seduced into criminality. No wonder, then, that the voluptuous attractions of several objects, thus daily presented to me, should in time allure me into the paths of vice.

It was not long after I had begun to imitate the dress and mauners of the natives, and join their amusements, before Mulkaamair, the chief with whom I lodged, persuaded me to take a wife, a near relation of his. My conscience lou-lly cautioned me not to be guilty of the sin of colabiting with a woman without the sanction of marriage, and of taking a wife who was a heathen, and perfectly destitute of every mental, as well as religious endowment; who would most probably lead me still farther from the right way. But all these reasonings my evil inclinations soon taught me to refute or silence. "Mulkaamair was my chief friend, and regarded me with parental affection. I should gratify, honour, and in some measure, repay him for his kindnesses, by taking a relation of his for my wife; and thus also strengthen my interests with the rest of the natives, by forming an alliance with them." Pleased with these considerations, I consented. He sent for her she agreed, and came modestly dressed in her best apparel, at the head of a number of women; one of whom took her by the hard, and leading her to me, seated her by my side. She was a handsome girl, of the age of eighteen. Mulkaamair entertained a large company, assembled on the occasion, with a plenteous feast, and they danced and sung till a late hour.

Literary Life of Dr. Hawkesworth. From Dr. Drake's Essays on the Rambler, &c.]

John Hawkesworth was born in the year 1719; his parents were dissenters, and, in the early part of his life, he frequented the meeting of Mr. Bradbury, a celebrated preacher of his sect. He was intended for the profession of the law, and placed as a hired clerk with Mr. Harwood, an attorney in the Poultry. Soon disgusted, however, with his employment, he deserted it for the more precarious, though more pleasing occupation of literature.

In what mode, or at what school he was qualified for the pursuit which he had now adopted, is not known. Sir John Hawkins has affirmed, that he was a "man of fine parts, but no learning: his reading," he declares," had been irregular and desultory: the knowledge he had acquired, he by the help of a good memory retained, so that it was ready at every call; but on no subject had he ever formed any system. All of ethics that he knew, he had got from Pope's Essay on Man and Epistles; he had read the modern French writers, and more particularly the poets; and with the aid of Keill's Introduction, Chambers' Dictionary, and other such common books, had attained such an insight into phy sics, as enabled him to talk on the subject. In the more valuable branches of learning he was defi cient."

There is reason to think that this account does not do justice to the acquirements of Hawkesworth, and

that

that even at the age of twenty-five he had obtained no small reputation as a literary character; for at this period, namely, in the year 1744, he was engaged by the editor of the Gentleman's Magazine, to succeed Johnson, in the compilement of the parliamentary debates, then deemed a very important part of that interesting miscellany.

To Mr. Urban's pages he was for four years also a poetical contributor, under the signature of Greville; and of his poems in this work the following catalogue has been given by Mr. Duncombe. For 1746, the Devil Painter, a tale; the Chaise Percee; Epistle to the King of Prussia; Lines to the Rev. Mr. Layng, and to Dr. Warburton, -on a series of theological inquiries; a Thought from Marcus Antoninus, and the Smart. For 1747, the Accident; Ants' Philosophy; Death of Arachne; Chamout and Honorious; Origin of Doubt; Life, an ode; Lines to Hope; Winter, an ode; and the Experiment, a tale. For 1748, the Midsummier Wish; Solitude; the Two Doves, a fable; and Autumn. For 1749, Poverty Insulted; Region allotted to Old Maids; the Nymph at her Toilet; God is Love, and Chloe's Soliloquy.

Several of these little produetions, the occasional amusement of his leisure, are elegant and pleasing; but, like Johnson, the powers of his imagination are in a much higher degree displayed in his prose than in his verse.

The domestic circumstances of our author, at this period, are little known; and it is remarkable, that not one of his relations, or literary friends, has thought it necessary to preserve or record the events of

son as one.

The success of the Rambler, as soon as it was collected into volumes, the admiration which it excited in the breast of our author, and the wish, which he was known to entertain, of pursuing the footsteps of Johnson, induced him, in the year 1752, to project and commence a periodical paper, under the title of The Adventurer.

For a work of this kind Hawkesworth appears, in many respects, to have been well qualified. His literature, though by no means deep or accurate, was elegant and various; his style was polished; his imagination ardent; his morals were pure, and he possessed an intimate knowledge of the world. He did not, however, attempt the execution of his scheme, unassisted; his first coadjutor was Dr. Rich. Bathurst; and he soon after, in the view of this resource soon failing, obtained the aid of Johnson, and, through his influence, of Dr. Joseph Warton. The letter of our great moralist, on the occasion, as developing, in a considerable

considerable degree, the plan of the Adventurer, it will be proper, in this place, to insert.

To the Rev. Dr. Joseph Warton. "Dear Sir,

"I ought to have written to you before now; but I ought to do many things which I do not; nor can I, indeed, claim any merit from this letter; for being desired by the authors and proprietor of the Adventurer to look out for another hand, my thoughts necessarily fixed upon you, whose fund of literature will enable you to assist them, with very little interruption of your studies.

"They desire you to engage to furnish one paper a month, at two guineas a paper, which you may very readily perform. We have considered that a paper should consist of pieces of imagination, pictures of life, and disquisitions of literature. The part which depends on the imagination is very well supplied, as you will find when you read the paper; for descriptions of life, there is now a treaty almost made with an author and an authoress*; and the province of criticism and literature they are very desirous to assign to the commentator on Virgil.

"I hope this proposal will not be rejected, and that the next post will bring us your compliance. I speak as one of the fraternity, though I have no part in the paper beyond now and then a motto t; but two of the writers are my par

This treaty was never executed.

ticular friendst, and I hope the pleasure of seeing a third united to them will not be denied to, dear Sir,

"Your most obedient, "And most humble servant, "SAM. JOHNSON§."

The first of the Adventurers, on a folio sheet, was given to the world November the 7th, 1752; and the paper was continued every Tuesday and Saturday, until Saturday, the 9th of March, 1754, when it closed with No. 140, signed by Hawkesworth, in his capacity of Editor. The price of each essay was the same as of the Ramblers, and it was printed for J. Payne, at Pope's Head, in Paternoster Row.

The name, the design, the conduct, and the execution of seventy numbers of the Adventurer, are to be ascribed to Hawkesworth. The sale, during its circulation in separate papers, was very extensive; and when thrown into volumes, four copious editions passed through the press in little more than eight years.

The variety, indeed, the fancy, the taste, and practical morality, which the pages of this periodical paper exhibit, were such as to insure popularity; and it may be pronounced, as a whole, the most spirited and fascinating of the class to which it belongs.

To his essays in the Adventurer, Hawkesworth was, in fact, indebted for his fame, and, ultimately, his fortune; and, as they are the most

stable

stable basis of his reputation, a more mute inquiry into their merits will be necessary.

It is scarcely requisite to observe, that he formed his style on that of Dr. Johnson; he was not, however, a servile imitator; his composition has more ease and sweetness than the model possesses, and is consequently beiter adapted for a work, one great object of which is popularity. He has laid aside the sesquipedalia verba, aud, in a great measure, the monotonous arrangement and the cumbrous splendour of his prototype, preserving, at the same time, much of his harmony of cadence and vigour of construction. Of the following paragraphs, the first and second exhibit a style elegant, correct, nervous, and perspicuous, yet essentially different from the diction of the Rambler, while the third has been evidently formed in the Johnsonian mould.

"The dread of death bas seldom been found to intrude upon the cheerfulness, simplicity, and innocence of children; they gaze at a funeral procession with as much vacant curiosity as at any other show, and see the world change before them without the least sense of their own share in the vicissitude. lu youth, when all the appetites are strong, and every gratification is heightened by novelty, the mind resis's mournful impressions with a kind of elastic power, by which the signature that is forced upon it is immediately effaced: when this tumult first subsides, while the attachment of life is yet strong, and the mind begins to look forward, and concert measures by which those enjoyments may be secured which

it is solicitous to keep, or others obtained to atone for the disappointments that are past, then death starts up like a spectre, in all his terrors, the blood is chilled at his appearance, he is perceived to approach with a constant and irresistible pace, retreat is impossible, and resistance is vain.

"The terror and anguish which this image produces whenever it first rushes upon the mind, are always complicated with a sense of guilt and remorse; and generally produce some hasty and zealous purposes of more uniform virtue and more ardent devotion; of something that may secure us not only from the worm that never dies, and the fire that is never quenched, but from total mortality. and admit hope to the regions beyond the grave.

"Let those who still delay that which yet they believe to be of eternal moment, remember, that their motives to effect it will still grow weaker, and the difficulty of the work perpetually increase; to neglect it now, therefore, is a pledge that it will be neglected for ever; and if they are roused by this thought, let them instantly improve its influence; for even this thought, when it returns, will return with less power, and though it should rouse them now, will perhaps rouse them no more. But let them not confide in such virtue as can be practised without a struggle, and which interdicts the gratification of no passion but malice; nor adopts principles which could never be believed at the only time when they could be useful; like arguments which men sometimes form when they slumber, and the mo

ment

ment they awake discover to be absurd

One chief cause of the interest which the Adventurer has usually excited among its readers, has arisen from the inventive powers which our author has so copiously displayed. His oriental, allegoric, and domestic tales, form the most striking feature of the work, and have, by their number and merit, very honourably distinguished it from every preceding paper.

For the composition of eastern narrative, Hawkesworth was, in many respects, highly qualified; his imagination was uncommonly fertile and glowing, his language clear and brilliant, yet neither gaudy nor over-charged, and he has always taken care to render the moral prominent and impressive, Than his Amaruth, in Nos. 20, 21, and 22, no tale has been more generally admired; its instructive ten dency is so great, its imagery and incidents are so ingeniously appropriate, that few compilers for youth have omitted to avail themselves of the lesson.

The story of Hassan, in No. 32, inculcating the necessity of religion as the only source of content, and of Cosrou the Iman, in No. 38, proving that charity and mutual utility form our firmest basis of acceptance with the Deity, are wrought up with a spirit and force of colouring, which, while they delight the Fancy, powerfully fix upon the heart the value and the wisdom of the precept.

The histories of Nouradin and Almana, and of Almerine and Shehima, in Nos. 72, 73, and 103, and

• Adventurer, No. 130.

104, unfold, through the medium of a well-contrived series of incidents, the variety of human wishes, and the omnipotence of virtue; whilst in the vision of Almet the Dervise, in No. 114, the duties of resting our hopes upon eternity, and of considering this world as a probationary scene, are enforced in a manner equally novel and ingenious.

Of the oriental fictions of Hawkesworth, however, by many degrees the most splendid and sublimé, is the tale of Carazan, the Merchant of Bagdadt. The misery of utter solitude, the punishment appointed in this story to the vices of avarice and selfishness, was never before painted in colours so vivid and terrific. The subsequent passage, in which the dooni of Carazan and its consequences are described, no writer of eastern fable will probably ever surpass. The Deity thus addresses the trembling object of his indignation:—

"Carazan, thy worship has not been accepted, because it was not prompted by love of God; neither can thy righteousness be rewarded, because it was not produced by love of man for thy own sake only hast thou rendered to every man his due; and thou hast approached the Almighty only for thyself. Thou hast not looked up with gratitude, nor around thee with kind