William Duncomb, esq; has obliged the world with an entire edition of
this author's poetical and prose works, to which he has prefixed
some account of his life, written with candour and spirit. Upon his
authority we chiefly build the following narration; in which we shall
endeavour to do as much justice as possible to the memory of this
excellent poet.
Our author was the son of a worthy citizen of London, and born at
Marlborough in the county of Wilts, on the 29th of January 1677; but
received the rudiments of his learning at private schools in London.
In the earliest years of his youth, he applied himself with ardour to
the pursuit of the sister arts, poetry, drawing and music, in each of
which by turns, he made a considerable progress; but for the most part
pursued these and other polite studies, only as agreeable amusements,
under frequent confinement from indisposition, and a valetudinary
state of health. He had some time an employment in the office of
ordinance; and was secretary to two or three commissioners under the
great-seal, for purchasing lands for the better securing the docks and
harbours at Portsmouth, Chatham, and Harwich.
In the year 1717 the lord chancellor Cowper, (to whom Mr. Hughes
was then but lately known) was pleased, without any previous
sollicitation, to make him his secretary for the commissions of the
peace, and to distinguish him with singular marks of his favour and
affection: And upon his lordship's laying down the great-seal, he was
at his particular recommendation, and with the ready concurrence of
his successor, continued in the same employment under the earl of
Macclesfield.
He held this place to the time of his decease, which happened on the
17th of February 1719, the very night in which his tragedy, entitled
the Siege of Damascus, was first acted at the Theatre-Royal in
Drury-Lane.
He was cut off by a consumption, after a painful life, at the age of
42, when he had just arrived at an agreeable competence, and advancing
in fame and fortune. So just is the beautiful reflexion of Milton in
his Lycidas;
Fame is the spur, that the clear spirit doth raise,
(That last infirmity of noble mind)
To scorn delights, and live laborious days;
But the fair guerdon, when we hops to find,
And think to burst out into sudden blaze,
Comes the blind fury with th' abhorred shears,
And slits the thin-spun life.--
He was privately buried in the vault under the chancel of St. Andrew's
Church in Holborn. Mr. Hughes, as a testimony of gratitude to his
noble friend, and generous patron, earl Cowper, gave his lordship a
few weeks before he died, his picture drawn by Sir Godfrey Kneller,
which he himself had received from that masterly painter. The value
lord Cowper set upon it will be best shewn, by the letter he wrote
upon this occasion to Mr. Hughes. As such a testimony from so eminent
a person, was considered by himself as one of the highest honours he
was capable of receiving, we shall therefore insert it.
24th Jan. 1719-20.
'Sir,
'I thank you for the most acceptable present of your picture, and
assure you that none of this age can set a higher value on it than I
do, and shall while I live, tho' I am sensible posterity will out-do
me in that particular.'