ON ROYAL PAPER
POPE AND SWIFT UNWITTING ‘SUBSCRIBERS’ HUGHES, John.

Poems on several Occasions. With some select Essays in Prose. In two Volumes …

First edition of the principal collection of the author’s works, published posthumously and edited, with a long biographical preface, by his brother-in-law, William Duncombe. John Hughes (1677–1720) was educated at a dissenting academy where Isaac Watts was his contemporary. From an early age he devoted himself to poetry and letters, and was gradually drawn into the Addison–Steele circle where, as Samuel Johnson puts it, he was ‘received as a wit among the wits’; he contributed at least three numbers to the Tatler, seventeen to the Spectator, and one to the Guardian. Hughes also had a passion for music, and was a talented violinist. He championed the use of English verse for operas and cantatas, and many of his lyrics were set to music by such contemporary composers as Dr Pepusch. In the year of his death, he wrote a tragedy called The Siege of Damascus, which proved highly successful and remained in the repertory for the rest of the century.