Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 25.djvu/209

 embodied in a volume entitled ‘Footprints of Former Men in Far Cornwall,’ 1870, but his smaller contributions remain uncollected. Hawker's ballads, direct and simple in style, were composed in the true spirit of antiquity. That on ‘Trelawny,’ the most famous of all his compositions, was, according to his own account, suggested by the chorus, which he professed to regard as genuinely old:

But further evidence of the antiquity of these lines is wanting. The ballad was composed in Sir Beville's Walk in Stowe Wood, Morwenstow, in 1825, and was printed anonymously in the ‘Royal Devonport Telegraph and Plymouth Chronicle’ on 2 Sept. 1826, pt. iv. It attracted the notice of Davies Gilbert, who reprinted it at his private press at Eastbourne, and procured its insertion in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine,’ 1827, pt. ii. p. 409. Sir Walter Scott and Charles Dickens (in Household Words, 30 Oct. 1852) were among those who were deceived into the belief that it was an ancient ballad, but Dickens at a later date (ib. 20 Nov. 1852) assigned the authorship to Hawker. Shortly after Hawker's death the Rev. F. G. Lee, D.C.L., printed privately some commemorative verses, and in 1876 he issued a volume of ‘Memorials of the late Rev. R. S. Hawker,’ which was the expansion of an article from his pen that appeared in the ‘Morning Post’ 8 Sept. 1875. A second life, published in 1875 by the Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould, was subjected to very severe criticism in the ‘Athenæum’ of 26 March 1876. The result was the withdrawal of the volume and the appearance of a ‘new and revised edition.’ This in its turn was adversely criticised in the same review for 17 June 1876, Thirty copies of these critical notices were struck off for private circulation in 1876, signed with the initials W. M., i.e. William Maskell, a friend and neighbour of Hawker. Subsequent editions of Baring-Gould's ‘Memoir’ came out in 1876, 1886, and 1899. Hawker's library and pictures were sold on 29 Sept. 1875. His character is delineated as Canon Tremaine in Mortimer Collins's novel of ‘Sweet and Twenty.’



HAWKER, THOMAS (d. 1723?), portrait-painter, according to Vertue, came to live in Sir Peter Lely's house after Lely's death, in the hope of benefiting by the famous associations of the house. This hope was not realised. He is known by a full-length portrait of the Duke of Grafton, engraved in mezzotint by Beckett, a portrait of Titus Oates, engraved in mezzotint and published by R. Tompson, and a head of Sir Dudley North. One Hawker (called by Vertue, perhaps in error, Edward Hawker) is stated to have been admitted a poor knight of Windsor, and to have been living in 1721, over eighty years of age. 

HAWKESBURY,. [See, 1727–1808.]

HAWKESWORTH, JOHN, LL.D. (1715?–1773), miscellaneous writer, was of humble origin. In his youth he was ‘a hired clerk to one Harwood, an attorney in Grocers' Alley in the Poultry’ (, Life of Johnson, p. 221). He belonged to the congregation of [q. v.], till expelled for some irregularities (New Biog. Dict. 1798, vii. 358). In 1744 he is said to have succeeded Johnson as compiler of the parliamentary debates in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine,’ and from 1746 to 1749 he contributed a number of poetical pieces to that magazine, several of which were signed ‘Greville’ and ‘H. Greville’ (see a list in, British Essayists, vol. xix. p. xvi). The last number of Johnson's ‘Rambler’ appeared on 14 March 1752. Encouraged by its success, Hawkesworth, in company with Johnson, Bathurst, and Warton, started the ‘Adventurer,’ the first number of which was published on 7 Nov. 1752, and the last and 140th number on 9 March 1754. This series of essays was a great success, and has been frequently reprinted. Hawkesworth, who was the editor, and signed the last number with his full name, wrote some seventy or seventy-two of the papers. In 1755 he published the ‘Works of Jonathan Swift … accurately revised, in twelve volumes, adorned with copper plates, with some account of the Author's Life, and Notes Historical and Explanatory, by John Hawkesworth,’ London, 8vo, 1754–5. A quarto edition in six volumes was also published in 1755. To these editions