founded his celebrated work on the General History of the Science and Practice of Music, in 5 vols. (republished in 2 vols., 1876). It was brought out in 1776, the same year which witnessed the appearance of the first volume of Burney’s work on the same subject. The relative merits of the two works were eagerly discussed by contemporary critics. Burney no doubt is infinitely superior as a literary man, and his work accordingly comes much nearer the idea of a systematic treatise on the subject than Hawkins’s, which is essentially a collection of rare and valuable pieces of music with a more or less continuous commentary. But by rescuing these from oblivion Hawkins has given a permanent value to his work. Of Hawkins’s literary efforts apart from music it will be sufficient to mention his occasional contributions to the Gentleman’s Magazine, his edition (1760) of the Complete Angler (1787) and his biography of Dr Johnson, with whom he was intimately acquainted. He was one of the original members of the Ivy Lane Club, and ultimately became one of Dr Johnson’s executors. If there were any doubt as to his intimacy with Johnson, it would be settled by the slighting way in which Boswell refers to him. Speaking of the Ivy Lane Club, he mentions amongst the members “Mr John Hawkins, an attorney,” and adds the following footnote, which at the same time may serve as a summary of the remaining facts of Hawkins’s life: “He was for several years chairman of the Middlesex justices, and upon presenting an address to the king accepted the usual offer of knighthood (1772). He is the author of a History of Music in five volumes in quarto. By assiduous attendance upon Johnson in his last illness he obtained the office of one of his executors—in consequence of which the booksellers of London employed him to publish an edition of Dr Johnson’s works and to write his life.” Sir John Hawkins died on the 21st of May 1789, and was buried in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey.
HAWKINS, or Hawkyns, SIR RICHARD (c. 1562–1622),
British seaman, was the only son of Admiral Sir John Hawkins
(q.v.) by his first marriage. He was from his earliest days
familiar with ships and the sea, and in 1582 he accompanied
his uncle, William Hawkins, to the West Indies. In 1585 he was
captain of a galliot in Drake’s expedition to the Spanish main,
in 1588 he commanded a queen’s ship against the Armada, and in
1590 served with his father’s expedition to the coast of Portugal.
In 1593 he purchased the “Dainty,” a ship originally built for
his father and used by him in his expeditions, and sailed for the
West Indies, the Spanish main and the South Seas. It seems
clear that his project was to prey on the oversea possessions of
the king of Spain. Hawkins, however, in an account of the
voyage written thirty years afterwards, maintained, and by that
time perhaps had really persuaded himself, that his expedition
was undertaken purely for the purpose of geographical discovery.
After visiting the coast of Brazil, the “Dainty” passed through
the Straits of Magellan, and in due course reached Valparaiso.
Having plundered the town, Hawkins pushed north, and in June
1594, a year after leaving Plymouth, arrived in the bay of San
Mateo. Here the “Dainty” was attacked by two Spanish ships.
Hawkins was hopelessly outmatched, but defended himself with
great courage. At last, when he himself had been severely
wounded, many of his men killed, and the “Dainty” was nearly
sinking, he surrendered on the promise of a safe-conduct out of
the country for himself and his crew. Through no fault of the
Spanish commander this promise was not kept. In 1597 Hawkins
was sent to Spain, and imprisoned first at Seville and subsequently
at Madrid. He was released in 1602, and, returning to
England, was knighted in 1603. In 1604 he became member of
parliament for Plymouth and vice-admiral of Devon, a post
which, as the coast was swarming with pirates, was no sinecure.
In 1620–1621 he was vice-admiral, under Sir Robert Mansell,
of the fleet sent into the Mediterranean to reduce the Algerian
corsairs. He died in London on the 17th of April 1622.
See his Observations in his Voiage into the South Sea (1622), republished by the Hakluyt Society.
HAWKS, FRANCIS LISTER (1798–1866), American clergyman,
was born at Newbern, North Carolina, on the 10th of June 1798,
and graduated at the university of his native state in 1815.
After practising law with some distinction he entered the
Episcopalian ministry in 1827 and proved a brilliant and impressive
preacher, holding livings in New Haven, Philadelphia,
New York and New Orleans, and declining several bishoprics.
On his appointment as historiographer of his church in 1835,
he went to England, and collected the abundant materials
afterwards utilized in his Contributions to the Ecclesiastical
History of U.S.A. (New York, 1836–1839). These two volumes
dealt with Maryland and Virginia, while two later ones (1863–1864)
were devoted to Connecticut. He was the first president
of the university of Louisiana (now merged in Tulane). He died in New York on the 26th of September 1866.
HAWKSHAW, SIR JOHN (1811–1891), English engineer, was
born in Yorkshire in 1811, and was educated at Leeds grammar
school. Before he was twenty-one he had been engaged for six or
seven years in railway engineering and the construction of roads
in his native county, and in the year of his majority he obtained
an appointment as engineer to the Bolivar Mining Association
in Venezuela. But the climate there was more than his health
could stand, and in 1834 he was obliged to return to England.
He soon obtained employment under Jesse Hartley at the
Liverpool docks, and subsequently was made engineer in charge
of the railway and navigation works of the Manchester, Bury
and Bolton Canal Company. In 1845 he became chief engineer
to the Manchester & Leeds railway, and in 1847 to its successor,
the Lancashire & Yorkshire railway, for which he constructed a
large number of branch lines. In 1850 he removed to London
and began to practise as a consulting engineer, at first alone,
but subsequently in partnership with Harrison Hayter. In that
capacity his work was of an extremely varied nature, embracing
almost every branch of engineering. He retained his connexion
with the Lancashire & Yorkshire Company until his retirement
from professional work in 1888, and was consulted on all the
important engineering points that affected it in that long period.
In London he was responsible for the Charing Cross and Cannon
Street railways, together with the two bridges which carried
them over the Thames; he was engineer of the East London
railway, which passes under the Thames through Sir M. I.
Brunel’s well-known tunnel; and jointly with Sir J. Wolfe
Barry he constructed the section of the Underground railway
which completed the “inner circle” between the Aldgate and
Mansion House stations. In addition, many railway works
claimed his attention in all parts of the world—Germany,
Russia, India, Mauritius, &c. One noteworthy point in his
railway practice was his advocacy, in opposition to Robert
Stephenson, of steeper gradients than had previously been
thought desirable or possible, and so far back as 1838 he expressed
decided disapproval of the maintenance of the broad gauge on
the Great Western, because of the troubles he foresaw it would
lead to in connexion with future railway extension, and because
he objected in general to breaks of gauge in the lines of a country.
The construction of canals was another branch of engineering
in which he was actively engaged. In 1862 he became engineer
of the Amsterdam ship-canal, and in the succeeding year he may
fairly be said to have been the saviour of the Suez Canal. About
that time the scheme was in very bad odour, and the khedive
determined to get the opinion of an English engineer as to its
practicability, having made up his mind to stop the works if that
opinion was unfavourable. Hawkshaw was chosen to make the
inquiry, and it was because his report was entirely favourable that
M. de Lesseps was able to say at the opening ceremony that to
him he owed the canal. As a member of the International
Congress which considered the construction of an interoceanic
canal across central America, he thought best of the Nicaraguan
route, and privately he regarded the Panama scheme as impracticable
at a reasonable cost, although publicly he expressed
no opinion on the matter and left the Congress without voting.
Sir John Hawkshaw also had a wide experience in constructing
harbours (e.g. Holyhead) and docks (e.g. Penarth, the Albert
Dock at Hull, and the south dock of the East and West India
Docks in London), in river-engineering, in drainage and sewerage,
