John Hughes (poet)

John Hughes - born 29 January 1677 in Marlborough, Wiltshire, died of tuberculosis in London on 17 February 1720 - was an English poet, essayist and translator. Various of his works remained in print for a century after his death, but if he is remembered at all today it is for the use others made of his work. Texts of his were set by the foremost composers of the day and his translation of the Letters of Abelard and Heloise was a major source for Alexander Pope’s Eloisa to Abelard.

Hughes’ mother was of Wiltshire origin and he was born in that county, but his father was a Londoner working in an insurance office. Emerging from education with an interest in all the arts, Hughes had to earn his living as a secretary at the Board of Ordnance. His poetry often dealt with patriotic themes and was judiciously dedicated to political lords but did not obtain for him a sinecure until late in his life. In fact his literary ability was mediocre, but he retained the friendship of such leading Augustan writers as Joseph Addison, Richard Steele and Alexander Pope. He was in the company of all these as a contributor to The Spectator, and also wrote essays for several other periodicals of the day. In one on “The Inventory of a Beau” he describes a picture of himself as a young man about town wearing “a well trimmed blue suit, with scarlet stockings rolled above the knee, a large white peruke, and a flute half an ell long”. His portrait by Godfrey Kneller some two decades later is more restrained, except for the length of the wig.

As an amateur musician, Hughes mixed with composers and took part in the musical politics of the time, championing those who opposed over-dependence on the Italian language for singing. To prove his point he wrote many cantatas taking the form of recitative passages interspersed by sung airs. His first set of six “after the manner of the Italians” was prefaced by a defence of the use of English for such compositions, pleading that comprehension of the words adds to the pleasure, and that recitative provides variety. The cantatas were set by Johann Christoph Pepusch, for whom Hughes wrote many more, as well as an ode for the birthday of the Princess of Wales and the masque “Apollo and Daphne”. He also wrote cantatas for Johann Ernst Galliard, as well as the opera “Calypso and Telemachus”. This had an introduction that repeated much the same points as the earlier preface to the cantatas, with the addition of a vigorous commendation by Topham Foot asserting that, with the advent of “our own British Muse”,

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