540 ANNUAL REGISTER, 1810. 



ment they awake discover to be 

 absurd.*" 



One chief cause of the interest 

 which the Adventurer has usually 

 excited among its readers, has 

 arisen from the inventive powers 

 which our author has so co- 

 piously displayed. His oriental, 

 allegoric, and domestic tales, form 

 the most striking feature of the 

 ■work, and have, by their number 

 and merit, very honourably dis- 

 tinguished it from every preceding 

 paper. 



For the composition of eastern 

 narrative, Hawkesworth was, in 

 many respects, highl}' qualified ; 

 his imagination was uncommonly 

 fertile and glowing, his language 

 clear and brilliant, yet neither 

 gaudy nor over-charged, and he 

 liasahvays taken care to render the 

 moral prominent and impressive. 

 Than his Amurath, in Nos. 20, 21, 

 and i'2, 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 reli- 

 gion as the only source of content, 

 and of Cosrou the Iman, in No. 

 38, proving that charity and mu- 

 tual 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 tix 

 upon the heart the value and the 

 wisdom of the precept. 



The histories of Nouradin and 

 Almana, and of Almerine and 

 Shelima, in Nos. 72, 73, and 103, 



and 104, unfold, through the me- 

 dium 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 ingenious. 



Of the oriental fictions of 

 Hawkesworth, however, by many 

 degrees the most splendid and 

 sublime, is the tale of Carazan, the 

 Merchantof Bagdadj. 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 pi-obably ever 

 surpass. The Deity thus address- 

 es the trembling object of his in- 

 dignation : — 



** ' Carazan, thy worship has not 

 been accepted, because it was not 

 prompted by love of God; neitiier 

 can thy righteousnessbe rewarded, 

 becauseit was not produced by love 

 of man : for thy own sake only 

 hast thou rendered to every man 

 his due ; and thou hast approached 

 the Almighty only for thyself. 

 Thou hast not looked up with gra- 

 titude, nor around thee with kind- 

 ness. Around thee, thou hast in- 

 deed beheld vice and folly ; but if 

 vice and folly could justify thy par- 

 simony, would they not condemn 

 the bounty of heaven ? If not upon 

 the foolish and the vicious, where 

 shall the sun diffuse his light, or 



• Adventurer, No. 130. 



t No. 132. 



