treat you to give it your protection and encouragement, which will greatly oblige, Rev. Sir, Your obedient humble Servant, JOHN PAYNE, Bookseller, at Pope's Head, in The first paper, written by Dr. Hawkesworth, is chiefly a play on the name Adventurer, which was probably his own choice. When re-published, he omitted a very long and not very perspicuous passage in the original, supplying its place by these words only:-" He who, at the approach of evil, betrays his trust or deserts his post, is branded with cowardice; a name, perhaps more reproachful than any other that does not imply much greater turpitude; he who patiently," &c. Dr. Hawkesworth was a man of considerable fame in his day, yet his friends have unaccountably neglected to preserve any memorials of his life. The following meagre account from the second edition of the Biographical Dictionary, is all we have upon record: He was "John Hawkesworth, an English writer of a very soft and pleasing cast, was born about the year 1719, though his epitaph, as we find it in the Gentleman's Magazine for August, 1781, makes him to have been born in 1715. brought up to a mechanical profession, that of a watchmaker, as is supposed. He was of the sect of Presbyterians, and a member of the celebrated Tom Bradbury's meeting, from which he was expelled for some irregularities. He afterwards devoted himself to literature, and became an author of considerable eminence. In the early part of life, his circumstances were rather confined. He resided some time at Bromley, in Kent, where his wife kept a boarding-school. He afterwards became known to a lady who had great property and interest in the East-India Company; and through her means was chosen a director of that body. As an author, his Adventurer is his capital work; the merits of which, if we mistake not, procured him the degree of LL.D. from Herring, Archbishop of Canterbury. When the design of compiling a narrative of the discoveries in the South Seas was on foot, he was recommended as a proper person to be employed on the occasion; but in truth he was not a proper person, nor did the performance answer expectation. Works of taste and elegance, where imagination and the passions were to be affected, were his province; not works of dry, cold, accurate narrative. However, he executed his task, and is said to have received for it the enormous sum of 6,000l. He died in 1773: some say of high living; others, of chagrin, from the ill reception of his Narrative; for he was a man of the keenest sensibility, and obnoxious to all the evils of such irritable natures." Then follows a copy of the inscription on his monument. On the authority of Sir John Hawkins, it appears he was not brought up to a mechanical profession. He was, in his youth, a hired clerk to one Harwood, an attorney in Grocer's Alley, in the Poultry. His first literary attempts were of the poetical kind, and published in the Gentleman's Magazine, with which he had a regular connection". In 1746, he wrote in that publication, under the name of Greville, the Devil Painter, a Tale; the Chaise Percée, from the French; Epistle to the King of Prussia; Lines to the Rev. Mr. Layng, who was at this time a writer in the Magazine, and to the celebrated Warburton; On a Series of Theological Inquiries; A Thought from Marcus Antoninus; The Smart. In 1747 he contributed, The Accident; Ants' Philosophy; Death of Arachné; Chamont and Honorius; Origin of Doubt; Life, an Ode; Lines to Hope; Winter, an Ode; The Experiment, a Tale:-in 1748, The Midsummer Wish; Solitude; The Two Doves, a Fable; Autumn:-in 1749, Poverty Insulted; Region allotted to Old Maids; the Nymph at her Toilette; God is Love; Cloe's Soliloquy. Some of these are signed H. Greville. Whether he wrote any prose compositions is doubtful. Mr. Duncombe, on whose authority the above list is given, says nothing of prose. In 1752-3-4, he was concerned with Drs. Johnson, Bathurst, and Warton, in the Adventurer, and from the merit of his papers acquired much reputation and many friends. At this time his wife kept a school for the education of young ladies; and his ambition was, to demonstrate, by his writings, how well qualified he was * Having succeeded Dr. Johnson in the office of Compiler of the Parliamentary Debates, about the year 1744. to superintend a seminary of that kind, and instil the purest principles of religion and morals, together with a useful knowledge of the inferior duties and relations of private life. But an incident happened, after the publication of the Adventurer, which gave a new turn to his ambition. Archbishop Herring, who had read his essays with much delight, and had satisfied himself that the character of the author would fully justify the honour intended, conferred on him the degree of Doctor of Civil Law. Lambeth degrees, however useful, are not esteemed proofs of the highest merit; yet our author was so elated by this honour, as to imagine that it opened a way for the profession of a Civilian, and having prepared himself by study, made an effort to be admitted a pleader in the Ecclesiastical Courts, but met with such opposition as to oblige him to desist. After this disappointment, however, he had the wisdom to apply himself to the concerns of his school, which was much encouraged, and became a source of considerable emolument. It is now painful to record that this degree, and the consequence he began to acquire in the world, alienated him from some of the most valuable of his early friends. Although he had, until this time, lived in habits of intimacy with Dr. Johnson, he appears to have withdrawn from him; and it is singular, that in all Mr. Boswell's narrative, there is not one instance of a meeting between Johnson and Hawkesworth. This seems, in some degree, to confirm Sir John * Hawkins, Hawkins' account, which states that "his success wrought no good effects upon his mind and conduct." Dr. Johnson made the same remark, and with a keen resentment of his behaviour; and Sir John thinks " he might use the same language to Hawkesworth himself, and also reproach him with the acceptance of an academical honour to which he could have no pretensions, and which Johnson, conceiving to be irregular, as many yet do, held in great contempt: thus much is certain, that soon after the attainment of it, the intimacy between them ceased "*. Dr. Johnson, indeed, was scrupulously delicate upon this point. He had a high veneration for an academical degree, and he had earned his own long before he appended its title to his name. He loved praise and even flattery; but would accept neither from those who had not a right to bestow it, or did not know how to bestow it gracefully. In 1756, at Garrick's desire, Dr. Hawkesworth altered the comedy of Amphitryon, or the Two Sosias, from Dryden, with Moliere's Dialogue, Prologue between Mercury and Night, introduced into the first scene, and the addition of some new music+. In 1760, he wrote "Zimri, an Oratorio," which was set to music by Mr. Stanley. It has been justly objected to this piece, that although it is borrowed from the Sacred Writings, and historical fact authorizes the catastrophe, yet the circumstances of a father (Zuran), and he a Hawkins, p. 312. + Biog. Dram. |