and this exclamation burst from me with all the vehemence of desire: 'O! that I had been doomed for ever to the common receptacle of im penitence and guilt! there society would have alleviated the torment of despair, and the rage of fire could not have excluded the comfort of light. Or if I had been condemned to reside in a comet, that would return but once in a thousand years to the regions of light and life, the hope of these periods, however distant, would cheer me in the dread interval of cold and darkness, and the vicissitude would divide eternity into time. While this thought passed over my mind, I lost sight of the remotest star, and the last glimmering of light was quenched in utter darkness. The agonies of despair every moment increased, as every moment augmented my distance from the last habitable world. I reflected with intolerable anguish, that when ten thousand thousand years had carried me beyond the reach of all but that POWER who fills infinitude, I should still look forward into an immense abyss of darkness, through which I should still drive without succour and without society, farther and farther still, for ever and for ever." All the Allegories in the Adventurer are the product of our author's pen; these constitute, however, if we except an allegorical letter from To-Day, but three; viz. The Influence of the Town on Theatric Exhibition, in N° 26; The Origin of Cunning, in N° 31; and Honour Founded on Virtue, in No. 61. A fancy playful and exuberant may be discerned in these pieces, but they possess not, either in style or imagery, the glow and richness of his eastern fictions. In the conduct of his Domestic Tales the genius of Hawkesworth appears again to great advantage; they indicate his possession not only of a powerful mastery over the passions, but of no common knowledge of life, of manners, and of the human heart. The History of Melissa, in Nos. 7 and 8, is a pathetic and interesting example of the soothing hope and consolation that await integrity of conduct, though under the pressure of poignant distress. The wretchedness and ruin so frequently attendant on infidelity are pointedly illustrated in the story of Opsinous ;* and the fatal effects of deviations from truth, however slight, or apparently venial, receive a striking demonstration from the narrative of Charlotte and Maria.t The injury which society has suffered from the long prevailing, and increasing, practice of duelling, has often been a subject of regret; and many efforts have been made, though hitherto in *Nos. 12, 13, 14. + Nos. 54, 55, 56. * vain, to diminish or suppress a custom so pernicious. To contribute his aid to the efforts of those who have reprobated such a violation of the public law, Hawkesworth has written his story of Eugenio, which is calculated, by its moral and pathetic appeal, strongly to impress the mind in favour of the abolition of a usage that is undoubtedly the offspring of a barbarous age, and which has entailed upon mankind misery, so incalculable. As a preventive of debauchery and its destructive consequences, the Life of Agamus and his Daughter may be confidently recommended to every reader. It is a detail of which, in the luxury and dissipation of a large metropolis, there are, we have reason to apprehend, numerous counterparts. To expose the folly of wanton rudeness, and indiscriminate familiarity; to shew the danger of assuming the appearance of evil, though for purposes apparently beneficial, and to display the dreadful result of fashionable levities, form the purport of the narratives of Abulus,‡ of Desdemona,§ and of Flavilla. They are constructed, in point of incident, with much ingenuity; curiosity *Nos. 64, 65, 66, 70. + Nos. 86. 134, 135, 136. + No. 112. Nos. 123, 12, 125. is kept alive, and the dénoûment is effected with every requisite probability. Still further to diversify the pages of the Adventurer, our author has interspersed several papers, the chief characteristic of which is HUMOUR; a humour, however, which is rather solemn and ironical than light and sportive. Of the essays in this province, which are the product of his pen, we shall enumerate eight as peculiarly entertaining; N° 5, The Transmigrations of a Flea; N° 15 and 27, On Quack Advertisements ; N° 17, Story of Mr. Friendly and his Nephew; N° 52, Distresses of an Author invited to read his Play; N° 98, Account of Tim Wildgoose; N° 100, Gradation from a Greenhorn to a Blood, and N° 121, The Adventures of a Louse. It is probable, that to a passage in Johnson's Life of Gay we are indebted for the ludicrous distresses in N° 52; at least, one of the circumstances of the tale actually occurred to that poet, when requested to read his tragedy, entitled, The Captives, to the Princess of Wales. "When the hour came," records his biographer, “ he saw the princess and her ladies all in expectation; and advancing with reverènce, too great for any other attention, stumbled at a stool, and, falling forwards, threw down a weighty japan screen. The princess started, the ladies screamed, and poor 66 Gay, after all the disturbance, was still to read his play." Scholastic bashfulness had been the subject of an excellent paper in Johnson's Rambler, and, since the Adventurer, has again formed the topic of an essay in N° 22 of Repton's Variety.t If we advert to the MORAL TENDENCY of the Essays of Hawkesworth, we shall find them uniformly subservient to the best interests of virtue and religion. Every fiction which he has drawn involves the illustration of some important duty, or lays bare the pernicious consequences of some alluring vice. Even incidents which appear to possess a peculiar individuality, are rendered, by the dextrous management of our author, accessory to the purposes of universal monition. As instances, however, of those numbers of the Adventurer which, dismissing the attractions of scenic art, are strictly didactic, we may mention, as singularly worthy of notice, N° 10, illustrative of the enquiry How far Happiness and Misery are the necessary effects of Virtue and Vice; No 28, On the Positive Duties of Religion, as influencing moral conduct; No 46, On Detraction and Treachery; N° 48, On the Precept to Love our Enemies; N° 82, On the Production of Personal Beauty by moral sentiment; and Murphy's edition, vol. 10, p. 241. + No. 157. VOL. V. C Published in 1788. |