To this Pope returns: "To answer your question as to Mr. Hughes: what he wanted as to genius, he made up as an honest man; but he was of the class think him." you In Spence's Collections Pope is made to speak of him with still less respect, as having no claim to poetical reputation but from his tragedy.' 12 "Swift to Pope, Sept. 3, 1735.-SCOTT's Swift, 2nd ed. xviii. 366-7. 12 Hughes was a good, humble-spirited man, a great admirer of Mr. Addison, and but a poor writer, except his play, that is very well.-POPE: Spence by Singer, p. 302. ( 191 ) SHEFFIELD. Birth and self-education 1649-1720-21. Summoned to Parliament - Serves at sea against the Dutch-Made Colonel of the Grenadiers and K.G. — His conduct at the Revolution Favours Lord Oxford's Administration His three wives - Death and burial in Westminster Abbey Works and Character. JOHN SHEFFIELD, descended from a long series of illustrious ancestors, was born in 1649, the son of Edmund [second] Earl of Mulgrave, who died 1658.1 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 The poet was the great-grandson of the first Earl of Mulgrave, K.G., who distinguished himself at sea against the Spanish Armada, and dying October, 1646, in his eighty-third year, was buried at Hammersmith, where a monument erected to his memory by his widow is still to be seen. The mother of the poet was Elizabeth Cranfield, daughter of Lionel Cranfield, Earl of Middlesex, by his first wife. The mother of Charles, Earl of Dorset, the poet, was Frances Cranfield, daughter of the same nobleman by a second wife. daughter, 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: "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 may be sometimes avoided, even as it flies, by changing one's ground a little ; for, when the wind sometimes blew away the smoke, it was so clear a sunshiny day, that we could easily perceive the bullets (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 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 Katherine, 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 [23 April, 1674] 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 stayed only a short time. Being by the Duke of Monmouth opposed in his pretensions to the first troop of foot 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. 2 In every edition of these Lives' it is sister. 3 Johnson had written horse-guards; but it was Colonel Russell's regiment (now the Grenadiers) which Sheffield sought. |
