HANWAY. and unornamented, without the appearance of art or the affectation of singularity. Its greatest defect (say they) is a want of conciseness; its greatest beauty, an unaffected and genuine simplicity. He spoke French and Portuguese, and understood the Russian and modern Persian imperfectly. Latin he had been taught at school, but had not much occasion to cultivate it after he entered into life.
Mr Hanway, although never married himself, was yet an advocate for marriage, and recommended it to all young people. He thought it the most effectual restraint on licentiousness, and that an increase of unhappiness was by no means the natural consequence of an increase of domestic cares. A "local habitation," with the society of a sensible woman, the choice of unbiased affection, he esteemed as the most engaging persuasive to the love of order and economy; without which he thought life, in whatever station, must be disjointed, perturbed, and unhappy. The lady who engaged his first affection was uncommonly handsome; and it is probable he was prevented from marrying only by his failing to obtain her, and the unsettled manner in which the first years of his life were spent: for he loved the society of women; and in the parties which frequently breakfasted at his house, the ladies usually made the greater portion of the company.
In his transactions with the world, he was always open, candid, and sincere. Whatever he said might be depended on with implicit confidence. He adhered to the strict truth, even in the manner of his relation; and no brilliancy of thought could induce him to vary from the fact: but although so frank in his own proceedings, he had seen too much of life to be easily deceived by others; and he did not often place a confidence that was betrayed. He did not however, think the world so degenerate as is commonly imagined: "And if I did (he used to say), I would not let it appear, for nothing can tend so effectually to make a man wicked, or to keep him so, as a marked suspicion. Confidence is the reward of truth and fidelity, and these should never be exerted in vain." In his department of commissioner for visitation of the navy he was uncommonly assiduous and attentive; and kept the contractors and persons who had dealings with the office at a great distance. He would not even accept a hare or pheasant, or the smallest present, from any of them; and when any were sent him, he always returned them, not in a morose manner, as if he affected the excess of disinterestedness, but with some mild answer; such as, "Mr Hanway returns many thanks to Mr _____ for the present he intended him; but he has made it a rule not to accept any thing from any person engaged with the office: A rule which, whilst he acknowledges Mr _____'s good intentions, he hopes he will not expect him to break through." With all this goodness, Mr Hanway had a certain singularity of thought and manners, which was perhaps the consequence of his living the greater part of his life in foreign countries, and never having been married. He was not by any means an inattentive observer of the little forms of politeness: but as he had studied them in various realms, selecting those which he approved, his politeness differed from that of other people; and his conversation had an air of originality in it that was very pleasing.
Besides the works already mentioned in the course
of this article, Mr Hanway was the author of a great number of others; his different publications amounting all together to between sixty and seventy. A complete list of them is given by his biographer Mr Pugh, from whose grateful and well-written performance this article has been chiefly extracted.