John Hawkesworth

John Hawkesworth (baptized 28 October 1720 - 17 November 1773) was an English poet and miscellaneous writer.

John Hawksworth (1720-1773). Courtesy Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive.

Life

Hawkesworth was born in London about 1715. He is said to have been a clerk to an attorney, and was certainly self-educated.

At the beginning of his career he was an intimate friend of Samuel Johnson, and was a member of the Rambler Club, which met weekly at the King's Head in Ivy Lane. In 1744 he succeeded Johnson as compiler of the parliamentary debates for the Gentleman'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.

In 1754-1755 he published an edition (12 volumes) of Swift’s works, prefixing a "Life" which Johnson praised in his Lives of the Poets. A larger edition (27 volumes) appeared in 1766-1779.

Hawkesworth was a close imitator of Johnson both in style and thought, and was for some 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.

He adapted Dryden’s Amphitryon for the Drury Lane stage in 1756, and Southerne’s Oronooko in 1759. He wrote the libretto of an oratorio Zimri in 1760, and the next year Edgar and Emmeline: A fairy tale was produced at Drury Lane. His Almoran and Hamet (2 vols., 1761) was originally drafted as a play, and a tragedy founded on it by S.J. Pratt, The Fair Circassian (1781), met with some success.

He was commissioned by the admiralty to edit Captain Cook’s papers relative to his 1st voyage. For this work, An Account of the Voyages undertaken ... for making discoveries in the Southern Hemisphere and performed by Commodore Byrone, Captain Wallis, Captain Carteret and Captain Cook (from 1764 to 1771) drawn up from the Journals ... (3 vols., 1773), Hawkesworth is said to have received from the publishers the sum of £6000. His descriptions of the manners and customs of the South 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.

Hawkesworth was appointed a director of the East India Company in April 1773, but took no active part in their proceedings. The attacks made upon ‘the Voyages’ in the newspapers and the periodical press preyed greatly on his mind. He was seized with low fever, and died on 16 Novwmvwe 1773 at the house of his friend Dr. Grant in Lime Street, aged 58, "out of luck not to have died a twelvemonth ago" According to Malone he was "supposed to have put an end to his life by intentionally taking an immoderate dose of opium". He was buried at Bromley, Kent, where he and his wife had kept a school.

Writing

Hawkesworth had little learning, but considerable literary talent. So successful was he in the imitation of Johnson's style that Catherine Talbot declared that she discerned Dr. Johnson ‘through all the papers that are not marked A, as evidently as if I saw him through the keyhole with the pen in his hand."

Recognition

Archbishop Herring conferred upon him, on 4 December 1756, the Lambeth degree of LL.D. in consideration of his literary talents.

He was buried at Bromley in Kent, where a monument was erected in the church to his memory.

7 of his poems were included in Robert Dodsley's Collection of Poems in Six Volumes; by several hands.

Publications

Plays

• The Fall of Egypt: An oratorio. London: Condell, 1774.
• Edgar and Emmeline: A fairy tale. London: W. Oxlade, 1777.

Novels

• Almoran and Hamet: An oriental tale. London: C. Cooke, 1794.

Edited

• An Account of the Voyages Undertaken by the Order of His Present Majesty, for Making Discoveries in the Southern Hemisphere. London: W. Strahan / T. Cadell, 1773.
• The Adventurer (periodical edited by John Hawkesworth, Samuel Johnson, & Joseph Warton). London: H.G. Bohn, 1863
  • (edited by Donald D Eddy). New York: Garland, 1978.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

See also

• List of British poets

References

• John L. Abbott (1970). "John Hawkesworth: Friend of Samuel Johnson and Editor of Captain Cook's Voyages and of the Gentleman's Magazine". Eighteenth-Century Studies 3 (3): 339–350. doi:10.2307/2737875. 
•  Barker, George Russell Fisher (1891) "Hawkesworth, John" in Stephen, Leslie; Lee, Sidney Dictionary of National Biography 25 London: Smith, Elder, pp. 203-205  Wikisource, Web, June 17, 2020.
•  Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). "Hawkesworth, John". Encyclopædia Britannica. 13 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 97-98.  Wikisource, Web, June 17, 2020.
• Hawkesworth, John; Byron, John; Wallis, Samuel; Carteret, Philip; Cook, James; Banks, Joseph (1773), An account of the voyages undertaken by the order of His present Majesty for making discoveries in the Southern Hemisphere, and successively performed by Commodore Byron, Captain Wallis, Captain Carteret, and Captain Cook, in the Dolphin, the Swallow, and the Endeavour drawn up from the journals which were kept by the several commanders, and from the papers of Joseph Banks, esq, London Printed for W. Strahan and T. Cadell , Volume I, Volume II-III

External links

Poems

• 3 poems by Hawkesworth: "Autumn: An ode,"The Midsummer Wish," "Winter: An ode"
• John Hawkesworth at the Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive (7 poems)

Books

• Works by John Hawkesworth at Project Gutenberg
• John Hawkesworth at Amazon.com

About

• John Hawkesworth in the Encyclopædia Britannica
• "Dr. Johnson and Dr. Hawkesworth: A literary friendship" at the Johnson Society

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, the Dictionary of National Biography (edited by Leslie Stephen & Sidney Lee). London: Smith, Elder, 1885-1900. Original article is at: *Hawkesworth, John
 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, the 1911 Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. Original article is at Hawkesworth, John