JOHN, the son of a respectable citizen of London, was born in 1677, at Marlborough, in Wiltshire. He was educated in London, chiefly at n dissenting academy, where Isaac) Watts was one of hie fellow-pupils. Ilia natural turn for study was encouraged by the delicacy of his health, which mado his friends well pleased to obtain for him a small income in the public service. He held a clerk ship in the Ordnance-office, and was secretary to several commissions issued under the great seal for improving harbours. In 1717, too late to permit him to enjoy affluence long, he was appointed by Earl Cowper to be clerk to the commissions of the peace. At tho age of nineteen he had written a tragedy called 'Almasont, Queen of the Goths; which however was never played or published. Several occasional poems and translations, the earliest of which, in 1697, celebrated the peace of Ryswick, introduced him to the acquaintance of Addison, Pope, and other literary men, whose liking he was well qualified to secure by his good temper and want of pretension. When Addison's critical friends, on reading the first four acts of Cato,' had condemned it, Hughes dissented, and insisted on its being completed; and although the author afterwaida completed it himself, yet Hughes was in the first instance intrusted with that task. Hughes wrote a tragedy called
'The Siege of Damascus,' which is inserted in several modern collec tions, and merits its place for the excellence it possesses in language and in lofty and refined feeling. It was acted for the first time on Feb ruary 17th, 1720, and received much applause. The author that night lay on his death-bed; and be expired before morning. Hughes was skilled also in music, and was frequently employed to write poetical pieces for musical accompaniment Among his productions of this kind wero English operas on the Italian model. But his best claim to remembrance rests on his having been one of the moat frequent assistants of Addison and Steele in their periodical essays. He wrote some papers for the ' Tatler' and ' Onardian ; and to the 'Spectator' be contributed eleven numbers and a good many letters, being more than the quantity furnished by any other of the minor writers, except Tickell and Budget). Ho edited respectably the, works of Edmund Spencer, and translated Moliero'a Misanthrope; and Fontenelle'e 'Dialogues of the Dead.' The ' Letters of John Hughes, Esq.,' were published in 3 vols. 3773, with a preface containing some notice of Mr. Hughes by the editor, William Duncombe, Esq.