the commissions of the peace; in which he afterwards, by 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 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.

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 deserved the same respect.

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

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"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 66 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."

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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 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 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:

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"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 66 may be sometimes avoided, even as it flies, by chang❝ing one's ground a little; for, when the wind some"times blew away the smoke, it was so clear a sunshiny day, that we could easily perceive the bullets

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(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

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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 bed-chamber. 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 resent