(Sir John), was the youngest son of a man who, though descended from Sir John Hawkins the memorable admiral and treasurer of the navy in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, followed at first the occupation of a house-carpenter, which he afterwards exchanged for the profession of a surveyor and builder. He was born in the city of London on the 30th day of March 1719; and after having been sent first to one school, and afterwards to a second, where he acquired a tolerable knowledge of Latin, he went through a regular course of architecture and perspective, in order to fit him for his father's profession of a surveyor. He was, however, persuaded, by a near relation, to abandon the profession of his first choice, and to embrace that of the law; and was accordingly articled to Mr John Scott an attorney and solicitor in great practice. In this situation his time was too fully employed in the actual dispatch of business to permit him, without some extraordinary means, to acquire the necessary knowledge of his profession by reading and study; besides that, his matter is said to have been more anxious to render him a good copying clerk, by scrupulous attention to his hand-writing, than to qualify him by instruction to conduct business. To remedy this inconvenience, therefore, he abridged himself of his rest, and rising at four in the morning, found opportunity of reading all the necessary and most eminent law writers, and the works of our most celebrated authors on the subjects of verse and prose. By these means, before the expiration of his clerkship, he had rendered himself a very able lawyer, and had acquired a love for literature in general, but particularly for poetry and the polite arts; and the better to facilitate his improvement, he occasionally furnished to the Universal Spectator, the Westminster Journal, the Gentleman's Magazine, and other periodical publications of the time, essays and disquisitions on several subjects. The first of these is believed to have been an Essay on Swearing; but the exact time of its appearance, and the paper in which it was inserted, are both unknown. It was, however, re-published some years before his death (without his knowledge till he saw it in print) in one of the newspapers. His next production was an Essay on Honeysuckle, inserted in the Gentleman's Magazine for March 1739; and which occasioned a controversy, continued through the Magazines for several succeeding months, between him and a Mr Calamy, a defendant of the celebrated Dr Edmund Calamy, then a fellow-clerk with him.

About the year 1741, a club having been instituted by several amateurs of music, under the name of the Madrigal Society, to meet every Wednesday evening, and his clerkship being now out, he became a member of it, and continued to many years. Pursuing his inclination for music still farther, he became also a member of the Academy of Ancient Music, which used to meet every Thursday evening at the Crown and Anchor in the Strand, but since removed to Freemasons Hall; and of this he continued a member till a few years before its removal.

Impelled by his own taste for poetry, and excited to it by his friend Foster Webb's example, who had contributed to the Gentleman's Magazine many very elegant poetical compositions, he had, before this time, himself become an occasional contributor in the same kind, as well as to that as to some other publications. The earliest of his productions of this species, now known, is supposed to be a copy of verses "To Mr. George Stanley, occasioned by looking over some Compositions of his lately published," which bears date 19th February 1740, and was inserted in the Daily Advertiser for February 21, 1741; but, about the year 1742, he proposed to Mr. Stanley the project of publishing, in conjunction with him, fix cantatas for a voice and instruments, the words to be furnished by himself, and the music by Mr. Stanley. The proposal was accepted, the publication was to be at their joint expense, and for their mutual benefit; and accordingly, in 1742, six cantatas were thus published, the five first written by Mr. Hawkins, the fifth and last by Foster Webb; and these having succeeded beyond the most sanguine expectations of their authors, a second set of six more, written wholly by himself, was in like manner published a few months after, and succeeded equally well.

As these compositions, by being frequently performed at Vauxhall, Ranelagh, and other public places, and at many private concerts, had become favourite entertainments, many persons, finding the author also a modest well-informed young man of unexceptionable morals, were become desirous of his acquaintance. Among these was Mr. Hare of Limehouse, a brewer, who being himself a musical man, and having met him at Mr. Stanley's at musical parties, gave him an invitation to his house; and, to forward him in his profession, introduced him to a friend of his, Peter Storer of Highgate, Esq., which proved the means of making his fortune.

In the winter of the year 1749, Dr. then Mr. Johnson, was induced to institute a club to meet every Tuesday evening at the King's Head, in Ivy-lane, near St. Paul's. It consisted only of nine persons; and Mr. Hawkins was one of the first members. About this time, as it is supposed, finding his father's house, where he had hitherto resided, too small for the dispatch of his business now very much encroaching, he, in conjunction with Dr. Munckley, a physician, with whom he had contracted an intimacy, took a house in Clements-lane, Lombard-street. The ground floor was occupied by him as an office, and the first floor by the Doctor as his apartment. Here he continued till the beginning of 1753, when, on occasion of his marriage with Sidney, the youngest of Mr. Storer's daughters, who brought him a considerable fortune, he took a house in Austin Friars, near Broad-street, still continuing to follow his profession of an attorney.

Having received, on the death of Peter Storer, Esq., his wife's brother, in 1759, a very large addition to her fortune, he quitted business to Mr. Clark, afterwards Mr. Hawking, who had a short time before completed his clerkship under him, disposed of his house in Austin Friars, and purchased a house at Twickenham. Soon afterwards he bought the lease of one in Hatton-street, London, for a town residence.

From a very early period of his life he had entertained a strong love for the amusement of angling; and his affection for it, together with the vicinity of the river Thames, was undoubtedly his motive to a residence at this village. He had been long acquainted with Walton's Complete Angler; and had, by observation and experience, become himself a very able proficient in the art. Hearing, about this time, that Mr. Moses Browne proposed to publish a new edition of that work, and being himself in possession of some material particulars respecting Walton, he, by letter, made Mr. Browne an offer of writing, for his intended edition, Walton's Life. To this proposal no answer was returned, at least for some time; from which circumstance Mr. Hawkins concluded, as any one reasonably would, that his offer was not accepted; and, therefore, having also learnt that Mr. Browne meant not to publish the text as the author left it, but to modernize it, in order to file off the rust, as he called it, he wrote again to tell Mr. Browne that he understood his intention was to sophisticate the text, and that therefore he, Mr. Hawkins, would himself publish a correct edition. Such an edition, in 1760, he accordingly published in octavo with notes, adding to it a Life of Walton by himself, a Life of Cotton, the author of the second part, by the well-known Mr. Oldys; and a set of cuts designed by Wale, and engraved by Ryland.

His propensity to music, manifested by his becoming a member and frequenter of the several musical societies before-mentioned, and also by a regular concert at his house in Austin Friars, had led him, at the time that he was endeavouring to get together a good library of books, to be particularly solicitous for collecting the works of some of the best musical composers; and, among other acquisitions, it was his singular good fortune to become possessed by purchase of several of the most scarce and valuable theoretical treatises on the science anywhere extant, which had formerly been collected by Dr. Pepusch. With this stock of erudition, therefore, he, about this time, at the instance of some friends, set about procuring materials for a work then very much wanted, a History of the Science and Practice of Music, which he afterwards published.

At the recommendation of the well-known Paul Whitehead, to the Duke of Newcastle, then Lord Lieutenant for Middlesex, his name was, in 1761, inserted in the Commission of the Peace for that county; and having by the proper studies, and a sedulous attendance at the sessions, qualified himself for the office, he became an active and useful magistrate in the county. Observing, as he had frequent occasion to do in the course of his duty, the bad state of highways,

(a) When he first began to act, he formed a resolution of taking no fees, not even the legal and authorised ones, and pursued this method for some time, till he found that it was a temptation to litigation, and that every trifling ale-house quarrel produced an application for a warrant. To check this, therefore, he altered his mode, and received his due fees, but kept them separately in a purse; and at the end of every summer, before he left the country for the winter, delivered the whole amount to the clergyman of the parish, to be by him distributed among such of the poor as he judged fit. Hawkins, ways, and the great defect in the laws for amending and keeping them in repair, he set himself to revise the former statutes, and drew an act of parliament consolidating all the former ones, and adding such other regulations as were necessary. His sentiments on this subject he published in octavo, in 1763, under the title of "Observations on the State of Highways, and on the Laws for amending and keeping them in repair;" subjoining to them the draught of the act before mentioned; which bill being afterwards introduced into parliament, passed into a law, and is that under which all the highways in England are at this time kept repaired. Of this bill, it is but justice to add, that, in the experience of more than thirty years, it has never required a single amendment.

Johnson, and Sir Joshua, then Mr Reynolds, had, in the winter of this year 1763, projected the establishment of a club to meet every Monday evening at the Turk's Head, in Gerard-street; and, at Johnson's solicitation, Mr Hawkins became one of the first members.

An event of considerable importance engaged him, in the year 1764, to stand forth as the champion of the county of Middlesex, against a claim then for the first time set up, and so enormous in its amount as justly to excite resistance. The city of London finding it necessary to re-build the goal of Newgate, the expense of which, according to their own estimates, would amount to L40,000, had this year applied to parliament, by a bill brought into the House of Commons, in which, on a suggestion that the county prisoners removed to Newgate for a few days previous to their trials at the Old Bailey, were as two to one to the London prisoners constantly confined there, they endeavoured to throw the burden of two-thirds of the expense on the county, while they themselves proposed to contribute one third only. This attempt the magistrates for Middlesex thought it their duty to oppose; and accordingly a vigorous opposition to it was commenced and supported under the conduct of Mr Hawkins, who drew a petition against the bill, and a case of the county, which was printed and distributed amongst the members of both houses of parliament. It was the subject of a day's conversation in the House of Lords; and produced such an effect in the House of Commons, that the city, by its own members, moved for leave to withdraw the bill. The success of this opposition, and the abilities and spirit with which it was conducted, naturally attracted towards Mr Hawkins the attention of his fellow-magistrates; and the chairman of the quarter sessions dying not long after, he was, on the 19th day of September 1765, elected his successor.

In the year 1771, he quitted Twickenham, and sold his house there to Mr Vaillant; and, in the summer of the next year, for the purpose of obtaining, by searches in the Bodleian and other libraries, farther materials for his history of music, he made a journey to Oxford, carrying with him an engraver from London, to make drawings from the portraits in the music school.

On occasion of actual tumults or expected disturbances, he had more than once been called into service of great personal danger. When the riots at Brentford had arisen, during the time of the Middlesex election in the year 1768, he and some of his brethren attended to suppress them; and, in consequence of an expected riotous assembly of the journeymen Spital-fields weavers in Moorfields in 1769, the magistrates of Middlesex, and Hawkins at their head, with a party of guards, attended to oppose them; but the mob, on seeing them prepared, thought it prudent to disperse. In these and other instances, and particularly in his conduct as chairman, having given sufficient proof of his activity, resolution, abilities, integrity, and loyalty, he, on the 23rd of October 1772, received from his majesty the honour of knighthood.

In 1773, Dr Johnson and Mr Stevens published, in ten volumes octavo, their first joint edition of Shakespeare, to which Sir John Hawkins contributed such notes as are distinguished by his name, as he afterwards did a few more on the republication of it in 1778. An address to the king from the county of Middlesex, on occasion of the American war, having, in 1774, been judged expedient, and at his instance voted, he drew up such an address, and, together with two of his brethren, had, in the month of October in that year, the honour of presenting it.

After fifteen years labour, he, in 1776, published, in five volumes quarto, his General History of the Science and Practice of Music; which, in consequence of permission obtained in 1773, he dedicated to the king, and presented it to him at Buckingham-house on the 14th of November 1776, when he was honoured with an audience of considerable length both from the king and queen.

Not long after this publication, that is to say in November 1777, he was induced, by an attempt to rob his house, which, though unsuccessful, was made three different nights with the interval of one or two only between each attempt, to quit his house in Hatton-street; and, after a temporary residence for a short time in St James's Place, he took a lease of one, formerly inhabited by the famous admiral Vernon, in the street leading up to Queen Square, Westminster, and removed thither.

By this removal he became a constant attendant on Divine worship at the parish-church of St Margaret, Westminster; and having learnt, in December 1778, that the surveyor to the board of ordnance was, in defiance of a proviso in the lease under which they claimed, carrying up a building at the east end of the church, which was likely to obscure the beautiful painted glass window over the altar there, Sir John Hawkins, with the concurrence of some of the principal inhabitants, wrote to the surveyor, and compelled him to take down two feet of the wall, which he had already carried up above the fill of the window, and to slope off the roof of his building in such a manner, as that it is not only no injury, but, on the contrary, a defence to the window.

In the month of December 1783, Dr Johnson having discovered in himself symptoms of a dropsy, sent for Sir John Hawkins, and telling him the precarious state of his health, declared his desire of making a will, and requested him to be one of his executors. Sir John accepted the office; instructed the Doctor how to make his will; and on his death undertook to be his biographer, and the guardian of his fame, by publishing a complete edition of his works.

Not three months after the commencement of this undertaking, he met with the severest loss of almost any that a literary man can sustain, short of that of his friends or relations, in the destruction, by fire, of his library; consisting of a numerous and well chosen collection