Author: St. John, Arthur
Biography:
ST. JOHN, Arthur (fl 1826)
The Weft of the Wye (1826) had two reviews, each quoting long passages from the poem. They were not kind. GM, beginning with the observation “This is a curious Poem,” objected first of all to the fact that it has almost nothing to do with the Wye itself and then to the writer’s representation of Wales as a semi-barbarous state. The Literary Chronicle called it “the most despicable attempts at verse-spinning, that we ever laughed at.” The only newspaper references to St. John are advertisements for the poem. Public records have failed to turn up any documents about a person of exactly this name before 1824 (and that is a birth record) so it is quite possible that it is a pen-name. No other publications are attached to it. (ancestry.com 22 Nov. 2024; findmypast.com 22 Nov. 2024; GM 96 [Oct. 1826], 338-9; Literary Chronicle 9 Sept. 1826, 563)