We all scorned him, and admitted his plea.
For my part, I was such a fool as to pay my share for wine, though I
never tasted any. But Sir John was a most _unclubable man_."' Madame
D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 65.
[91] 'In censuring Mr. [_sic_] J. Hawkins's book I say: "There is
throughout the whole of it a dark, uncharitable cast, which puts the
most unfavourable construction on my illustrious friend's conduct."
Malone maintains _cast_ will not do; he will have "malignancy." Is that
not too strong? How would "disposition" do?... Hawkins is no doubt very
malevolent. _Observe how he talks of me as quite unknown.' Letters of
Boswell_, p. 281. Malone wrote of Hawkins as follows: 'The bishop
[Bishop Percy of Dromore] concurred with every other person I have heard
speak of Hawkins, in saying that he was a most detestable fellow. He was
the son of a carpenter, and set out in life in the very lowest line of
the law. Dyer knew him well at one time, and the Bishop heard him give a
character of Hawkins once that painted him in the blackest colours;
though Dyer was by no means apt to deal in such portraits. Dyer said he
was a man of the most mischievous, uncharitable, and malignant
disposition. Sir Joshua Reynolds observed to me that Hawkins, though he
assumed great outward sanctity, was not only mean and grovelling in
dispostion, but absolutely dishonest. He never lived in any real
intimacy with Dr.
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