HAWKESWORTH, JOHN (c. 17151773)

This article appears in Volume V13, Page 98 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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HAWKESWORTH, JOHN (c. 17151773) , English miscellaneous writer, was born in London about 1715. He is said to have been clerk to an attorney, and was certainly self-educated. In 1744 he succeeded Samuel Johnson as compiler of the parliamentary debates for the

Gentleman

GENTLEMAN (from Lat. gentilis, " belonging to a race or gens," and " man "; Fr. gentilhomme, Span. gentil hombre, Ital. gentil huomo, in its
original
- ORIGINAL
and strict signification, a term denoting a man of good family, the Lat. generosus (its invariable transl

's Magazine, and from 1746 to 1749 he contributed poems signed Greville, or H. Greville, to that journal. In company with Johnson and others he started a periodical called The Adventurer, which ran to 140 numbers, of which 70 were from the pen of Hawkesworth himself. On account of what was regarded as its powerful defence of morality and religion, Hawkesworth was rewarded by the archbishop of Canterbury with the degree of LL.D. In 17541755 he published an edition (12 vols.) of Swift's works, with a life prefixed which Johnson praised in his Lives of the Poets. A larger edition (27 vols.) appeared in 17661779. He adapted Dryden's

Amphitryon

AMPHITRYON

for the Drury Lane stage in 1756, and Southerne's Oronooko in 1759. He wrote the libretto of an oratorio Zimri in 176o, and the next year Edgar and Emmeline: a Fairy Tale, was produced at Drury Lane. His Almoran and Hansel (2 vols., 1761) was first of all drafted as a play, and a tragedy founded on it by S. J.

Pratt

PRATT, ORSON (1811–1881)

, The

Fair

FAIR

Circassian (1781), met with some success. He was commissioned by the admiralty to edit Captain Cook's papers relative to his first voyage. For this

work

WORK

, An Account of the Voyages undertaken . . . for making discoveries in the Southern Hemisphere and performed by Commodore Byrone, Captain Wallis, Captain

Carteret

CARTERET, SIR GEORGE (c. 1610-1680)

and Captain Cook (from 1764 to 1771)

drawn

DRAWN

up from the

Journals

JOURNALS

. (3 vols., 1773), Hawkesworth is said to have received from the publishers the sum of L6000. His descriptions of the manners and customs of the

South

SOUTH
SOUTH, ROBERT (1634–1716)

Seas were, however, regarded by many critics as inexact and hurtful to the interests of morality, and the severity of their strictures is said to have hastened his death. which took place on the 16th of November 1773. Ile was burie4
at Bromley. Kent, where he and his wife had kept a school. Hawkesworth was a close imitator of Johnson both in style and thought, and was at one time on very friendly terms with him. It is said that he presumed on his success, and lost Johnson's friendship as early as 1756.

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