John Hughes (poet)

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.

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".

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.

He also translated Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle's Dialogues of the Dead (1708),[7] a work that a century later was to serve as the model for Landor's Imaginary Conversations.

Its popularity can partly be explained by its having served as the basis for Pope's "Eloisa to Abelard", and that poem was eventually added to Hughes work in later editions.