Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 19.djvu/228

Rh that though he possessed the amplest means of information, he has given the publick a work equally deficient in matter and in truth.

Although, after what I have said, to draw lord Orrery's character is hardly necessary; yet, as he once had a sort of literary reputation, the opinion delivered of him by the celebrated bishop of Cloyne may possibly be thought worth preserving. It was as follows: "My lord Orrery would be a man of genius if he knew how to set about it."

Dr. Hawkesworth is the next of Swift's biographers that occurs. For the task he undertook his talents were fully equal; and the period at which he wrote was friendly to impartiality. Swift had now been dead some years; and Hawkesworth was the first man from whom the publick could expect a totally unprejudiced account of his life. To Hawkesworth, except as a writer, Swift was wholly unknown. His mirth had never enlivened the hours, nor had his satire embittered the repose, of him who was now to be his biographer; circumstances these highly favourable to impartial investigation and candid decision. But alas! Hawkesworth contented himself with such materials as the life of Orrery and the apologies of Deane Swift and Dr. Delany afforded, adding nothing to this stock of information but a few scattered remarks collected by Johnson. Of his performance, therefore, I shall only observe, that its information is sometimes useful and amusing, and that its misrepresentations are never intentional.

Some years after the publication of Hawkesworth's Life, on the Collection of the British Poets, Johnson, the general and able biographer, reclaimed for his own use the materials he had originally cated