John, LL.D., a distinguished litterateur of the eighteenth century, was born in London in 1715, or, as some say, in 1719. He was apprenticed first of all to a clockmaker, and afterwards to an attorney; but ended by adopting the profession of letters. In 1744 he succeeded Dr Johnson as redactor of the parliamentary debates for the Gentleman's Magazine. Eight years later he started, in company with Johnson, Bathurst, and Warton, a periodical which he called the Adventurer. This journal had a great success, and ran to 140 numbers, of which 70 were from the pen of Hawkesworth himself. It aimed at a high standard of moral teaching; and as it was believed to exercise a wholesome influence, its editor was rewarded by the Archbishop of Canterbury with the degree of LL.D. This Hawking distinction turned his head for a time, and his overbearing conduct alienated some of his best friends, Johnson in the number. The doctor was not unwilling to renounce his old ally, who had been honoured, as he believed, at his expense; and in truth Hawkesworth was nothing more than an imitator of Johnson, though he certainly was a good imitator. After producing some fairy tales and minor pieces, which had great success at Drury Lane, Hawkesworth published in 1761 an edition of Swift, with a life prefixed, to which Johnson bore most honourable testimony in his Lives of the Poets. This and other pieces of literary work which he executed gained him so much credit that he was selected to redact Captain Cook's papers relative to his first voyage. This work appeared in 1773, in 3 vols. 4to, and comprised a good narrative of the previous voyages of Byron, Wallis, and Carteret, with maps, charts, &c. The compiler received from government L.6000 as the reward of his labours, and the work was at first warmly received by the critics. It was soon discovered, however, that in his preface the editor had expressed some ideas apparently at variance with the established religion, especially on the subject of a special providence. Hawkesworth was now suspected of having aimed a secret blow at Christianity, and his simple and naive descriptions of savage life were represented as dangerous and immoral. The real truth, however, was, that his success had made him many enemies among the critics who were jealous of his rise; and the epigrams and pasquinades of which he became the subject were in reality a tribute to his genuine merits. It is said, though with no great show of reason, that the severity with which his work came at length to be treated shortened his days. He died in November 17, 1773, and was buried at Bromley in Kent, where a monument has been erected to his memory.