of sin was weakened, the vices of the natives appeared less odious and crimiual. After a time I was induced to yield to their allurements, to imitate their manners, and to join them in their sins. Modesty, by degrees, lost with me its moralizing charm: and it was not long ere I disincumbered myself of my European garment, and contented myself with the native dress. The dress of the chiefs principally consisted of a piece of cloth, several yards in extent, wrapped round the body, and fastened by a peculiar kind of knot below the bosom, whence it hung down loose below the knee. This dress, by being tied close with a belt, was sufficiently long to throw the upper part over the shoulders. But however this was done at other times, it was always thrown off the shoulders whenever a chief came in sight. The women were not excused from this humiliating token of submission, as long as they were in the presence of a chief. A person who should neglect this would be instantly struck to the ground, as guilty of the greatest disrespect. This full dress, however, was too costly for the generality to procure, nor do the chiefs always wear it. The general dress is the jiggee. This is made of the gee leaves, which spring up from a large root, and are very broad and strong. These are shredded fine, and being thickly entwined in a belt, of the same kind, and fastened round the waist, they hang down to the midthigh like a full fringe. On festive occasions this is is a very common dress with the women as well as the men, especially in their public dances, when the only addition to this dress are encircling strings of flowers. There are none but can obtain the jiggee dress. The inferior classes, however, often wear only the maro, which is a belt about four or five inches broad, crossed, and fastened round the waist. And indeed, when they are employed in fishing, or any other active business, or when they go to war, this covering generally composes the whole of their dress. At this time, Shelly, one of my former companions, came to see me: he was struck with grief and surprise at my appearance; and seriously reproved me for it. My conscience seconded his reproofs. I acknowledged my error, but excused myself by a variety of empty pretexts, such as the warmth of the climate, the general custom of the natives; its convenience in a country, where, when clothes were wet, it was difficult to dry them again, and when worn out, impossible to renew them. Shelly heard my excuses with pity, but did not see into the long train of evils connected with this violation of propriety; nor knew that my conscience, while I spoke, condemned the excuses with which I had softened his severity. In truth, the various temptations to which, till now, I had been an entire stranger, were too pleasing to the inclinations, and suitable to the taste of a young man of twenty-five. Unhappily, as the companion of the chiefs, I was constantly exposed to temptation, being present at every alluring scene. He that indulges an evil imagination with amusements that tend to pollute the heart, will soon be M m 4 seduced seduced ipto criminality. No won der, then, that the, voluptuous at tractions 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 manners 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 couscience loudly 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 band, 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. ་་,་ 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 Jaw, and placed as a bixed 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 athrmed, that he was a “mau 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 Episties; 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 physics, as enabled him to talk on the subject. In the more valuable branches of learning he was deficicut.*" There is reason to think that this account does not do justice to the acquirements of Hawkesworth, and Hawkins's Life of Dr. Johnson, p.252. that that even at the age of twenty-five he had obtained no small reputation as a literaty character; for at this pe, riod, namely, in the year 1744, he was engaged by the editor of the Gentleman's Magazine, to succeed Johnson, in the complement 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; Auts' 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 Midsummer Wish; Solitude; the Two Doves, a fable; and Autunin. 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 productions, 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 his life. His pecuniary resources, during his early connection with the Gentleman's Magazine, are sup posed to have been very confined; nor were they probably immediately or much enlarged by his matrimonial connection; for his wife kept a boarding-school for young ladies, at Bromley, in Kent. The friendship of Johnson, however, was of essential service to him; through his medium he became acquainted with many emiment scholars; and it speaks highly in favour of his literary talents, that when the club in Ivy Lane was constituted, of the nine members which originally formed its circle, Hawkesworth was selected by Jolinson 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+; 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 Hawkes worth, 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 + Dr. Johnson had at this time only written one paper, and the profits were given to Dr. Bathurst. + Hawkesworth and Bathurst. Boswell's Johnson, Vol. I. p. 216, 217. stable stable basis of his reputation, a more minate 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 better adapted for a work, one great object of which is popularity. He has laid aside the sesquipedalia verba, and, in a great measure, the monotonous arrange ment 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, uervous, 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 has 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 resists 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 elernal 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 |