrote, 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 which reason would not refuse.

Among the advantages to arise from the future years of William's reign, he mentions a Society for useful Arts, and among them

Some that with care true eloquence shall teach,
And to just idioms fix our doubtful speech;
That from our writers distant realms may know
The thanks we to our monarchs owe,

And schools profess our tongue through every land
That has invok'd his aid or bless'd his hand.

other composition produced by that event which
is now remembered.

Every thing has its day. Through the reigns
of William and Anne no prosperous event passed
undignified by poetry. In the last war, when
France was disgraced and overpowered in every
quarter of the globe; when Spain, coming to
her assistance, only shared her calamities, and
the name of an Englishman was reverenced
through Europe, no poet was heard amidst the
general acclamation; the fame of our counsel-
lors and heroes was intrusted to the Gazetteer.

The nation in time grew weary of the war, and the Queen grew weary of her ministers. The war was burdensome, and the ministers were insolent. Harley and his friends began to hope that they might, by driving the whigs from count and from power, gratify at once the Queen and the people. There was now a call for writers, who might convey intelligence of past abuses, and show the waste of public money, the unrea sonable conduct of the allies, the avarice of generals, the tyranny of minions, and the general danger of approaching ruin.

For this purpose a paper called the "Examiner" was periodically published, written, as it happened, by any wit of the party, and sometimes, as is said, by Mrs. Manley. Some are owned by Swift; and one, in ridicule of Garth's verses to Godolphin upon the loss of his place, was written by Prior, and answered by Addison, who appears to have known the Author either by conjecture or intelligence.

The tories, who were now in power, were in haste to end the war; and Prior, being recalled (1710) to his former employment of making trea

Tickell, in his "Prospect of Peace," has the ties, was sent (July, 1711) privately to Paris, same hope of a new academy:

In happy chains our daring language bound,
Shall sport no more in arbitrary sound.

with propositions of peace. He was remembered at the French court; and, returning in about a month, brought with him the Abbe Gualtier, and Mr. Mesnager, a minister from France, invested with full powers.

Whether the similitude of those passages, which This transaction not being avowed, Mackay, exhibit the same thought on the same occasion, proceeded from accident or imitation, is not easy the master of the Dover packet-boat, either zeato determine. Tickell might have been im-lously or officiously, seized Prior and his assopressed with his expectation by Swift's "Propo-ciates at Canterbury. It is easily supposed that sal for ascertaining the English Language," then they were soon released. lately published.

In the parliament that met in 1701 he was chosen representative of East Grinstead. Perhaps it was about this time that he changed his party; for he voted for the impeachment of those lords who had persuaded the King to the Partition-treaty, a treaty in which he had himself been ministerially employed.

A great part of Queen Anne's reign was a time of war, in which there was little employment for negotiators, and Prior had therefore When the leisure to make or to polish verses. battle of Blenheim called forth all the versemen, Prior, among the rest, took care to show his delight in the increasing honour of his country by an Epistle to Boileau.

He published soon afterwards a volume of poems, with the encomiastic character of his deceased patron, the Duke of Dorset; it began with the "College Exercise," and ended with the "Nut-brown Maid."

The battle of Ramilies soon afterwards (in

1706) excited him to another effort of poetry. On this occasion he had fewer or less formidable rivals; and it would be not easy to name any

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The negotiation was begun at Prior's house, where the Queen's ministers met Mesnager, The importance of (September 20, 1711,) and entered privately upon the great business. Prior appears from the mention made of him by St. John in his letter to the Queen.

"My Lord Treasurer moved, and all my Lords were of the same opinion, that Mr. Prior should be added to those who are empowered to sign: the reason for which is, because he, having personally treated with Monsieur de Torcy, is the best witness we can produce of the sense in which the general preliminary engagements are entered into; besides which, as he is the best versed in matters of trade of all your Majesty's servants, who have been trusted in this secret, if you should think fit to employ him in the future treaty of commerce, it will be of consequence that he has been a party concerned in concludthis treaty." ing that convention which must be the rule of

The assembly of this important night was in some degree clandestine, the design of treating not being yet openly declared, and, when the whigs returned to power, was aggravated to a

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