are to be ascribed to Hawkesworth. The sale,' during its circulation in separate papers, was very extensive; and, when thrown into volumes, four copious editions passed through the press in little more than eight years.

The variety, indeed, the fancy, the taste, and practical morality, which the pages of this periodical paper exhibit, were such as to ensure popularity; and it may be pronounced, as a whole, the most spirited and fascinating of the class to which it belongs.

To his essays in the Adventurer Hawkes-` worth was, in fact, indebted for his fame, and, ultimately, his fortune; and, as they are the most stable basis of his reputation, a more minute inquiry into their merits will be necessary.

It is scarcely requisite to observe, that he formed his STYLE on that of Dr. Johnson; he was not, however, a servile imitator; his composition has more ease and sweetness than the model possesses, and is consequently better adapted for a work, one great object of which is popularity. He has laid aside the sesquipedalia verba, and, in a great measure, the monotonous arrangement and the cumbrous splendour of his prototype, preserving, at the same time, much of his harmony of cadence and vigour of construction. Of the following paragraphs the first and second

exhibit a style elegant, correct, nervous, and perspicuous, yet essentially different from the dietion of the Rambler, while the third has been evidently formed in the Johnsonian mould.

"The dread of death has seldom been found to intrude upon the cheerfulness, simplicity, and innocence of children; they gaze at a funeral procession with as much vacant curiosity as at any other show, and see the world change before them without the least sense of their own share in the vicissitude. In youth, when all the appetites are strong, and every gratification is heightened by novelty, the mind resists mournful impressions with a kind of elastic power, by which the signature that is forced upon it is immediately effaced: when this tumult first subsides, while the attachment of life is yet strong, and the mind begins to look forward, and concert measures by which those enjoyments may be secured which it is solicitous to keep, or others obtained to atone for the disappointments that are past, then death starts up like a spectre in all his terrors, the blood is chilled at his appearance, he is perceived to approach with a constant and irresistible pace, retreat is impossible, and resistance is vain..

"The terror and anguish which this image produces whenever it first rushes upon the mind, are

always complicated with a sense of guilt and remorse; and generally produce some hasty and zealous purposes of more uniform virtue and more ardent devotion; of something that may secure us not only from the worm that never dies and the fire that is not quenched, but from total mortality, and admit hope to the regions beyond the grave.

"Let those who still delay that which yet they believe to be of eternal moment, remember, that their motives to effect it will still grow weaker, and the difficulty of the work perpetually increase; to neglect it now, therefore, is a pledge that it will be neglected for ever: and if they are roused by this thought, let them instantly improve its influence; for even this thought, when it returns, will return with less power, and though it should rouse them now, will perhaps rouse them no more. But let them not confide in such virtue as can be practised without a struggle, and which interdicts the gratification of no passion but malice; nor adopts principles which could never be believed at the only time when they could be useful; like arguments which men sometimes form when they slumber, and the moment they awake discover to be absurd."*

* Adventurer, No. 130.

One chief cause of the interest which the Adventurer has usually excited among its readers, has arisen from the INVENTIVE POWERS whichour author has so copiously displayed. His oriental, allegoric and domestic, tales, form the: most striking feature of the work, and have, by their number and merit, very honourably distinguished it from every preceding paper.

For the composition of eastern narrative, Hawkesworth was, in many respects, highly qualified; his imagination was uncommonly fertile and glowing, his language clear and brilliant, yet neither gaudy nor over-charged, and he has always taken care to render the moral prominent and impressive. Than his Amurath, in Nos. 20, 21, and 22, no tale has been more generally admired; its instructive tendency is so great, its imagery and incidents are so ingeniously appropriate, that few compilers for youth have omitted to avail themselves of the lesson.

The story of Hassan, in No 32, inculcating the necessity of Religion as the only source of content, and of Cosrou the Iman, in N° 38, proving that charity and mutual utility form our firmest basis of acceptance with the Deity, are wrought up with a spirit and force of colouring which, while they delight the fancy, powerfully fix upon

the heart the value and the wisdom of the precept.

The histories of Nouradin and Almana, and of Almerine and Shelimah, in Nos. 72, 73, and 103, and 104, unfold, through the medium of a well contrived series of incidents, the variety of human wishes, and the Omnipotence of Virtue; whilst in the Vision of Almet the Dervise, in No 114, the duties of resting our hopes upon eternity, and of considering this world as a probationary scene, are enforced in a manner equally novel and inge nious.

**

Of the oriental fictions of Hawkesworth, however, by many degrees the most splendid and sublime, is the tale of Carazan the Merchant of Bagdad. The misery of utter solitude, the punishment appointed in this story to the vices. of avarice and selfishness, was never before painted in colours so vivid and terrific. The subsequent passage, in which the doom of Carazan and its consequences are described, no writer of eastern fable will probably ever surpass. The Deity thus addresses the trembling object of his indig

nation.

"CARAZAN, thy worship has not been accepted, because it was not prompted by LOVE OF GOD; neither can thy righteousness be rewarded, because it was not produced by Love of Man:

* No. 132.