which he was so long imprisoned, to common earth, with all that is due to the merit of its late inhabitant *">

It may be useful to remark, that the moral character of Hughes forms a perfect contrast with that of Budgell; for while the former was distinguished for modesty, meekness, and contentment, the latter was equally remarkable for vanity, irascibility, and ambition.

If in their lives they were thus contrasted, in their deaths they were still more widely opposed; in the one, we behold the resignation, the hopes, the blessedness of christianity; in the other, the frenzy of despair, the contemner of religion, the slayer of himself!

Next to Budgell, Hughes contributed to the Tatler, Spectator, and Guardian, the greatest number of letters and papers. His assistance in the Tatler, however, was but trifling, compared with that which he afforded to its immediate suc cessor. On the authority of Mr. Duncombe +, two letters in the Tatler, signed Josiah Couplet, in NP 64, and Will Trusty, in N°73, and N° 113, have been ascribed to our author; to these the editors of the Tatler in 4 vols. octayo, 1797, think themselves warranted in adding the letter in *Vide Theatre, No 15.

+ Vide Hughes's Correspondence.

N° 66, signed Philanthropos; the letter in N° 70, dated September the 15th; the letter in N° 76, and that in No 194, containing an allegory from Spenser.

The epistolary correspondence of Hughes in the Tatler is chiefly employed in aiding the at tack of Steele on the formidable body of gamesters and sharpers, which at that time infested almost every part of the metropolis. N° 113,which includes the Inventory of a Beau, is rich in humour, and in its style a very happy imitation of the Addisonian manner. The following passage in this curious inventory having furnished the editors of the edition of 1797 with a very entertaining note on the variations of dress, which particularly alludes to our author, I shall transcribe it, together with the commentary. Among the articles, says Hughes, was

"A large glass-case, containing the linen and clothes of the deceased; among which are, two embroidered suits, a pocket perspective, a dozen pair of red-heeled shoes, three pair of red silk stockings, and an amber-headed cane."

"It is entertaining to observe," remark the editors, "the curious variations in articles of dress among people of fashion in our own and former times, The Rev. Mr. John Duncombe, the only son of Mr. Hughes's only sister, had a

picture of Mr. John Hughes, the author of this paper, when aged about twenty, in which he was represented in a full trimmed blue suit, with scarlet stockings rolled above his knee, a large white peruke, and a flute half an ell long. The ornament of black garters, buckled under the knee, is noted in N° 155, as an oddity in the wearer, who is held up to ridicule for persevering in an antiquated fashion. Shoulder-knots are mentioned as obsolete in N° 151. Mr. How'd'yecall's old fashioned buttons are censured in N°21; and Sir Will. Whitlocke is nick-named Will Shoestring in N° 38, for his singularity in wearing shoe-strings so long after the era of shoe-buckles, which commenced in the reign of Charles II, though ordinary people, and such as affected plainness in their dress, wore strings in their shoes after that period. About the end of the year 1787, shoe-strings came again into fashion, and are now so well established, that most young men of fashion have at least one pair of shoes with shoe-ties. In the interval while this fashion was struggling for acceptance, it was not uncommon to see a fine young gentleman with a buckle in one shoe and a string in the other*."

In the Spectator, twelve letters, eleven entire numbers, and part the first of N° 230, were, Tatler, vol. ii. p. 506,

On the Art

there is every reason to suppose, the composition of Hughes. Among the multitude of letters to be found in this popular paper, those of Hughes hold a very distinguished place for their ease, vivacity, and humour. The majority of them is employed on subjects relative to the Fair Sex, and treats their foibles, dress, and caprices, their beauty, virtues, and accomplishments, with sportive raillery or graceful admonition. of improving Beauty, he has given us two epistles in Nos. 33, and 53, and two in N° 66, on the Finebreeding of Ladies. N° 104 contains a letter on the Riding-habits of Ladies, from the tenor of which it would seem that this equestrian dress had been but just imported, and that the appearance of a belle in this new fashioned garb excited in the mind of the Spectator both astonishment and indignation. "These mixtures of dress," he observes, if they should be more frequent than they are at present, would look like turning our public assemblies into a general masquerade. The model of this Amazonian hunting-habit for ladies, was, as I take it, first imported from France, and well enough expresses the gaiety of a people who are taught to do any thing, so it be with an assurance; but I cannot help thinking it sits aukwardly yet on our English modesty. The

petticoat is a kind of incumbrance upon it, and if the Amazons should think fit to go on in this plunder of our sex's ornaments, they ought to add to their spoils, and complete their triumph over us, by wearing the breeches." At a period when the riding-habit has become as familiar as any other mode of female dress, my fair readers will probably smile at the reproof and apprehensions of the Spectator; time has ascertained its utility as a travelling dress, and, I believe, neither the chastity nor the modesty of the sex has suffered by the experiment. Could our amiable moralist revisit the light of day, he would have infinitely more reason to be shocked at the present Gallic fashion of going nearly naked, than at the warm covering of broad cloth usurped by the beauties of his day.

The eloquence of tears and fainting fits, when practised by a fascinating and artful woman, has furnished Hughes with the subject of a pleasing and humorous letter in N° 252; and in N° 306 he has inserted another, signed Parthenissa, on the loss of beauty and its consequences by the ravages of the small-pox. "The real person alluded to," says Mr. John Duncombe, "under the fictitious name of Parthenissa, was a Miss Rotherham, sister to the second lady of the sixth Lord