Such too was the fate of Reginald Scot, who, in an elaborate and curious volume,[131] if he could not stop the torrent of the popular superstitions of witchcraft, was the first, at least, to break and scatter the waves. It is a work which forms an epoch in the history of the human mind in our country; but the author had anticipated a very remote period of its enlargement. Scot, the apostle of humanity, and the legislator of reason, lived in retirement, yet persecuted by religious credulity and legal cruelty.
Selden, perhaps the most learned of our antiquaries, was often led, in his curious investigations, to disturb his own peace, by giving the result of his inquiries. James I. and the Court party were willing enough to extol his profound authorities and reasonings on topics which did not interfere with their system of arbitrary power; but they harassed and persecuted the author whom they would at other times eagerly quote as their advocate. Selden, in his “History of Tithes,” had alarmed the clergy by the intricacy of his inquiries. He pretends, however, to have only collected the opposite opinions of others, without delivering his own. The book was not only suppressed, but the great author was further disgraced by subscribing a gross recantation of all his learned investigations—and was compelled to receive in silence the insults of Courtly scholars, who had the hardihood to accuse him of plagiarism, and other literary treasons, which more sensibly hurt Selden than the recantation extorted from his hand by “the Lords of the High Commission Court.” James I. would not suffer him to reply to them. When the king desired Selden to show the right of the British Crown to the dominion of the sea, this learned author having made proper collections, Selden, angried at an imprisonment he had undergone, refused to publish the work. A great author like Selden degrades himself when any personal feeling, in literary disputes, places him on an equality with any king; the duty was to his country.—But Selden, alive to the call of rival genius, when Grotius published, in Holland, his Mare 199 liberum, gave the world his Mare clausum; when Selden had to encounter Grotius, and to proclaim to the universe “the Sovereignty of the Seas,” how contemptible to him appeared the mean persecutions of a crowned head, and how little his own meaner resentment!
To this subject the fate of Dr. Hawkesworth is somewhat allied. It is well known that this author, having distinguished himself by his pleasing compositions in the “Adventurer,” was chosen to draw up the narrative of Cook’s discoveries in the South Seas. The pictures of a new world, the description of new manners in an original state of society, and the incidents arising from an adventure which could find no parallel in the annals of mankind, but under the solitary genius of Columbus—all these were conceived to offer a history, to which the moral and contemplative powers of Hawkesworth only were equal. Our author’s fate, and that of his work, are known: he incurred all the danger of giving the result of his inquiries; he indulged his imagination till it burst into pruriency, and discussed moral theorems till he ceased to be moral. The shock it gave to the feelings of our author was fatal; and the error of a mind, intent on inquiries which, perhaps, he thought innocent, and which the world condemned as criminal, terminated in death itself. Hawkesworth was a vain man, and proud of having raised himself by his literary talents from his native obscurity: of no learning, he drew all his science from the Cyclopædia; and, I have heard, could not always have construed the Latin mottos of his own paper, which were furnished by Johnson; but his sensibility was abundant—and ere his work was given to the world, he felt those tremblings and those doubts which anticipated his fate. That he was in a state of mental agony respecting the reception of his opinions, and some other parts of his work, will, I think, be discovered in the following letter, hitherto unpublished. It was addressed, with his MSS., to a peer, to be examined before they were sent to the press—an occupation probably rather too serious for the noble critic:—
“London, March 2, 1761.
“I think myself happy to be permitted to put my MSS. into your Lordship’s hands, because, though it increases my anxiety and my fears, yet it will at least secure me from what I should think a far greater misfortune than any other that can attend my performance, the danger of addressing to 200 the King any sentiment, allusion, or opinion, that could make such an address improper. I have now the honour to submit the work to your Lordship, with the dedication; from which the duty I owe to his Majesty, and, if I may be permitted to add anything to that, the duty I owe to myself, have concurred to exclude the servile, extravagant, and indiscriminate adulation which has so often disgraced alike those by whom it has been given and received.
“I remain, &c. &c.”
This elegant epistle justly describes that delicacy in style which has been so rarely practised by an indiscriminate dedicator; and it not less feelingly touches on that “far greater misfortune than any other,” which finally overwhelmed the fortitude and intellect of this unhappy author!
A NATIONAL WORK WHICH COULD FIND NO PATRONAGE.
The author who is now before us is De Lolme!