The sincere satisfaction that Dr. Burney had experienced in having
influenced the nomination of Dr. Hawkesworth to be editor of the first
voyage of Captain Cooke round the world, together with the revisal and
arrangement of the voyages of Captain Wallace and Admiral Byron, was
soon overcast by sorrow, through circumstances as impossible to have
foreseen as not to lament.
Dr. Hawkesworth, though already in a delicate state of health, was
so highly animated by his election to this office, and with the vast
emolument which, with scarcely any labour, promised to give the dignity
of ease and comfort to the rest of his life; that he performed his
task, and finished the narratory compilation, with a rapidity of
pleasure, resulting from a promise of future independence, that filled
him with kind gratitude to Dr. Burney; and seemed to open his heart,
temper, and manners, to the most cordial feelings of happiness.
But the greatness of his recompense for the smallness of his trouble,
immediately disposed all his colleagues in the road of renown to
censure; and all his competitors in that of profit, to jealousy and
ill-will. Unfortunately, in his Introduction to the Voyages, he touched
upon some controversial points of religious persuasion, which proved
a fatal opening to malignity for the enemies of his success; and
other enemies, so upright was the man, it is probable he had none.
His reasoning here, unhappily, was seized upon with avidity by his
infuriated enviers; and the six thousand pounds which flowed into
his coffers, brought six millions of pungent stings to his peace, by
arraigning his principles.
A war so ungenial to his placid nature, and hitherto honoured life,
breaking forth, with the offensive enmity of assumed superior piety,
in calumnious assertions, that strove to blacken the purity of his
faith and doctrine; occurring at the moment when he had thought
all his worldly cares blown away, to be succeeded by soft serenity
and easy affluence; made the attack so unexpected, that its shock
was enervating; and his wealth lost its charms, from a trembling
susceptibility that detached him from every pleasure it could
procure—save that of a now baneful leisure for framing answers to his
traducers.
In his last visit, as it proved, to Queen-Square, where he dined and
spent the evening, Dr. Burney was forcibly struck with concern at
sight of the evident, though uncomplaining invalid; so changed, thin,
and livid was his appearance.
He conversed freely upon the subject of his book, and the abuse which
it had heaped upon him, with the Doctor; who strongly exhorted him to
repel such assaulters with the contempt that they deserved: adding,
“They are palpably the offsprings of envy at your success. Were you to
become a bankrupt, they would all turn to panegyrists; but now, there
is hardly a needy man in the kingdom, who has ever held a pen in his
hand for a moment, who, in pondering upon the six thousand pounds, does
not think he could have done the work better.”
Dr. Hawkesworth said that he had not yet made any answer to the torrent
of invective poured upon him, except to Dalrymple, who had attacked
him by name; for a law-suit was then impending upon Parkinson’s
publication, and he would write nothing that might seem meant to
influence justice: but when that law-suit, by whatever result, should
be decided, he would bring out a full and general reply to all the
invidious aspersions that so cruelly and wantonly had been cast upon
him, since the publication of the Voyages.
He then further, and confidentially, opened to Dr. Burney upon his past
life and situation: “Every thing that I possess,” he cried, “I have
earned by the most elaborate industry, except this last six thousand
pounds! I had no education, and no advantage but such as I sedulously
worked to obtain for myself; but I preserved my reputation and my
character as unblemished as my principles—till this last year!”
Rallying a little then, from a depression which he saw was becoming
contagious, he generously changed the subject to the History of Music;
and begged to be acquainted with its progress; and to learn something
of its method, manner, and meaning; frankly avowing an utter ignorance
of the capabilities, or materials, that such a work demanded.
Dr. Burney read to him the dissertation,—then but roughly
sketched,—on the Music of the Ancients, by which the History opens:
and Dr. Hawkesworth, confessing its subject to be wholly new to him,
warmly declared that he found its treatment extremely entertaining, as
well as instructive.
After a visit, long, and deeply interesting, he left his friend very
anxious about his health, and very impatient for his promised pamphlet:
but, while still waiting, with strong solicitude, the appearance of a
vindication that might tranquillize the author’s offended sensibility,
the melancholy tidings arrived, that a slow fever had robbed the
invalid of sleep and of appetite; and had so fastened upon his
shattered nerves, that, after lingering a week or two, he fell a prey
to incurable atrophy; and sunk to his last earthly rest exactly a month
after the visit to Dr. Burney, the account of which has been related.
Had the health of Dr. Hawkesworth been more sound, he might have turned
with cold disdain from the outrages of mortified slanderers; or have
scoffed the impotent rage of combatants whom he had had the ability to
distance:—but, who shall venture to say where begins, and where ends,
the complicate reciprocity of influence which involves the corporeal
with the intellectual part of our being? Dr. Hawkesworth foresaw not
the danger, to a constitution already, and perhaps natively, fragile,
of yielding to the agitating effects of resentful vexation. He brooded,
therefore, unresistingly, over the injustice of which he was the
victim; instead of struggling to master it by the only means through
which it is conquerable, namely, a calm and determined silence, that
would have committed his justification to personal character;—a
still, but intrepid champion, against which falsehood never ultimately
prevails.