Author: St. John, John
Biography:
ST. JOHN, John (1746-93: ODNB)
The Hon. John St. John was the third son of the second Viscount St. John (also John St. John) and his wife Anne Furnese, wealthy and well-connected landowners. He was educated at Eton and Trinity College Oxford (he did not take a degree), went on to the Inns of Court, and was called to the bar in 1770. From 1773 to 1784 he was an MP; for most of that time he also held the office of surveyor of crown lands. His political writings consist of a report, Observations on the Land Revenue of the Crown (1787), and an attack on Paine's Rights of Man (1791), but his creative work for the theatre is more noteworthy. In 1789 he had two dramatic works staged at Drury Lane, the tragedy Mary, Queen of Scots and an "opera, in two acts" entitled The Island of St. Marguerite. The latter, which features "the Mask" or the Man in the Iron Mask and refers to the Bastille, was denied a license for performance until some political language had been removed, but once published it ran to four editions in 1789-90; it combines verse and prose dialogue but does not contain enough verse to qualify for inclusion in this bibliography. St. John never married. He died at his home in London and is buried in the churchyard of St. Mary at Lydiard Tregoze, Wiltshire. (ancestry.com 23 Aug. 2020; ODNB 23 Aug. 2020; eighteenthcenturydrama.amdigital.co.uk)