Being in possession of a large fortune, and having a taste for literature, Hawkins bestowed a good deal of his leisure time to pursuits of this kind. He edited the complete works of Dr. Johnson, and made some contributions to Shakespearian criticism. His chief work was A General History of the Science and Practice of Music, 5 vols., 4to. This was an original work, coming into competition with Dr. Burney's great work on the same subject. The latter has been much the more popular of the two, being written in a more graceful style; but the work of Hawkins is regarded as extremely valuable for its accuracy.

SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS, 1723–1792, celebrated chiefly as a painter, is also known as an author by his Discourses on Painting, delivered before the Royal Academy. The Discourses are ably written, but the art-theories which they set forth have been called in question. Sir Joshua was, next to Vandyke, the greatest portrait painter of England. His historical pieces, however, are not so successful. In his manners Sir Joshua was extremely genial; he enjoyed throughout life a high degree of popularity, and accumulated a large fortune.

Horace Walpole.

Horace Walpole, 1717-1797, is one of the literary celebrities of the last century. Although he achieved no great work of his own, he is so mixed up with the works and the personal affairs of others who did achieve greatness, that no history of the period is complete which does not include him as one of the leading figures.

Career. Walpole was the youngest son of Sir Robert Walpole, and eventually succeeded his father in the title of Earl of Orford. After figuring for a while in politics, and holding for several years a seat in Parliament, he retired to private life. Purchasing a small estate near Twickenham, which he called "Strawberry Hill," he gave himself up to the decoration of the house and grounds and to the gratification of his whims. He had a private printing-press at Strawberry Hill, which he used in printing his own works and some others. The house itself he filled with odds and ends of all kinds, antique armor, books, engravings, and articles of vertu.

Character. -In his personal character Walpole decidedly affected the paradoxical. A royalist at heart, he professed to be republican, even hanging up in his study a fac-simile of the death-warrant of Charles I., with the title Major Charta. Ostensibly shunning court life, he was an eager collector of every scrap of court gossip. He professed aversion to being regarded as a man of letters, and yet he craved praise, and was unusually sensitive to criticism. It may be observed, however, that Macaulay's sketch of his life and character is palpably overdrawn. Miss Berry, who had every opportunity of knowing Walpole intimately, especially in the latter portion of his life, gives in her Memoirs a much more favorable estimate of his talents and character. According to her, Walpole was a true and amiable friend to those whom he really liked, and his taste as a collector was really remarkable.

Works. Walpole's works are not of great importance, being all more or less spoiled by dilettanteism. Among them are his Aedes Walpolians, or catalogue of his father's pictures, his Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors, his Catalogue of Engravers (handsomely illustrated), his Castle of Otranto, a wild romance which is commonly regarded as the parent of the Radcliffe and Lewis school of fiction, and the Mysterious Mother, a powerful but revolting drama much admired by Byron. Walpole's literary remains are much more important than the works published during his life. They consist of his Correspondence, first published complete in 1857, by Peter Cunningham, and his Memoirs of the last ten years of the reign of George II., and the first twelve of that of George III. Both letters and memoirs are alike in tone, spicy, clever, gossipy. They can scarcely be regarded as furnishing material for history, inasmuch as they are too one-sided and prejudiced. But they certainly give a good insight into the political, social and literary feuds of the time, and are, through their style and caustic humor, among the most entertaining personal records in the language.

John Wilkes.

John Wilkes, 1727-1797, one of the notorieties of English politics, is known to literature by his violent partisan writings in The North Briton.

Career. Wilkes was educated at the University of Leyden, where he acquired a life-long fondness for the classics. In 1749 he married an heiress, and was for a while the centre of an extensive social circle. But his dissipated habits and immorality led to a separation. He turned his attention to politics, was elected Sheriff of Buckinghamshire, and also returned to Parliament. In 1762 he founded The North Briton, in which he attacked Lord Bute's ministry unsparingly. No. 45 of the paper boldly charged the King with having uttered falsehood. His papers were seized and he himself was imprisoned in the Tower on a general warrant, but was released by Chief-Justice Pratt. Wilkes was expelled from the House of Commons, and was re-elected four times by the same constituency, but each time rejected by the House. He was then elected Sheriff of London, and finally admitted to the House in 1774. During all this stormy period, Wilkes was looked upon by his admirers as a political martyr. His success, in fact, was due to the blunders of the Government. His arrest on general warrant was clearly unconstitutional, and so also was his rejection by the House. Many were forced to side with him, on principles of abstract justice, who thoroughly mistrusted and despised him.

Conviction for Obscenity. While absent at one time in France, he was convicted of having published an obscene poem. It is doubtful whether Wilkes was really the author of this poem. The work was printed privately, was only begun, not finished, and, according to Wilkes's statement, not a copy of this fragment was ever distributed. In no legal sense, therefore, can he be said to have published the work. The copy on which the Government accusation rested was stolen from his office. In

looking back upon the entire Wilkes trouble it certainly seems that the English Government was bent upon stultifying itself.

Works. Wilkes merits some place in the history of English literature in virtue of his articles in The North Briton, and of his Collected Speeches, published by himself in 1786. His Letters to his Daughter was published in 1804, with a Sketch of his Life, and his General Correspondence in 1805. He possessed a sharp, incisive style, and unparalleled audacity. The chief interest of his writings, however, lies not so much in their intrinsic excellence as in the political tempest which they aroused.

"Wilkes had, till very lately, been known chiefly as one of the most profane, licentious, and agreeable rakes about town. He was a man of taste, reading, and engaging manners. His sprightly conversation was the delight of the green-rooms and taverns, and pleased even grave hearers when he was sufficiently under restraint to abstain from detailing the particulars of his amours and from breaking jests on the New Testament. His expensive debaucheries forced him to have recourse to the Jews. He was soon a ruined man, and determined to try his chance as a political adventurer. In Parliament he did not succeed. His speaking, though pert, was feeble, and by no means interested his hearers so much as to make them forget his face, which was so hideous that the caricaturists were forced, in their own despite, to flatter him. As a writer he made a better figure.”—Macaulay.

JAMES RALPH,

1762, was a native of Philadelphia, but went in 1724 to London in company with Franklin, and there led a somewhat irregular life as a political pamphleteer, dramatist, and poet.

Ralph espoused the cause of the Prince of Wales, was "bought off" by Walpole, and on the accession of George III. received a pension. The titles of his poetical pieces are the following: The Muse's Address to the King, an Ode; The Terror of Death, a Poem; Night, a Poem; Clarinda, or the Fair Libertine, a Poem; The Law of Liberty, a Poem; The Fashionable Lady, a Comedy; Fall of the Earl of Essex, a Tragedy; The Lawyer's Feast, a Farce; The Astrologer, a Comedy. Franklin tried to dissuade Ralph from attempting poetry, which was evidently not his vocation, but “he continued scribbling verses till Pope cured him." The dose which is supposed to have wrought this cure, was the following lines from the Dunciad:

"Silence, ye wolves, while Ralph to Cynthia howls,
And makes night hideous: answer him, ye owls."

The Groans of Germany, a political pamphlet, had a large sale, fifteen thousand copies.
The Case of Authors by Profession, or The Case Stated in regard to Booksellers,
the Stage, and the Public, was an essay of considerable merit and of sober sense.
Ralph wrote also A History of England during the Reigns of King William and Queen
Anne, and George I., which is commended by Fox.

ABRAHAM TUCKER, 1705–1774, was born in London, and studied at Oxford. He purchased a country-seat near Dorking, in 1727, and resided there in retirement till his death. He wrote several works, but is known by one only, The Light of Nature. It has passed through many editions, and is usually in several volumes. It is a metaphysical work, but is discursive and entertaining, and was greatly admired by Paley and Mackintosh, Paley acknowledging himself in

debted to Tucker for some of his best thoughts, and especially for his illustrations of abstract truth.

SOAME JENYNS, 1704-1787, educated at Cambridge, was for nearly forty years a member of Parliament. He was noted as a wit and conversationist, and was the author of several poems and a number of religious and political essays.

Jenyns's two most noted works are his Free Inquiry into the Origin of Evil, published in 1757, and his View of the Internal Evidence of the Christian Religion, in 1776. In the interval between these two works, Jenyus had been converted from scepticism, and the latter work was intended by the author to counteract the former. Neither can be said to have any permanent value. During the American Revolution Jenyns published a Tract on American Taxation, in which he defended the right and expediency of taxing the Colonies, and ridiculed the idea of an independent Parliament. His complete works, with a biography, were published in 1790, 4 vols., 8vo.

Kames.

Henry Home, Lord Kames, 1696–1782, has an honorable place in literature by his essay on the Elements of Criticism, which has a permanent value, and is one of the standard works on that subject.

Kames was a native of Berwickshire, Scotland. He studied law and was made Judge of the Court of Sessions, and, in 1763, one of the Lords of Justiciary. He published a number of legal treatises and pamphlets of value. Apart from these, his fame as a writer rests upon the work already named, The Elements of Criticism, which was published in 1762, and has run through fourteen or fifteen editions down to the present day. Although much in it has been discarded, the work is still freely used and approved.

"The Elements of Criticism, considered as the first systematical attempt to investi. gate the metaphysical principles of the fine arts, possesses, in spite of its numerous defects, both in point of taste and of philosophy, infinite merits, and will ever be regarded as a literary wonder by those who know how small a portion of his time it was possible for the author to allot to the composition of it, amidst the imperious and multifarious duties of a most active and useful life." — Dugald Stewart.

JAMES HARRIS, 1709-1780, is known as the author of Hermes, an ingenious work on Language and Grammar.

Harris was a nephew of Shaftesbury and a member of Parliament. He occupied various civil offices of high distinction. He was a man of great erudition, and was particularly versed in the Greek and Latin classics. His chief publications are the following: Hermes, or a Philosophical Inquiry concerning Language and Universai Grammar; The Spring, a Pastoral; Philosophical Arrangements; Philological Inqui

ries; Treatises on Art, Music, Painting, and Poetry, etc. Harris's Hermes is his best work, and is even yet often quoted.

DAVID FORDYCE, 1711-1751, was a native of Aberdeen, and a graduate of Marischal College, in which institution he was afterwards Professor of Moral Philosophy. He was drowned off the coast of Holland, on his return from a continental tour, in 1751, at the age of forty. He wrote Dialogues concerning Education, 2 vols. 8vo; Theodorus, a Dialogue concerning the Art of Preaching; Elements of Moral Philosophy; The Temple of Virtue, a Dream. JAMES FORDYCE, D. D., 1720-1796, was a brother of David Fordyce, and, like him, a native of Aberdeen and a graduate of Marischal College. He was minister to a dissenting congregation in London. He published, besides several Sermons and Poems, Addresses to Young Men; Character and Conduct of the Female Sex; Sermons to Young Women. The last is the one best known.

JOHN BROWN, D. D., 1716-1766, was a writer on theological and general subjects, whose works had an extensive circulation about the middle of the last century. His publications are the following: An Estimate of the Manners and Principles of the Times; Essays on Shaftesbury's Characteristics; Dissertation on Poetry and Music; Honor, a Poem; A Defence of Pitt. The reply to Shaftesbury was written at the suggestion of Pope and Warburton, and passed through many editions. The work first named passed through several editions in a little more than a year. Dr. Brown committed suicide in a fit of temporary insanity.

SIR JOHN HILL, M. D., 1716-1775, originally an apothecary, wrote many books, on almost all sorts of subjects, medicine, botany, natural philosophy, natural history, dramas, novels, etc. The Essays on Natural Philosophy and History are considered his best. He managed to quarrel with the Royal Society, with Garrick, and to make himself generally notorious. "A large volume might be written on the life and adventures of this extraordinary man, as affording a complete history of literary quackery, every branch of which he pursued with a greater contempt for character than perhaps any man in our time." - Chalmers's Biog. Dict.

JOSEPH SPENCE, 1699-1768, is now known almost exclusively by his Anecdotes.

Spence studied at Oxford, and took orders in the Church of England. He travelled on the continent as companion to the Duke of Dorset and the Duke of Newcastle. Upon his return he was appointed Professor of Modern History at Oxford, and subsequently prebendary of Durham Cathedral. Spence was the author of numerous works and essays, the most important of which are Polymetis, or an Inquiry into the Agreement between the Ancient Poets and the Ancient Artists, and an Essay on Pope's Translation of the Odyssey. Spence's valuable collection of Anecdotes of Books and Men was not published until 1820, although it had been previously used in manuscript by Warton, Johnson, and others.

Tyrwhitt.

Thomas Tyrwhitt, 1730-1786, a distinguished critic of the last century, has secured for himself a permanent place in English literature by his valuable labors in the elucidation of Chaucer.